How PPC works in the gambling niche?

[hiddenchamp]

As far as I know gambling is prohibited in most countries with google adwords.
Yet some affiliates manage to rank for gambling keywords.

Can somebody tell me how this works? How will your ad get approved? How will you rank for a keyword if you can't add it in your campaign?

Share some secrets guys

[Strider1973]

Maybe you just start to run ads for hotels with a casino, or for brick and mortar casinos?
And once the ads are approved, you switch the landing page and promote online casinos?

It sounds simple, but it's not. You need to cloak and you'll risk your Adwords account. Nothing for the faint-hearted.

[eenzoo]

Correct, its a cloaking war.

[allfreechips]

Its also how many different credit cards / addresses ext you can keep coming up with

[Former Member 14]

Aside from what others have said, it's not cheap. When it was allowed, some of the super affiliates, wasn't uncommon to spend $100K+ a month.

[ddm]

You just need to get a lawyer to fill in some docs + give them to google, then you can get whitelisted , at least this is the case in the UK.

[hiddenchamp]

You just need to get a lawyer to fill in some docs + give them to google, then you can get whitelisted , at least this is the case in the UK.

Yeah not all coutnries have restrictions. In the UK it's ok as far as I know. However I see gambling ads in countries where it's not usually allowed.

[hiddenchamp]

Maybe you just start to run ads for hotels with a casino, or for brick and mortar casinos?
And once the ads are approved, you switch the landing page and promote online casinos?

It sounds simple, but it's not. You need to cloak and you'll risk your Adwords account. Nothing for the faint-hearted.

Is this just a guess or do you know for a fact that this is how it works?

[Alex MCL]

It's been widely known in the industry that super-affiliates have lost money on Adwords. Certain markets may be good but I imagine the most competitive/saturated markets it's battle you simply can't win.

Not something I've considered investing in yet for obvious reasons, but strongly believe even the savviest of the smaller affiliates won't find it easy either. It would be interesting to listen to some perspective of someone who's ran a successful ad campaign in the niche.

[Strider1973]

Is this just a guess or do you know for a fact that this is how it works?

A fact, not a guess, because I've seen ads for B&M casino lists, clicked on them and then landed on a online casino top 10 list with affiliate links. I was also able to find the safe page that must have been shown to Google.

What DDM said is also correct, in some countries you are allowed to use Google Ads for casinos, but that usually requires a lot of paperwork and the need to hold a license. Not sure where you can do it without a license.

If you really want to try this, you might want to start with Bing, because my guess is that Google is pretty advanced in detecting small guys trying to game the system...

[ddm]

It's been widely known in the industry that super-affiliates have lost money on Adwords. .

true

[wisegamblers]

Hi Guys,

I have a question regarding Google PPC, Does google allow promoting affiliate website via Google PPC and running a campaign in the following markets:

NZ/CA/DE

I really appreciate your help! I am new to google ads

[dudik]

NZ, CA not allow for promoting via google ads

[eenzoo]

So, for 2 weeks now I'm running a Bingads campaign.
Spending a daily budget of $200, average CPC is $3.
Targeting USA players.
Traffic from casino related keys is huge, u can spend $10.000 a day easy.
It was a little tricky to pass the first review but now I can book all relevant keys like "real money online casino", "play blackjack online", etc etc
Right now I'm testing landing pages (seems, sending directly to an operator page works best).

[Syndicate]

Back in the early days, Sportingbet did a similar trick by taking out big advertising (US Journals) for non existent jobs. It got them customers before the wire act came along!

[LowFlyingBird]

Reiterating what has been said.

PPC campaigns are tricky for approval and can be expensive.
Many of the successful Affiliates who continue to do PPC ads have learned and adjusted to everything that comes at them.

You can assume these PPC professionals will out bid/ up bid/ sabotage ad spends if you’re competing within their space.

Budgets needed here are far greater than the avg. person wants to invest.



IMO - your better off investing in your own SEO site content, buying good links/articles and or traffic from creditable sources.

[eenzoo]

Yeah, its a little operation here but profitable yet.
Will see how retention of those players is.
Right now it looks promising.
Only annoying part is (the crucial) tracking. Its hard to setup with all that parties (cloaking provider, casino, Bing) involved.

[gil.langelaan]

Oh, guys, thanks for doing the thread. As I always looking for new marketing opportunities for my site. And PPC was one of my new plans. Thanks for your advices!

[mediapartner]

If you work globally there are multiple options for adwords.... but if you dont have the licenses its best to target specific markets and niches.

For example a lot of countries do allow adwords for social gaming, virtual sports or esports. there are tons of casinos that have sections like that...so with a bit of imagination you can create some landingpages that link to esports...and users will end up at the casino at the end... but conversion will probably not as good as normal.....

havent actually tested the above though... but when reading google terms you can find a lot info on what is possible and what is not..

[Andrew Alpha]

What cloaking provider do you use?