Poll: Targeting affiliate content to women

[Sam_IncomeAccess]

Thanks for the great feedback everyone! It is quite interesting to see all the different opinions and experiences everyone has. It will be very cool to see how the female market in online gaming evolves over the next few years and how, if at all, it will affect the affiliate market!

[Sam_IncomeAccess]

When you look for places to play, is that what you search for? "gambling term + for women"?
I know I don't, which is probably why there were not many relevant results when you searched.

I've never seen a poker room that says "men only". Poker is really the only thing I play online.

So IMO it is irrelevant whether you specifically target women or not. I just don't really see how it can be done without either totally offending every woman out there, or turning away the traffic that comes from the male population.

There are more women than men playing slots for real money, which to me says that targeting women specifically is a waste of time.

Hey Renee,

Very interesting point of view!

While my example of "gambling term + for women" may have been a bit extreme, it is actually something I did when first looking into the industry. As Christaan mentioned above, many gaming sites have "hot women" featured in them and on the other hand, there are also a lot of sites that are extremely pink and glittery. Of course, that's not saying that women cannot enjoy either of these sites, but there are definitely some sites that are a happy medium between the two kinds.

In terms of marketing, the general consensus among professionals in all industries is to break up the target market into segments and to attract each market segment separately. This does not always mean changing the product or service, but sometimes changing the marketing tactics.

In this case, attracting traffic to your affiliate sites is what drives your business, and with the emergence of more women playing online, why not take a few steps to attract them to your site instead of a competitors? As mentioned by SweetBet above, something as simple as being active on Pinterest can help grow female traffic on your site without monopolizing your male market.

Anyways, this is of course something that is still being researched and I'm working on learning more!

[Renee]

Hey Renee,

Very interesting point of view!

While my example of "gambling term + for women" may have been a bit extreme, it is actually something I did when first looking into the industry. As Christaan mentioned above, many gaming sites have "hot women" featured in them and on the other hand, there are also a lot of sites that are extremely pink and glittery. Of course, that's not saying that women cannot enjoy either of these sites, but there are definitely some sites that are a happy medium between the two kinds.

In terms of marketing, the general consensus among professionals in all industries is to break up the target market into segments and to attract each market segment separately. This does not always mean changing the product or service, but sometimes changing the marketing tactics.

In this case, attracting traffic to your affiliate sites is what drives your business, and with the emergence of more women playing online, why not take a few steps to attract them to your site instead of a competitors? As mentioned by SweetBet above, something as simple as being active on Pinterest can help grow female traffic on your site without monopolizing your male market.

Anyways, this is of course something that is still being researched and I'm working on learning more!

I agree that segmenting is something worthwhile doing most of the time, but I disagree about targeting women specifically in terms of keywords and "pink" as an example. If one is going to target women specifically I think you'd need to look at other things. Off the top of my head, the only thing I can think of that might be worthwhile is the slot game that is promoted. For example, women might like games like Hunky Heroes or something like that better than a game like Girls with Guns. I'm not sure you could know the stats unless you try it and go through playing habits to see if that's the case.

As I mentioned, there are more women playing slots than men (at least at our casinos) which says to me targeting women specifically is a waste of time. Not having hot women all over the place could go either way. I have "banner blindness" when it comes to stuff like that, likely because I'm pretty open minded, but I can see how images like that may turn other more conservative women off. Although then I'd like to think if they are gambling then they may be open minded to other "sinful activities" and it doesn't bother them.

[Sam_IncomeAccess]

I agree that segmenting is something worthwhile doing most of the time, but I disagree about targeting women specifically in terms of keywords and "pink" as an example. If one is going to target women specifically I think you'd need to look at other things. Off the top of my head, the only thing I can think of that might be worthwhile is the slot game that is promoted. For example, women might like games like Hunky Heroes or something like that better than a game like Girls with Guns. I'm not sure you could know the stats unless you try it and go through playing habits to see if that's the case.

As I mentioned, there are more women playing slots than men (at least at our casinos) which says to me targeting women specifically is a waste of time. Not having hot women all over the place could go either way. I have "banner blindness" when it comes to stuff like that, likely because I'm pretty open minded, but I can see how images like that may turn other more conservative women off. Although then I'd like to think if they are gambling then they may be open minded to other "sinful activities" and it doesn't bother them.

I have to disagree that targeting women is a waste of time. Though the ratio of women to men is, let's say, 2:1, every site's goal is to increase the quantity of players coming through the site. In my opinion, if something seems to be more attractive to women than to men, the strategy that will likely have the best ROI would be one that targets women because they are more likely to play in the first place.

When coming up with a marketing strategy there are countless approaches you can take. One of the most important things for affiliates is to get quality traffic (i.e. returning readers). Assuming all other factors are constant (design, copy, etc.), one affiliate may be able to establish a strong flow of female traffic by featuring more female oriented game like Hunky Heros.

Looking at the current traffic is a good place to start. Some mentioned above that most of their traffic is male. In that case, having female oriented content may not be useful at all. For those that mention a higher flow of female traffic, having content or design geared to women can be an interesting option. Though each affiliate site will have different goals and attract women in their own way, if at all, I think it is definitely something to consider!

And I completely agree... "pink" would be a horrible keyword to choose!

[Andrew W]

Late to the party, but for LotteryOfffice.com we have a 55%/45% Male/Female split on cash play.