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44% of customers decide to play the lottery when jackpot amounts skyrocket. With jackpots soaring to the billions in the last few years, that’s a lot of tickets sold both online and in-store.
Navigating the intricate landscape of lottery marketing and advertising is no easy feat.
In this comprehensive guide, we embark on a detailed exploration of critical elements, ranging from understanding your audience to harnessing the potential of location targeting and amplifying the impact of high-value jackpots.
Effective lottery marketing hinges on knowing your audience. Segmented into current, lapsed, and engaged players, each group presents unique opportunities and challenges. Let’s delve into strategies for engaging each segment.
A current customer is a highly committed and loyal customer who has played in the last 30 days.
They actively participate in lottery games, demonstrating higher involvement, interaction, and loyalty to the platform(s).
They participate in lottery games frequently and consistently.
The engaged customer is a user who has shown a certain level of interest or commitment to the lottery platform or games, but has not yet participated in any loyalty activities. Engaged customers are considered potential players, and they represent an opportunity for the lottery platform to convert them into active participants.
A lapsed customer is an individual who previously engaged with the lottery platform but has not interacted with it in the last 30 days, indicating a period of inactivity.
How do you navigate the regulatory and compliance challenges of marketing and advertising for lotteries in different jurisdictions?
“Regulatory Compliance and Responsible Gaming are extremely important aspects of Lottery advertising. First, it is important to clearly understand the rules and regulations that apply to your particular jurisdiction. Many jurisdictions work to be certified by the WLA (World Lottery Association) for how they treat Responsible Gaming. A working relationship with the Lottery’s CSR (corporate social responsibility) team is important to navigating this complicated landscape.”
In lottery marketing, precision is paramount. Location targeting ensures compliance, enables tailored messaging, drives foot traffic, and capitalizes on local trends.
Lotteries operate within specific state regulations. Location targeting ensures campaigns focus on regions where offerings are accessible and compliant. This not only maximizes outreach but also ensures regulatory adherence.
Location data allows customization of messages to resonate with specific audiences. Whether emphasizing enticing jackpots or popular games, tailored marketing ensures relevance, increasing engagement and participation.
For lotteries relying on in-store sales, location targeting directs potential players to physical retail locations. By placing messages in proximity to retailers, the likelihood of conversions from passersby to players significantly increases. This can be further bolstered with special promotions or incentives.
Location targeting aligns campaigns with local events, holidays, or trends. Timing marketing efforts with heightened excitement boosts player engagement and ticket sales.
State regulations vary, significantly impacting lottery marketing efforts. Location targeting ensures precise adherence to rules, safeguarding the integrity of the lottery and building trust with players and regulators.
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Half of the highest jackpot purse amounts have happened in the last 2 years. The highest, reaching $2.04B in November 2022, was won with a Powerball ticket purchased in California. High-value jackpots, often regarded as the crown jewels of lottery offerings, have the potential to grant life-altering sums to fortunate winners. However, their success isn’t solely contingent on the prize size, but also on the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.
Crafting a compelling narrative around these jackpots is paramount. Effective strategies include timely activations, interactive rich media, and targeted outreach through channels like programmatic Display advertising (Cross-Platform and Native), Connected TV, and Digital Out-of-Home reach a broad audience.
Moreover, precision in location targeting ensures messages reach potential players in regions where the lottery operates. Given their potential to draw significant attention, efficient marketing amplifies the allure of high-value jackpots and enhances the overall impact of lottery campaigns.
What metrics and KPIs do you prioritize when measuring the success of a lottery digital marketing campaign, and how do you optimize based on those insights?
“Lottery follows the same basic marketing and advertising principles as any other industry regarding success metrics. All campaigns should initiate with a campaign measurement plan that outlines KPIs for each tactic in the campaign. Measuring the purchase part of the funnel for in-store purchases can be particularly challenging, as lotteries seldom receive POS data. Normally, “validation-based sales” track in-store lottery sales from Scratch-off tickets. This implies that the lottery is unaware of individual ticket sales’ timing, but they know when a winning ticket gets redeemed, indicating that all other tickets in that roll have been sold. Store visitation studies can be employed to overcome this challenge.”
States that can sell lottery tickets/games both through their website and retail locations have the advantage of leveraging First-Party segments within their audience targeting strategy. Site events such as game purchases and add-to-cart actions provide insightful data points that can be applied to a lottery campaign.
✨ States that currently offer online lotto sales: Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Residents of Washington, D.C., can also purchase tickets.
At the state level, achieving a broad reach among potential lottery players becomes a priority. The overall efficiency in driving online game purchases plays a significant role in allocating media budget.
A combination of Native Display, Cross-Platform Display, and Online Video (including CTV and OTT) provide the mid-funnel and lower-funnel tactics required to move players toward an eventual purchase.
Having an always-on digital media presence ensures the consistent coverage lotteries need to reach potential players whenever and wherever they’re ready to buy.
Whenever possible, it’s crucial to leverage CRM and First-Party data assets. These sources are invaluable in identifying the most likely lottery players based on their previous engagement. This data can be collected through an Audience Management Platform (like KORTX’s Axon Audience Manager).
Additionally, a broader prospecting audience helps fill the upper funnel. This is achieved through Second and Third-Party targeting, focusing on demographics and personal interests related to gaming and lottery purchase intent.
Successful lottery clients have proven that showcasing their latest or seasonal games through Rich Media drives creative engagement. Gamifying the creative unit ties neatly into the consumer’s ad experience. Lower-funnel calls-to-action (‘Play Now’) help clarify how players can purchase with a clear delineation between driving online and in-store purchases. Dynamic lottery ads built with custom triggers help ensure that the correct jackpot purse amount is present in advertising as prize money increases.
How do you ensure that lottery advertising campaigns remain engaging and relevant in a highly competitive digital landscape?
“Ensuring a steady rotation of creative messaging is important. The best campaigns combine a mix of tactics with engaging content across interactive video, rich media, and dynamic trigger banners. With the large Mega Millions and Powerball jackpots, we have seen over the last 18 months, it is important to have creative messaging ready to be turned on when purse amounts meet certain thresholds.”
States that sell exclusively at retail locations face different challenges. Balancing the need to drive in-store traffic and game awareness with understanding why players would visit a non-transactional lottery website, whether for second-chance opportunities, contests, or simple game details, requires a shift in strategy to be structured for campaign success.
States that cannot sell online should consider adding an awareness component such as Native or Pre-Roll Video to complement the mid-funnel and lower-funnel tactics of Cross-Platform Display and Native Display. This helps players with brand recognition when they visit a retail location selling tickets and scratch-off games. Additionally, Connected TV can be used as an effective upper-funnel strategy that provides impactful video messaging to a broad audience on the household’s largest screen. Out-of-home options such as in-store displays and pDOOH billboards can also help boost store visits and ticket sales.
First-Party data still plays a key role when in-store purchases are the goal. Targeting strategies focused on visitors to convenience stores, pharmacies, and gas stations should be a priority. One challenge is determining which onsite behaviors are actionable when games cannot be bought online. This could include using onsite data to track users who sign in, explore promotions, or check for winning numbers. Prospecting against known lottery purchase history/intent is still a best practice and helps expand targeting to qualified audiences.
When the goal is in-store purchases, the value of Rich Media increases. 300×600 desktop units can serve as a microsite. Adding functionality for product carousels, branding imagery, and real-time map/location details helps drive users to retail locations that sell lottery games and tickets.
This is an effective complement to a diverse rotation of gaming-focused creative messaging options within the Display, Native and OLV media tactics.
Efficient and consistent message updating through dynamic ads is also paramount for in-store ticket marketing. Since purchasers are more likely to visit a store as jackpot purse amounts grow, accurate creative featuring those big numbers is the push a customer needs to make that in-store visit.
When jackpots surge, ticket sales skyrocket, but static ads often prove ineffective and can be a drain on your team’s resources. These ads automatically update through an RSS feed, ensuring potential buyers receive the latest jackpot information. This real-time advertising can lead to an increase in ticket sales.
Lottery triggers automate content adjustments, responding in real-time when jackpots hit specified thresholds (like $150,000,000.) Developed from RSS feeds, they monitor crucial data updates, automatically updating ad content across platforms. This ensures maximum efficiency and relevance, driving sales during peak lottery interest, enhancing advertising effectiveness.
Staying ahead requires strategic finesse and creative innovation when advertising to lotto customers. Understanding your audience, leveraging location targeting, and capitalizing on high-value jackpots alongside dynamic and engaging ad creative is the key to success.
KORTX offers precision targeting and speedy, creative updates for an instant impact.
Our trigger ads use a timely RSS feed to update jackpot messaging instantly.
Sam Wilson is a Sr. Account Executive at KORTX. He brings over a decade of experience working across various verticals on both regional and national campaigns. Sam’s expertise lies in cultivating strong client relationships, devising strategic campaigns, and delivering measurable results that exceed exceptions.
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