This morning’s chat in the 360 office was all about the World Cup.
It involved taking a pop at the BBC World Cup Predictor, and having a discussion on who’ll win it, get to the final and be top scorer etc.
In the spirit of this I had a look to see who were the favourites for the golden boot, and in particular searched for England’s number 9; Peter Crouch.
It was a fairly specific search; “odds on peter crouch to be world cup top scorer”.
Most of the big boys had paid search visibility; Betfair, Blue Sq, VC, William Hill, Boylesports, Totesport and Bet365 and many more were all represented.
I expected this; what I didn’t expect were the horrendous ads and subsequent landing pages that this search returned.
“Best Prices & Fastest Payout. Join Asia’s Leading Online Sportsbook!”
“Sign Up & Get a £25 Free Bet on all Football Bets at William Hill!”
“Bet On Your Favourite Sports with Boyle Sports. Bet £20 Get £20 Free!”
“20% Better World Cup Odds Online. Join Now & Receive Free £25 Bet!”
Now I’m not expecting every single ad to be spot on with regards the user’s intention, however you’d expect that the landing page would be based around their sports book for World Cup top scorer?
If not a bare minimum would be the World Cup betting page?
Even if a trained monkey was to put together a PPC campaign based on World Cup top scorer betting, the worst he could do would be to point the ad at a football page?
No! Around half of the ad’s led to a generic landing page which means nothing to the user who wants to have a punt on Peter Crouch.
My personal favourite ad was:
“Up to £200 Free in World Cup Bets. Bet on Peter Crouch for Top Scorer.”
Good sign up offer and World Cup, Peter Crouch and Top Scorer all mentioned.
The landing page however was a standard in play betting screen. No mention of Peter Crouch and barely a mention of The World Cup! There certainly were no strong calls to action.
The best landing page would have been William Hill’s. Their ad wasn’t particularly strong, however they grasp the landing page basics well, the World Cup and more specifically England specials were easy to navigate to and had clear enough calls to action.
On the whole the online gambling market is missing a trick here. The people who bet on the World Cup aren’t just the audience that they speak to and engage with in non World Cup summers.
National pride and the whole “England expects” nonsense get people excited, and similar to other events such as The Grand National the World Cup attracts spontaneous gamblers who are just as likely to bet £5 on England winning Silvio Gazzaniga’s beautiful trophy as they are picking a team from the office sweepstakes.
Any online gambling brand that spends money on pay per click advertising, and has a well designed set of landing pages with intuitive navigation & strong calls to action to easily allow the non serious gambler to have a flutter should clean up this summer.
Which is more than can be said for Rooney and co…
*In case you were wondering I predict an England vs. Argentina final. Argentina going on to become champions and possibly Milito as top scorer. I also hope than England do well even though I’m Scottish!
**If you are looking for a certainty, get your money on the commentary team getting 1966 into the conversation within the first 3 minutes of the opening game between South Africa & Mexico. The bookies might not give you odds on that!
