Merely attracting high-intent user traffic to your iGaming platform is not enough.
Converting the visitors into first-time depositors (FTDs) is what counts.
The reason? FTD is a key performance indicator (KPI) in the online gambling industry used to assess the effectiveness of acquiring new players and revenue growth.
The more FTDs you secure, the stronger your brand’s foothold becomes.
However, players have a plethora of choices. So, you must understand the target audience’s behavior and craft tailored experiences to attract, convert players, and build trust.
In this post, we’ll explore user acquisition tips to turbocharge FTD growth for brand operators in 2025 and beyond.
What Is User Acquisition?
User or customer acquisition is the process of attracting and converting prospects into paying customers. As a brand operator, it signifies bringing new players to the iGaming platform, with the primary goal of getting them to make their first-time deposit (FTD).
Understanding the Customer Acquisition Funnel
The customer acquisition funnel maps your players’ journey from awareness to making their first-time deposit (FTD) and beyond. So, understanding this user acquisition model will help you guide, convert, and retain players, thus fostering long-term loyalty.
Let’s understand the distinct customer acquisition funnel stages.
- Awareness: This is the initial discovery phase. Here, potential real-time players discover your iGaming platform. They might learn about your iGaming brand through digital playable ads, social media, or more.
For instance, users might see a targeted ad on social channels like Facebook or Instagram highlighting your platform’s unique features.
- Interest: Players move to the interest stage once they know more about your iGaming platform. They engage with your content, check out promotions, and explore what you offer.
At this point, offering a free demo game or a glimpse of exclusive features can imbibe user interest in your iGaming brand.
- Consideration: This is the decision-making stage. Here, real-time players decide whether to make their first deposit. They assess your iGaming platform based on value offerings and differentiators.
Here, a personalized email offering a limited-time bonus on the first deposit or showcasing testimonials from happy players can tip the scales.
- Conversion: At this stage, the players make their first-time deposit, which is the goal of user acquisition.
A testimonial or clear call to action (CTA) like “Claim your 50% OFF welcome bonus on first deposit” can encourage players to deposit.
- Retention: Encouraging FTD is not enough. You must retain players and strengthen long-term partnerships to maximize lifetime value.
Implementing a loyalty program can help achieve the goal.
How the User Funnel Aligns with the Customer Journey
The user acquisition funnel mirrors the real-time player’s journey. From awareness and moving through interest, consideration, conversion, to retention.
As discussed, each funnel stage corresponds to specific player behaviors and needs.
- Awareness = Discovery Stage
- Interest = Engagement Stage
- Consideration = Evaluation Stage
- Conversion = Decision Stage
- Retention = User Loyalty Stage
Optimizing each user funnel stage can help you bring them closer to making FTD. The key is to offer the right message at the right time.
Key Strategies for User Acquisition in 2025 and Beyond
Here are the key customer acquisition strategies for 2025 and beyond.
1. Define Your Target Audience
Understanding the target market can help you create the right acquisition strategies and attract high-value players who make a first-time deposit (FTD).
Here’s how to get started.
- Segment the Audience: Break down your audience into specific segments based on demographics, behavior, and interests.
For instance, identify and target users who have previously shown interest in your iGaming platform offerings, such as sports betting, online casinos, and more across the website and app.
- Leverage AI for Precision: There’s a plethora of AI tools that can help analyze player behavior and predict the likelihood of an FTD (predictive analytics). So, leverage AI for precision in identifying high-intent users and refine your audience targeting.
For instance, AI-driven platforms like Facebook Audience Insights have machine learning (ML) algorithms. Its user acquisition analytics can help analyze user interactions and predict users that are more likely to convert.
Targeting such high-intent users with personalized offers can help boost user acquisition.
- Monitor Player Behavior: Track user activities such as clicks, sign-ups, and trial plays to identify high-intent players. Optimize your marketing strategies and deliver tailored experiences to encourage FTDs.
2. Choose the Right Channels
The best user acquisition strategy with the right website and app user acquisition channels can maximize your iGaming brand’s reach and ROI.
- Content Marketing
- Strategy: Leverage storytelling and educational content to strengthen user acquisition marketing strategy and build trust. For instance, create a blog post about “Best tips for online casino” or an explainer video reflecting your iGaming platform’s features.
- Why It Works: iGaming content marketing helps engage users with informative and valuable content.
- SEO
- Strategy: Use high-intent keywords in content, add metadata, ensure fast-loading, mobile-friendly pages, and more to increase the chances of your website showing up in top search engine results. For instance, optimize for keywords like “best iGaming platform” or “online sports betting.”
- Why It Works: SEO can help your iGaming platform appear on top SERPs.
- Paid Ads
- Strategy: Target high-intent bettors with creative, engaging ads via paid user acquisition campaigns.
Wondering – what is paid user acquisition? It means using paid advertising channels to attract new users to your platform or app. For instance, run Google Ads campaigns promoting a 50% welcome bonus offer for a limited time.
- Why It Works: It helps drive traffic through targeted ads on search engines and social platforms.
- Customer Referrals
- Strategy: Create easy-to-use referral links and give incentives for participation. For instance, give cashback or bonuses to existing players for referring friends who make their first deposit.
- Why It Works: It leverages word-of-mouth to acquire users who trust words from relatives or friends.
- Loyalty Programs
- Strategy: Promote this program to attract high-value users. For instance, offer exclusive perks to loyal users as they refer friends or deposits.
- Why It Works: It helps retain existing users while encouraging them to bring in new players.
- Affiliate Marketing
- Strategy: Hire affiliates to promote your iGaming platform and drive user acquisition. For instance, a blogger reviews your platform, highlighting unique features.
- Why It Works: Affiliates can help promote your platform and drive targeted traffic at a low user acquisition cost.
Pro Tip: Leverage our best-in-class iGaming affiliate management software, Affnook, to uplift your affiliate marketing efforts.
Although Affnook is not a direct user acquisition company, we provide you with the tools and insights to optimize your affiliate campaigns and enhance player acquisition.
Here’s how –
- Intuitive Reporting Dashboard: The centralized dashboard allows you to manage multiple affiliates and identify top performers across channels (omnichannel tracking). Besides, you get error-free reports with granular insights.
- Fraud Prevention: It helps fraud prevention by allowing you to detect fraud activities, including bot and data center traffic. The platform’s fraud prevention tools help protect revenue, ensuring genuine clicks and valid conversions (FTDs).
- Actionable Insights: Affnook helps you access detailed reports to optimize affiliate partnerships and maximize ROI.
Implementing our user acquisition services can thus help you manage affiliates, bring high-quality traffic, and maximize FTDs.
Get in touch with our customer support team for more details.
3. Optimize Your Website for Mobile Experiences
According to Google, mobile-friendly websites show up higher in search results. And mobile searches make up more than 50% of Google searches.
That’s not all. For most advertisers, the majority of traffic comes from mobile phones. In fact, visitors are five times more likely to leave if your website isn’t mobile-friendly.
So, ensure your platform is responsive, offers intuitive navigation, and loads swiftly to drive mobile user acquisition.
Here are a few quick tips to consider.
- Clean Interface: Create a clutter-free interface with clearly visible CTAs, such as “Deposit Now,” to encourage users to make their FTD.
- Registration Form: Simplify the sign-up process by reducing steps and enabling auto-fill or social login options.
- Payment Integration: Offer mobile-friendly payment methods like UPI and e-wallets for quick deposits.
- Exclusive iGaming Features: Integrate interactive, mobile-specific features like daily spin rewards to boost user engagement.
4. Create Seamless Omnichannel Experiences
According to McKinsey, more than 50% of B2C customers engage with three to five channels for making a purchase.
What’s more? If these customers encounter inconsistent information or don’t get the desired answers, they may lose interest in a brand’s products or services.
That’s why building an omnichannel experience is pivotal.
Omnichannel experience means delivering a consistent user experience across all touchpoints, such as mobile apps, desktops, social media, email, and more.
A key aspect of achieving this seamless experience is understanding what mobile user acquisition is. Operators often overlook mobile user acquisition platforms. But don’t repeat this mistake. Optimize your user acquisition strategies for apps along with websites.
It ensures online bettors enjoy seamless transitions between channels, whether depositing money via a mobile app or continuing gaming sessions on their desktops.
Here’s how to create omnichannel experiences and make your user acquisition plan a success.
- Consistent Branding: Maintain uniform messaging across all platforms. For instance, a player viewing a bonus offer on Instagram should find the same promotion on your website without discrepancies.
- Cross-Device Functionality: Allow the users to switch between devices without losing progress or preferences. For instance, a player starting a game on their mobile should be able to resume it on their desktop.
This experience is crucial for an effective user acquisition strategy for mobile apps and other devices. Moreover, it improves mobile user acquisition costs and helps reduce churn rates.
- Seamless Communication: Use tools like chatbots, email, and push notifications to keep players updated on bonuses or new features. For instance, notify players via email when they qualify for a special bonus. Besides, follow up with a push notification as a reminder.
- Unified Player Accounts: Allow a single login across all devices to simplify access and track user behavior. For instance, the players should be able to access deposit history, bonuses, and game preferences across all channels.
5. Measure Customer Acquisition Success
Last but not least, track the right key performance indicators (KPIs). This can help you analyze and further develop new user acquisition efforts for your iGaming brand.
Here are a few key KPIs to consider.
- First-Time Deposit Conversion Rates (FTD): This KPI helps measure new player acquisition. It reflects the marketing campaign’s effectiveness in converting new visitors into depositing customers.
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): This KPI measures the average cost per user acquisition or cost of acquiring a single paying user. Tracking customer acquisition costs can help you improve advertising effectiveness and return on investment.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): This metric reflects the percentage of users who click on your ads or links. It indicates the effectiveness of your ads in driving traffic to your iGaming platform.
- Customer Lifetime Value (LTV): This metric states the total revenue a player generates during their lifetime. It quantifies the effectiveness of user acquisition campaigns and the cost of the real-time player for the business.
- Retention Rates: This metric indicates the percentage of real-time players who return to play or deposit over a specific period. A high retention rate is crucial to high ROI and long-term profitability.
- Fraud Detection Rates: This metric reflects the percentage of fraudulent activities detected and prevented. This information helps ensure the integrity of your user acquisition strategies and protects your revenue.
Summing Up
User acquisition is a key metric for revenue growth.
With iGaming players having countless options in terms of games, operations and brands to choose from, understanding their expectations and behavior is crucial to convincing them to make FTD.
We are sure the five user acquisition management tips shared in this post will help you bring in new players and build loyalty.
Besides, partnering with affiliates can help app owners and brands tap into high-intent players, driving quality traffic.
Our affiliate management software – Affnook, can help you get started.
So, go ahead and improve user acquisition for your iGaming brand. Talk to our team now!
