iGaming marketers are rethinking how they build performance as third-party cookies disappear and user-level tracking grows increasingly unreliable.
The shift has exposed deep cracks in traditional acquisition strategies. Attribution models are fading. CACs are climbing. Data-driven targeting no longer works the way it used to. In result to this, one trend is taking center stage: performance works better when awareness comes first.
Growth teams are rediscovering that PR, media buying, and brand-building aren’t vanity plays across the iGaming industry. They’re clean, compliant, and increasingly essential levers that drive real conversion. This is especially when user-level data is off the table.
We’ve seen this shift play out across numerous markets and verticals at RockApp.
The traditional approach to iGaming performance marketing ruthlessly optimizes creatives, A/B testing them down to the pixel. Marketers rank traffic sources by ROI and track every conversion event meticulously. However, even the best-optimized campaign can stall if users don’t recognize or trust the brand behind the offer in today’s data-fragmented ecosystem.
That’s where earned media – as well as strategic media buying – start pulling their weight in new ways.
Think with Google says that users exposed to both brand-building ads and performance campaigns are two times more likely to convert than those who see only one of the other. The effect is even more pronounced in privacy-restricted environments in our experience, where brand trust becomes a conversion lever, not just a UX concern.
RockApp consistently observes a pattern across numerous campaigns it supports for iGaming brands entering new markets. This is whether by earned coverage, sponsored content, or thought leadership – primes audiences and lifts downstream performance.
RockApp recently conducted an internal study to validate this trend. The study compared two iGaming operators—Brand A and Brand B. Both were entering the same market with nearly identical user flows. This included similar registration forms, interface logic, site structure, and acquisition funnels.
