Allan Stone, CEO at Intelitics, says that volume bidding is showing its cracks amid rising acquisition costs and the need for increased accountability, with a value mindset now required for the best results

Volume-based bidding has long been the default approach in performance marketing with marketers focusing on more clicks, more installs and more traffic.

The idea behind this being that the more scale you can generate at the top of the funnel, the more conversions you will achieve downstream.

In the past, this approach did make some sense. Platforms were less mature, attribution was simpler and growth often came from sheer expansion.

But the market has changed – user acquisition costs are sky high, consumer behavior is fragmented and finance teams now demand accountability beyond surface-level metrics.

In short, the approach of pushing more traffic into the funnel and letting scale do the rest no longer works.

Today, volume-based bidding doesn’t just under-perform, it actively hides inefficiencies that prevent sustainable growth.

The illusion of scale:

This is because volume-based activities are optimized for activity, not outcomes. If you measure success by clicks, impressions or installs, campaigns can look healthy on the dashboard but with incredibly poor real-world performance.

Clicks, impressions and installs mean nothing if they don’t ultimately lead to conversions. And this means they are quietly failing the business.

These are just some of the deeper structural issues that volume-based bidding can hide:

• Low-intent users that never convert
• Inflated acquisition costs downstream
• Poor retention and lifetime value
• Volatile and unpredictable revenue performance.

Essentially, volume creates motion but not momentum.

But it’s momentum that needs to be used as the true indicator of success as it provides the ability to translate acquisition spend into measurable and repeatable business outcomes.

However, this requires actionable intelligence and not vanity metrics – this is the only way operators can make smarter decisions and ultimately acquire high-quality players.

Why cheap traffic is often the most expensive:

This also means moving away from “cheap” traffic – one of the most common traps in volume-based bidding is the pursuit of lower-cost acquisition metrics.

Reduced CPCs or CPAs can feel like progress, but they frequently correlate with lower-quality users who churn quickly or, worse, never generate meaningful value.

Platforms will do what they are incentivized to do, so if your bidding strategy rewards quantity over quality, you’ll get more of the cheap traffic, regardless of its intent, engagement or long-term contribution.

The result is an all-too-familiar paradox where marketing teams pay less per click but far more per meaningful outcome, regardless of whether that’s a first-time depositor, repeat customer or sustained revenue.

Volume breaks when budgets tighten:

And this invariably happens when volume-driven campaigns fail to deliver – when budgets are scrutinized and economic pressure increases, marketing leaders are forced to ask harder questions like:

• Which channels actually drive FTDs?
• Which partners generate long-term value and not just short-term activity?
• Where is spend being wasted and why?

Volume-based models usually struggle to answer these questions because they lack the clear line of sight into downstream performance.

Without such clarity, optimization becomes reactive rather than strategic, and scaling feels risky instead of repeatable.

​​The attribution gap: why most bidding strategies are blind:

One of the main reasons why volume-bidding fails is not intent – it’s visibility, or, rather, the lack of it.

Most acquisition strategies are built on incomplete or delayed data. Platforms optimize to the signals they can see fastest – clicks, installs first events.

But the metrics that actually matter – FTD, repeat behavior, lifetime value – come days, weeks or even months downstream and are disconnected from the bidding logic that drives the traffic in the first instance.

This creates a deep and fundamental attribution gap.

When bidding decisions are made without reliable downstream feedback, marketers are effectively optimizing in the dark.

Channels that look efficient at the top of the funnel are scaled, while those that drive real value but convert later are deprioritized or cut.

Over time, this leads to three compounding issues:

• High-performing sources are misclassified as under-performers
• Low-quality traffic is repeatedly rewarded
• Budget allocation becomes more disconnected from real revenue impact

Without closing the loop between acquisition activity and downstream outcomes, even well-intentioned optimization effects reinforce the wrong behaviors.

Issues with volume-bidding identified, but what should marketers do instead?

What smart marketers are doing instead:

Leading performance marketing teams are moving away from volume-based bidding and towards value-driven decision making instead.

But that means reorienting acquisition strategies around signals that reflect real business impact.

What does that look like? Instead of asking “What traffic did we buy?”, ask the following:

• Which users convert downstream?
• Which campaigns drive repeat behavior?
• Which sources contribute to long-term value?

The shift doesn’t mean buying less traffic, it means buying better traffic. Traffic that aligns with business outcomes and not just platform and vanity KPIs.

From volume to value:

Today, the most successful acquisition strategies aren’t built on bigger funnels, they’re built on clearer ones. When teams understand user value beyond the first click, bidding becomes more precise, spend more predictable and growth more sustainable.

Volume-based bidding fails because it optimizes the wrong goal while value-based thinking succeeds because it aligns acquisition with actual outcomes.

As performance marketing continues to evolve, the real question isn’t how much traffic you can buy, it’s how much of that traffic actually delivers.

At Intelitics, we are building value-based technology that connects acquisition activity to downstream performance, helping operators move from noise to insight and from scale to sustainability.

For teams looking to evolve beyond volume and unlock smarter growth, this shift has already begun and we are here to support them in making that transition.

“Movers and Shakers” is a dynamic monthly column dedicated to exploring the latest trends, developments, and influential voices in the iGaming industry. Powered by GameOn and supported by HIPTHER, this op-ed series delves into the key players, emerging technologies, and regulatory changes shaping the future of online gaming. Each month, industry experts offer their insights and perspectives, providing readers with in-depth analysis and thought-provoking commentary on what’s driving the iGaming world forward. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or new to the scene, “Movers and Shakers” is your go-to source for staying ahead in the rapidly evolving iGaming landscape. 

Allan Stone, CEO at Intelitics, looks at recent changes to paid search ads and how a bigger budget is not the magic bullet for successful affiliate programs

Just as online sportsbook and casino operators embraced paid media and paid search as powerful and effective customer acquisition channels, the game has changed again, with new challenges to overcome.

What’s happened? At Google Marketing Live 2025, the search giant announced it will be rolling out ads inside AI-generated answers. This is going to have a seismic impact on paid search, but get it right and marketers can gain a significant advantage over their rivals.

Here’s what the change means for real money gambling brands.

1 – Placement isn’t placement anymore

Your ads won’t show up in traditional search blocks and instead will be embedded inside the AI answer itself. This changes how you write copy for sports-betting-related queries. For example, “Best odds” messaging hits differently when it’s inside an AI response.

2 – Fewer clicks but better players

AI answers will reduce total clicks, but the users who click through will be high-intent bettors. Expect click-through rates to drop, but player conversion rates to rise. In short, it will be a shift from quantity to quality.

3 – Context beats keywords

Forget exact-match keyword strategies, as now, you need to match the intent behind what the user is asking AI across a wide range of sport betting-related queries, from betting lines to game props and even deposit methods.

4 – SEO traffic is about to crater

The AI block dominates the entire screen, especially on mobile, and is likely to be the player’s first port of call. If you’ve been relying on organic search alone for player acquisition, expect fast traffic drops.

5 – Optimise for AI, not just search behaviour

Operators and their marketers will need to rethink how their sportsbook features, player reviews and betting content show up when AI crawls and indexes it. Getting into the AI result is now just as important as ranking in the top positions for competitive keywords.

For me, this is the biggest shift in paid acquisition since the iOS privacy changes hit Meta, and operators and their marketers need to respond immediately.

Those using Performance Max and Google’s AI Max program can get ads in AI Mode, and so long as they adapt their messaging and targeting to this new reality, they will capture higher intent players while their competitors scramble.

Another area where some sportsbooks continue to scramble is performance marketing, where underperforming partner programs are costing operators millions. But not for the reason they think…

It’s not about having partners; it’s about how you manage them. In our experience, the gap between top-performing programs and the rest isn’t budget, it’s the freedom given to affiliate partners.

We’ve evolved from the days when operators controlled every pixel of partner content, and this is welcome progress. But there’s still a disconnect between what we say and what we do – allow me to elaborate.

Operators talk about empowering partners but then micromanage their messaging. They say they want authentic voices but reject content that doesn’t match their corporate tone. They seek performance but restrict the very tactics that drive it.

The reality is that the best partners already understand their audience much better than the operator ever will. They’ve built trust and they know what resonates, but they need to be able to speak authentically.

This is why smart operators focus on frameworks rather than restrictions. And this should include clear brand guidelines that protect compliance, as well as consistent values that maintain brand integrity. It’s also important to provide flexible creative assets that partners can adapt.

But creative freedom is only half the equation.

Without proper measurement, the partnership program is flying blind, and, in most cases, operators can’t answer even the most basic questions like “Which partners drive actual player value beyond initial sign up?” and “What’s the true LTV of players from different channels?”.

When budgets get tight, the first things to be cut are partnerships that the operator can’t prove are working. The market leaders have figured this out and have built both flexibility and accountability into their programs.

And at Intelitics, we are proud to be working with a growing number of operators who are using our marketing-tech suite and services to streamline tracking, automate reporting and push into new customer acquisition channels, including paid media and paid search.

In short, we help them bring flexibility and accountability to their acquisition efforts.

In your view, why do you think player acquisition costs are reaching record-high levels?

Allan Stone: We’re starting to see the impact of many of the privacy standards implemented. There is the Cookie deprecation that’s happened across both Google and iOS, as well as a lot of the ad identifiers being blocked by default, as opposed to as a setting that users can turn on. Operators haven’t been able to truly understand what the impact of this has been. They’re having to spend much more to achieve the same level of performance, simply because they don’t have a good understanding of the systems in place to hone in on where they are spending money to acquire players. As a result, operators are having to spend more money acquiring players that maybe aren’t the best quality and will likely churn.

From a regulatory perspective, especially in the US, there has been a bit of a slowdown in markets opening. We had an initial gold rush here in the US, but now, fewer states are coming online. We’re seeing a pullback on ad spend; even though it costs much more to acquire new players, operators aren’t spending as much as they used to. I think that’s an effect of over saturation in the market. Players have seen all these different products and different brands that are available to them. Essentially, the core products have become very commodotised. Every operator seems to offer pretty much the same slots as everyone else does.

What’s interesting is that if you’re to walk into a bunch of different casinos in Las Vegas, once you walk past the front doors, they all look and feel the same from a gaming perspective. Where they differ is through the experience that you get while in the casino; the design, the hospitality, etc. Those players that tend to play offline are starting to look towards those secondary offerings outside the core betting portfolio, they’re seeking more of an experience.

I think that we haven’t seen that in the digital space yet. There is very little differentiation in user experience on one betting app compared to the others. Operators need to take the time and energy to really personalise and customise their user experience to individual players. When that starts to happen, this is when you start to see an increase in acquisition costs. But then you will also see a consolidation in those costs – operators will start to become more efficient, cost savings will come into play, and that is when these brands can really differentiate themselves from one another.

What’s the secret to keeping players coming back in the long term?   

Allan Stone: In a word, personalisation. It’s plain and simple. The more that brands can understand player behaviours and continue to create personalised experiences, the more they will keep players coming back in the long term.

I’ve heard a few different product people talk about how they can try personalise the experience further, and one idea was to emulate the experience that you get from apps such as Tinder where you swipe left or right to bet on different markets. What they realised was that the younger generation of players – who maybe weren’t as valuable – enjoyed that product feature, but their core betting customers weren’t as engaged. Operators are waking up to that now. If you want players to remain around, you’ve got to give them a reason to stay other than simply rolling out the same products as everyone else.

For a lot of the North American brands, they’ve done a great job of tying their iGaming and sports betting experience into their land-based properties. As time goes on, and the market continues to mature, you’ll see much more of that starting to happen. The land-based and digital experiences can complement each other really well, when done right; operators need to make sure they have that streamlined experience across all touchpoints. Brands should be going beyond the standard, core betting experience and instead delivering something much more holistic, and much more personalised to each customer.

Historically, we’ve beta tested location-based suggestions during NFL games, whereby if someone opened up a betting app while in a stadium, then that would be a good indicator of what markets they would be looking to bet on. They’re more than likely wanting to bet on the game that is taking place in front of them. Operators could use this opportunity to offer micro betting markets, or player props to that player. We know that the technology is there to do this.

How do these approaches balance the need for immediate engagement with long-term loyalty?

Allan Stone: A lot of the data and technologies that exist to support operators from an AdTech and MarTech perspective, at least from an acquisition side, has not been great. But we are starting to see that change. Operators can no longer leverage 20-year-old technology to solve a modern-day problem. They need to get granular with the data that they have at their disposal and understand where they can improve their media buying efforts. They need to find out how many players they acquired, what their lifetime value is, whether there are any similarities and trends between those players. From there, operators can then optimise their campaigns to focus on just acquiring those players.

There is much more that operators can be doing to leverage their data at scale and create massive efficiencies in their player acquisition – that, ultimately, would bring down costs. If you can create those efficiencies, you can theoretically reduce your costs by 20-30% which is a huge saving.