3.1 ROI from a £50m+ annual media investment
Directed global performance marketing across several brands in a London-listed betting and gaming group. Scaled Paid Search, Paid Social, YouTube, SEO, Affiliates and App Marketing with experimentation, automation, marketing mix modelling and advanced attribution.
Case studies / Betting and gaming
The situation
A London-listed betting and gaming group with several consumer brands, each with its own sportsbook and casino products, competing in one of the most expensive paid search markets in the UK. Joseph joined as Head of Paid Search for the sportsbook in 2019 and became Group Performance Head in 2021, directing more than £50m of annual media across the group, including more than £30m of annual Paid Search investment.
The problem
Growth had come from spending more. Each brand bid against the others on the same terms. Attribution was last click, which over-rewarded brand search and under-rewarded the channels that started the journey. YouTube was not on the plan because nobody could measure it. The app, where margins and retention were better, had low adoption. Nobody could say with confidence what an extra £1m of media would return.
What Joseph did
- Stopped the brands bidding against each other. One search strategy across the group, with clear rules on which brand owned which terms and markets. Search share of voice rose 40%.
- Built an experimentation programme. Geo tests and holdouts on the big channels, so incrementality was measured rather than assumed.
- Introduced marketing mix modelling. A statistical view of what each channel contributed, including TV, sponsorship and YouTube, used alongside platform attribution.
- Scaled YouTube from nothing. Planned as a brand and demand channel and measured through MMM, YouTube investment grew from £0 to £4m a year. See the measurement and MMM case study.
- Drove app adoption past 70%. Installs, activation and retention run as one funnel, with web-to-app migration for existing customers.
- Automated the repetitive work. Scripts and bidding automation across Paid Search, so the team’s time went on strategy and testing.
- Built partnerships with Google and YouTube. Early access to betas and joint planning on the biggest events in the sporting calendar.
- Scaled the other channels. Paid Social, SEO and Affiliates were brought under the same measurement and planning discipline.
The result
A 3.1 ROI, measured through the experimentation and MMM programme rather than platform attribution. Media efficiency improved at the same time as spend grew, because the money went to the channels and markets that were proven to pay back.
What this means for you
If you spend seven figures or more across several channels, the biggest wins are usually in measurement and planning, not in bid tweaks. Joseph has run that programme at full scale.
Talk to Joseph about your account
A thirty-minute call. You describe the account, Joseph tells you what he would look at first. No deck, no pitch.