Publication date: 17 Mar 2023
TikTok is one of the big services for creating short videos. The ByteDance company launched the platform in 2016. TikTok itself now estimates that the service has more than 1 billion users worldwide. That’s a huge audience including gambling enthusiasts. So, let’s take a look at the ways to promote online casinos in TikTok. The main focus will be on the shareware traffic and approaches.
Rules of gambling advertising in TikTok
TikTok rules state that it is forbidden to advertise gambling, sports betting, lotteries and any services related to gambling for real money on the platform. Such a ban applies to advertisers working for many countries. Yet there are exceptions with limited advertising opportunities.
Examples of where TikTok gambling advertising is allowed (restricted countries):
- In the US, it is possible to advertise betting companies, but the advertiser can run ads with explicit permission from TikTok;
- In Brazil, social casinos can be advertised. These are free games where no real money can be wagered. Advertisers can run campaigns with the approval of a platform representative and target users over the age of 18.
- Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and a number of other countries allow gambling simulator ads. The ad must not encourage people to gamble for real money. Advertisers must target users aged 18 or older.
With regard to content in TikTok, it is forbidden to publish content that promotes gambling. In addition, no content may be published that could be perceived as advertising for casinos, sports betting, lotteries, etc. Meanwhile, there are no restrictions on casino videos and broadcasts as long as the site’s rules are followed.
How to send traffic to gambling with TikTok: shareware traffic
Media buyers are actively directing traffic from TikTok to gambling offers. In order to work successfully on the site, it is necessary to register an account massively, or buy ready-made. Different shops have newregs, accounts with a certain number of subscribers, for different GEOs and purposes. Proxies are also needed to work, as well as software for uniqueness and mass video uploads (e.g., BAS).
Video uploading and streaming are suitable for driving traffic.
Video uploading to the site
One of the ways to drive traffic from TikTok is to create themed content and attract users to the landing page. To get maximum efficiency from this method, webmasters use different content handling approaches and methods.
Ways of working with content:
- Streaming cuts or videos of popular gambling bloggers: drift + the blogger’s own reaction. These videos require less time than if you create the video from scratch.
- Short drifts with big winnings. The video can be narrated by a media buyer or include some kind of music. Content can also be uniquely created here and multiple accounts can be run.
- Individual blogs. In this case, a particular person develops a promotion strategy, posts content regularly and works with several platforms simultaneously (YouTube, Twitter, Twitch). The main advantage of this approach is that the blogger gets a loyal audience. It is possible to get better results over a long distance than when working with a large number of accounts.
CABRZY CLIPS blog. Traffic is directed to the crypto casino stake.com. GEO: Austria, Bulgaria, Belarus, Germany
The video or description usually states that the profile bio contains a link to an online casino or other potentially exciting resource. It is necessary in order to get interested users to visit the account and then open the site.
Streams
Apart from publishing themed content, it is possible to run live streams in TikTok. A media buyer plays a casino in live, and users watch the game. This format of interaction increases the credibility of the author as well as the casino brand.
Users can find live broadcasts on a separate page, open the stream from the recommendation feed. Additionally, the site actively promotes authors’ live streams. The example below shows that in the recommendations are streams with different numbers of viewers.
On the one hand, streaming is an appealing way of attracting interested players.
On the other hand, TikTok has learned to find and block live streams that promote gambling. Whereas in 2021 there were many accounts with which gambling and betting was sent, the situation has now changed dramatically. There are practically no such streams.
How gambling ads are disguised in TikTok
Cloaking and trust platforms
Link is a potential signal for TikTok algorithms and moderators (content with gambling ads is banned on the site). To reduce the likelihood of a ban, media buyers use different ways to work with links:
- Cloaking. Moderators, bots, irrelevant traffic ends up on the white page, and potential players on the casino site.
We found an illustration of an account where a media buyer set up cloaking. When the link is clicked, bots, moderators, irrelevant traffic, VPN users are redirected to the YouTube homepage. Targeted traffic goes to the pre-landing roulette.
An account with which traffic is directed to an online casino.
Landing page
- Telegram channel. Users from a TikTok account move to Telegram. Several options can be found on the blog to work with the attracted audience.
Posts with links to online casinos. Users click through to the channel, see the links and open the site. No other content is published.
Warming up and work with the audience. Besides posts with links, another type of content is posted: slots, stories, instructions for beginners, neutral photos. In this case, the media buyer works for a long distance.
- Accounts on other platforms. Just like with Telegram channel, they indicate a link to online casino or work with attracted audience. Furthermore, users from TikTok allow increasing the statistics on the selected platform. For instance, if media buyers point out a link to Twitch, then the referred users can subscribe to the account and watch future broadcasts. That has a positive effect on the Twitch promotion itself.
- Multi-links. One page contains links to other sites, several slots in one casino or multiple casino brands at once.
- TikTok trust account. This method is used less frequently than the above approaches. The point is that in the video and comments, the login of the account in TikTok is specified in the format @login. If a user clicks on the login in the comments, he switches to the desired account.
The trust account contains a link to an online casino. It is worth mentioning that no videos are published on this account. The last videos were uploaded more than 6 months ago.
Examples of TikTok accounts
In the previous sections we have looked at some accounts and how they use certain approaches. Now let’s see a few more examples of how directing from TikTok is done.
The first example is an account with video cuts of famous bloggers. Most videos have a few thousand views, but there are videos that have been watched 50,000-100,000 times or more. The description includes a link to an online casino.
The second example is mass automated video uploads. Videos are published every day. There is no specific direction in dealing with the content. There are videos of both simple games and online casino slots. In the description, a link leads to a “mini-lands” with details of bonuses and a call to action.
The third example is a blogger. The account publishes both simple videos and videos from the casino. Links in the description lead to a site with a selection of casinos to play at.
As you can see, TikTok has a large audience and there are opportunities to drive traffic to gambling offers. The social network struggles with content that advertises gambling resources, but media buyers are still launching gambling offers.
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