A Las Vegas Sportsbook
Driving Efficient App Growth for a Las Vegas Sportsbook
Paid media performance, January to June 2025 (year over year)
A Las Vegas sportsbook and mobile betting app competing in one of the most heavily regulated and platform-restricted categories in digital advertising. BTV Marketing manages the client’s paid media with one goal: drive app downloads as efficiently as possible.
Sports betting is heavily throttled across ad platforms. Google’s Performance Max campaigns specifically were limited by policy to the point of almost no delivery, and search reach was capped well below demand. Budgets are lean, and demand is highly seasonal, spiking around major events like the Super Bowl, March Madness, the start of the NFL season, and the Triple Crown. The goal is to get more downloads out of a limited budget by concentrating spend where it converts.
Key Performance Highlights
Paid social app downloads grew 74% year over year while spend rose just 32%, which cut cost per download by roughly a quarter. In paid search, despite a leaner budget and rising competition, the account held a 19% conversion rate at a $5.55 cost per conversion.
Our Approach
With a limited budget and a tightly regulated category, we managed the accounts for efficiency rather than volume:
Paid Social: Efficient Growth Around Key Events
In the first half of 2025, paid social drove 811 app downloads, up from 467 a year earlier (+74%), while spend rose only 32%. Cost per download fell 24%, from $107 to $80, as targeting and creative improved.
During March Madness, paid social downloads grew 253% year over year while spend rose just 23%, and cost per download fell from $181 to $63. A single short-form, TikTok-style video drove 45% of downloads after we shifted the account from traffic optimization to conversion-focused campaigns. The Super Bowl showed a similar pattern: 42% more downloads at a 30% lower cost per download. Concentrating budget into high-intent windows, rather than spreading it evenly, produced the cheapest installs of the year.
Paid Search: Efficiency Under Heavy Constraints
Paid search ran under significant constraints. Category restrictions throttled Performance Max campaigns to almost no delivery, search reach was capped by policy, cost per click rose 8% overall, and 25% within core search campaigns, as competition increased. Spend was reduced by 17% year over year to protect efficiency.
Even so, the account delivered a 19% conversion rate at a $5.55 cost per conversion, an efficient result for a constrained, high-cost category. Visibility grew, with impressions up 94% year over year, keeping the brand in front of in-market bettors despite the platform limits.
- Conversion rate: 19%
- Cost per conversion: $5.55
- Impressions: 41,944 (+94% YoY)
- Spend: down 17% YoY, by design, to favor efficiency over volume
Expanding the Footprint
In July 2025, we launched the client on Apple Search Ads to capture App Store demand directly. Through May 2026, that channel has driven 1,342 app installs at a $5.64 average cost per acquisition, applying the same efficiency-focused approach in a new channel.
Note: Apple Search Ads figures cover July 2025 to May 2026, a separate period from the year-over-year results above.
Super Bowl
Spend:
$5,328
Downloads:
+42% YoY
Cost / Download:
$65.76 (vs. $93.47 in 2024)
March Madness
Spend:
+23% YoY
Downloads:
+253% YoY
Cost / Download:
$63 (vs. $181 in 2024)
Contests
(May – July)
Spend:
$11,929
Downloads:
142 downloads
Cost / Download:
$84.01
Leads:
264 leads
