I’ve been messing around with different ways to run gambling promotion ads, and the more I test, the more I feel like there’s no single clear answer. Sometimes I think I’ve finally figured out which formats pull in people who actually want to sign up or play, and then the next week the numbers look totally different. That’s kind of what pushed me to post this here. I’m curious how others approach this and what patterns you’ve noticed.

One thing I struggled with at the beginning was figuring out the difference between people who click out of curiosity and people who click because they’re ready for something more serious, like comparing bonuses or checking out real gameplay. I used to throw every ad format into the mix without really thinking about the intent behind it. That gave me cluttered reports and some very confusing results. It took me a while to realize that the ad format itself plays a bigger role than I expected in attracting the right kind of user.

For example, I used to rely heavily on display banners because they are easy to set up and look nice. But most of the people clicking those seemed casual. They’d land on the page, scroll for a second, and bounce. At first I thought my landing page was the problem. I tweaked it, rewrote it, even changed the layout. Nothing really changed. That’s when I started comparing formats side by side instead of making landing pages the scapegoat every time.

One of the things that surprised me is how much cleaner the intent looks when using formats that feel more direct. Stuff like search ads tends to bring in people who already know what they want. They’re not browsing for entertainment; they’re searching because they’re ready to take the next step. But search also comes with its own challenges, especially in regulated niches. Sometimes the keywords you want aren’t allowed, and sometimes the auction gets insanely pricey. I had a few weeks where the cost felt more like a dare than a strategy.

I also tried native ads for a while because everyone kept saying they blend well with content and get people in a relaxed mindset. They did give me longer session times, which was interesting, but conversion still depended on how specific the ad was. If the creative was too vague, people treated it like casual reading material. If it was too direct, it lost the “native” feel and didn’t get approved. It was a strange balancing act, and I’m not sure I ever fully mastered it.

What ended up helping me the most was slowing down and looking at which formats actually pulled in users with a clear goal in mind. Even before checking conversion, I looked at how long they stayed, which pages they viewed, and how many came back later. Those little behavior signs gave me more clues than the raw click numbers. I also found it helpful to think about the mood someone is in when they see a certain type of ad. A person reading an article is in a different mindset than someone searching for something specific or someone scrolling quickly through social media.

At some point I started reading more about how other people structure their tests, just to make sure I wasn’t reinventing the wheel. I stumbled onto a guide that breaks down different high intent formats and what kind of signals they attract. It isn’t magic advice or anything, but it did help me understand why some formats behave the way they do. If anyone’s curious, it’s this one: high-intent ad formats for gambling campaigns. I didn’t follow it word for word, but it gave me a clearer idea of what to look for when comparing formats.

After a bunch of trial and error, I ended up keeping a simple habit that works decently for me now. Whenever I test a new format, I let it run long enough to see the user behavior, not just the click. I don’t jump to conclusions too fast. If something looks promising early on, I still give it time to stabilize. If something looks terrible from day one, I try to figure out whether it’s the format or just my targeting. And most importantly, I stopped assuming that one format will solve everything. What works great during a sports event week might drop off the following month.

So that’s kind of where I’m at. I’m still learning, still testing, and still trying to understand how intent shifts from one format to another. If anyone else has tried mixing formats or noticed patterns between curiosity-driven clicks and action-ready clicks, I’d love to hear it. The more I compare notes with others doing the same thing, the easier it gets to make sense of this whole thing.