While the uncertain nature of the state-by-state roll-out in the US makes it impossible to be ready for every eventuality, there are still preparations marketers can make now so they hit the ground running, says Dipesh Parmar.

Published 10th June 2019


As New Jersey’s sports betting operators reap the rewards of the Garden State’s blossoming wagering industry, all eyes are on how lessons learned here can be applied across other states taking advantage of the PASPA repeal.

Bettors in New Jersey have quickly embraced the opportunities now afforded them (indeed, the state’s sports betting take already exceeds that of Nevada) but other states have been slower on the uptake. Some will likely never legislate for the legalisation of sports betting, while others face long political battles to enact the necessary laws to bring it to the mass market. Meanwhile, the states that have already followed in New Jersey’s footsteps – Delaware, Rhode Island, Mississippi, West Virginia, New Mexico and Pennsylvania – each have their own issues keeping them from competing with New Jersey right now, from population to taxation.

It is when the big boys such as New York and California finally join the party that sports betting will hit the mainstream and all eyes are on the progress these states are making in opening up their own regulated markets. In the meantime, however, those operators making a success of regulation in New Jersey can provide several clues as to how rival operators and affiliates can capitalise as more states open up.

So does this mean simply waiting before being able to build your offering to the new markets? Well, you could try that, but savvy marketers know that putting in the groundwork now will be the fastest route to yielding success in the future. A new market requires preparation and key to this will be truly understanding your audience.


There’s nothing new or revolutionary about building a database on audience profiles before attacking a new market, particularly where that market is an as-yet untapped goldmine, but the granular level at which marketers can now precisely target the very punters they need to reach has never been more accessible. We are now able to engage with the public directly, to find and immediately react to their interests and behaviours.

Once granted the requisite consent from those being targeted, the tools and processes available to collect, analyse and activate in-depth audience data are within reach of anyone keen to enact a successful overall CRM strategy. Let’s take a look through some of the top opportunities for data acquisition and brand activation:

Websites and apps

It has long been possible to track and collect behavioural and transactional data, from pageviews, clicks, impressions and shares through to conversion and purchase data, via common free-to-use tools such as Google Analytics. Every successful marketer’s arsenal should begin here.

Lead management

Find and collect the most appropriate leads from your website and app. With automatic validation you can avoid duplicated, dead, invalid or incorrectly formatted data, saving you valuable time and resources to focus solely on bona fide qualified leads.

Marketing automation

This has been an industry buzzword for several years but only now is its potential being fully realised. Funnelling leads into a marketing automation platform allows you to start organising them into actionable data. Then, by analysing your leads, you can start to build user profiles and create your desired segments. This allows you to organise and prioritise the most valuable data into marketing campaigns on the most relevant marketing channels.

Omnichannel marketing

There are a wealth of channels that can be utilised to increase engagement, such as email, SMS and web/in-app push notifications. Push offers a uniquely beneficial proposition allowing for direct web and app engagement, even to noncustomers. Being proactive by prompting users with questions can help to collect more useful data to better serve them.


You can securely capture, store and manage all of your customer data, such as personal, demographic and transactional details. CRM supports your sales and marketing efforts, providing actionable insights while integrating with other tools to facilitate fully integrated communications.

Customer data platform (CDP)

A CDP can visualise all of your marketing channel data, allowing for deep level analysis of email, SMS and push notification data alongside app data, paid media, social campaigns, SEO and even affiliate networks. This means it is now simpler than ever to combine different marketing channels into one campaign workflow, be that a welcome email series or a crosschannel integrated campaign.

Marketing channel attribution

Certain CDPs will also allow you to monitor marketing channel attribution so that you can reconfigure marketing budgets in order to align them with the most effective channels. Attribution can help you to maximise campaign exposure which should deliver increased revenues through a more efficient use of marketing budgets.

Artificial intelligence

If you’re not taking advantage of AI you’re missing out. Ensure you’re utilising your full marketing resource in the most effective manner by using AI to assist you in four ways: identifying the best leads, activating the most valuable ones, providing the insights to nurture those leads with personalised messaging, and helping to engage on a one-to-one basis with your audience through ongoing optimisation and testing of your marketing campaigns. AI helps to attain more data from your audience and the more information you have the better you can serve them with the most relevant messaging, content and product/service information.

Now you have an audience database with actionable data and a marketing ecosystem backing up your database with tools to refine audience profiles as behaviours change. This will ensure you are in a more proactive position to meet demands when a new market is live. Cracking America won’t be easy, but building an audience profile can be and the more you know about your audience the greater you can leverage the data in your favour.