GMB - What do these eleven years represent for Adsterra, celebrated in July, and what have been the company's significant achievements in the Brazilian iGaming market?
Tarcio Santos - In July, Adsterra celebrated eleven years. Some people who are just now getting to know Adsterra, and when we participate in events, some think we are a new company. But we already have a substantial track record in the iGaming and affiliate markets, running ads and monetizing websites. However, we are now entering the Brazilian market with more strength and becoming more well-known.
We are celebrating eleven years and always have promotions during our anniversary month for our partners, as we call our clients, advertisers, affiliates, and publishers. This month is no different. And since this year coincided with the start of the Olympics, we created the Olympic Challenge to celebrate.
The challenge began on July 22 and runs until August 31. Both advertisers and publishers can participate in some challenges to compete for prizes. There will be eleven prizes for advertisers and eleven for publishers, in honor of our anniversary. Among them, the main prize will be an iPhone 15 Pro Max and a pair of AirPods Max.
To participate, simply look for Adsterra on Instagram, adsterra_br, or search on Google for Adsterra Olympic Challenge.
Tell us a bit about Adsterra's eleven-year journey in the digital advertising market for sports betting and online gaming.
Adsterra is an advanced advertising network, with a close care approach to our partners. We were founded in 2013 and are a Cypriot company, with our central office on the island of Cyprus. A group of friends who already had experience with website development, monetization, and affiliation decided to create Adsterra, something more disruptive at the time, to differentiate from the advertising networks that existed back then. Today, Adsterra has over 300 employees worldwide, with global traffic from more than 248 geolocations, 35 billion monthly views, and over 50,000 partners, including advertisers, affiliates, and publishers.
iGaming is truly a flagship, a leading vertical for Adsterra, mainly due to the ad formats that Adsterra offers. These are high-conversion formats, attractive, which avoid ad blindness, and also due to the quality of traffic generated through our partners—qualified traffic that converts well for iGaming. That’s why we have many partners in this vertical in Brazil.
How were the challenges of establishing in the Brazilian market overcome?
When we entered Brazil, a new culture, as Adsterra is Cypriot and created by people who understood a lot about Europe and the Asian market, we knew that entering Brazil would present many challenges. The first was the language, as not everyone speaks Portuguese. Our content is in English, and most of our managers speak English. In Brazil, only about 1% to 3% of the population is fluent in this language. This language barrier was the biggest challenge. At the beginning, we also knew the difficulty regarding payment options, but with the emergence of Pix and PayPal, it improved.
Understanding the culture, as I mentioned, was also important since we were entering another continent, not just another country. The Brazilian market was a bit more closed, and we needed to understand more about the target audience. For example, when we entered, we detected that sports events related to local iGaming converted better than globally. It’s an affiliate market where we’re still looking a lot inside Brazil and not at affiliates or advertisers who run ads globally. This was another difference from what we experienced with affiliates in Europe, who sometimes run ads worldwide, not just locally.
So, you adopted the strategy of expanding your presence in Brazil by getting closer to a specific market?
Exactly, a very closed and specific market, which forced us to understand this market well.
How did Adsterra achieve all this recognition, and why is it considered one of the leading ad networks for the iGaming vertical today?
One of Adsterra’s significant differentiators compared to other ad networks is our Partner Care program. This is how we describe the way we stay close to our partners, taking all necessary steps to ensure a beneficial business environment for everyone. We create a relationship with the partner that’s not just support but ensures a lasting relationship in a win-win situation.
With this, we’ve built a system where everything from support, a support chat in the member’s area, login, and even personal managers are all involved to deliver a high standard. This really helps understand the business to generate more conversions and more value for their business.
And what are the main advantages of Adsterra, both for advertisers and Brazilian publishers?
Let’s start with advertisers. Today, we have a network of over 35,000 direct publishers who monetize with Adsterra's platform. It’s qualified traffic for iGaming. We have a three-level security structure, which includes artificial intelligence and a manual review to further qualify this traffic. The advertiser won’t receive bot traffic, for example, but rather genuine traffic. Besides, we have various tools and are always developing new ones to optimize the advertiser's budget.
Today there are over 20 settings for running campaigns and reaching the right audience. As I mentioned, the account manager role is something you don’t find in other networks, especially conventional ones. You’ll have someone’s contact number for direct communication to clarify any doubts or assist with the campaign.
The same goes for publishers. We have account managers who can help with placements and provide tips on increasing monetization through their sites. Another advantage is fast approval. A site is generally approved in less than 10 or 15 minutes to start running ads. Our payments are biweekly, so the publisher can withdraw every 15 days with a minimum payment of $5, which is another differentiator. Today, we have over 15,000 advertisers from interesting verticals that offer higher CPMs for publishers.
When we talk about advertisers in the iGaming sector, we’re talking about sports betting and online gaming operators. How do you speak the language of this vertical?
In the iGaming vertical, we often deal with a somewhat sensitive topic. Many advertisers and operators struggle to convey their message clearly through conventional ad networks. At Adsterra, we have a vertical-friendly policy, so they can create more attention-grabbing creatives without having to overly polish their message for their audience. Moreover, we have some sites within our publisher portfolio that have qualified traffic for this group of operators.
For example, we can mention streaming and video download sites, URL shorteners, and entertainment sites. All of these have a qualified audience that matches the audience they’re also seeking in iGaming, to foster interest and attract attention to gaming. So, it’s well-aligned for operators. And again, personal managers are always there to give advice and assist throughout the funnel, whether it’s preparing a landing page or setting up a campaign to achieve more conversions for the iGaming funnel.
Is this the focus on Adsterra's needs considering the scope of the market?
Exactly.
As you complete eleven years, what are the immediate future plans, and what can we expect in the coming years for Adsterra in this vertical?
Our plan is to continue growing our presence even more in Brazil, among operators and in all the other verticals Adsterra also works with, such as e-commerce, sweepstakes, dating, VPN, and utilities. So, it’s about further expanding Adsterra's presence, creating a lasting foundation with our clients and partners, always listening to them to create improvements and future trends.
What we see as a significant trend is more localization, always focusing on niches. Brazil is a massive country, so sometimes a campaign that works in the South won’t be the same as one in the Northeast. We’re always working a lot on localization.
We’re also attentive to trends in creatives, constantly creating new high-conversion formats that catch attention and spark user interest. As I mentioned, Adsterra has over 300 employees, most of them in development and technology teams. We’re always creating new innovative formats, like the Social Bar, Pop-Under, and Interstitials, as alternatives to the common banners and videos. We work on and create new segmentation options, API updates, and payment options. These are the trends that those who are with us can expect for Adsterra’s future.
What are the most important tips for Adsterra partners to maximize both the resources and tools you offer?
When our partners sign up with Adsterra, they don’t pay anything for it. Registration is free, and when we participate in fairs, many people think they have to pay to register. You don’t; just go to adsterra.com, sign up as an advertiser or publisher.
When you sign up, you receive a series of resources, such as onboarding videos, integration guides, where you’ll learn a lot about using Adsterra’s tools. Everything is there. We also have free courses on running iGaming affiliate ads, a course for those who want to monetize, SEO courses, and site monetization courses.
The tip I give is: sign up with Adsterra, watch the onboarding videos, and learn how to use the tool. If you’re an advertiser, you can create a campaign, submit it for approval, see the amount of traffic you’ll get for that segmentation, all this before launching the campaign without having to deposit a single penny.
“Oh, I want to run the campaign?” Then yes, you go ahead, deposit, and start running it. If you’re a publisher, you can also get your site approved immediately, grab the ad code, place it on the site, and start testing it the same day.
Not to mention our blog. As part of the integration in Brazil, Adsterra created a blog in Portuguese, with extensive content and many case studies and guides. All to help partners understand Adsterra and the market to bring in more resources and gains.
Source: Exclusive GMB
