How to structure your marketing team in the betting sector to avoid conflicts of interests and bottlenecks. Guide to how to optimise your team's structure to achieve your goals.

1. How To Structure
Your Marketing
Department
Betting Industry Guide

2. Introduction
Talent is important. We all know this. HR managers and
Marketing Directors all understand the value of talent.
However, if poor structures and systems are used talent will
leave and results will plummet.
I have been a marketer for over 16 years. I have seen the
transition from the old school "above the line" broadcast
approach to the granular direct response approach of digital. I
have also worked "client-side" in several marketing
departments mostly in the betting sector and on the "agency
side" observed the internal workings of many clients.
I have also had the pleasure of discussing this topic with
some very successful people in the betting sector. Yes I
admit, it was mostly over a few pints but that's when the best
discussions happen isn't it?
This handbook is about the structure of your marketing
department. You may agree with some points and disagree
with others. However, I can tell you it is all based on
experience.
Ultimately, it is all about getting the best results by removing
conflicts of interests and bottlenecks so that everyone is on
the same page and working towards the same goal.
Feargal Byrne, Head of Digital Marketing, The Unit.
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3. Contents
What To Avoid 1
The Right People in the Right Roles 3
Eliminate All Silos and Conflicts of Interest 4
Hire People WIth Betting Experience 5
Disjointed Team Structure 6
Effective Team Structure 8
Core Responsibilities 10
When to Use an Agency 11
Conclusion 13
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4. What to Avoid
It is all well and good knowing what to do but in this case, I
think it's better to start with what to avoid. Look around you, if
your marketing department is showing any of these
"symptoms" then perhaps a change is in order.
First things first, you are not a development or operations
department. You are a marketing department and the
difference is massive.
So what's the difference? Surely operations departments are
the best teams to replicate as those guys are really efficient
and get things done fast. Yes, they are. I one hundred per
cent agree. Ops departments are excellent at delivering
efficient results. However, they are operational results, not
marketing results.
They are great at isolating activities and grinding out
efficiencies.
The reality is that your marketing department cannot be
isolated, it cannot be siloed. To be successful, the component
parts cannot operate in isolation.
External forces such as your competitors impact your
marketing department. As a result, you can't expect your
marketing department to work like your operation
departments. There are too many variables.
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5. Silos also create conflicts of interest. Examples of this being
Sportsbook marketers not pushing players to their Casino so
that punters are kept within their product, and therefore,
improve the siloed KPIs they will be evaluated by.
PPC teams targeting "free bet" keywords to reduce CPA (their
single siloed target) which hurts the retention team because
these customers will always be of lower value.
Brand ranking signals from ATL and content campaigns not
being recognised for organic search uplifts and their effect on
retention.
The list goes on...
Essentially, your Marketing Department must work as a single
team with one overarching goal.
Essentially, do not compromise effectiveness for efficiency.
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6. The Right People in the Right Roles
The marketing department in 2019 is by far the most diverse
department in terms of personality type and skillset.
You need creative people, analytical people, operational
people and many more variations. The truth is that you must
know how to blend these skill sets to achieve your goal.
Getting this blend right is the key to success. Creative and
quantitative people can complement each other and
outperform an approach that relies solely on one or the other.
Ideally, the creative will come up with new copy/ideas to test
and the quant/analyst will analyse. Now here is the most
important part, feedback of results and likely reasons why
something succeeded is provided back to the creative to
create more variations.
On top of this, you also need an ops specialist. This is a
Project Manager type who ensures everything runs smoothly.
Conclusion:
Within each team in the marketing department, have a
complementary blend of creatives and analysts. Don’t expect
creatives to analyse and analysts to create.
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7. Eliminate All Silos and Conflicts of Interest
There should be no silos in your marketing department. The
Paid Search team and the CRM team should have exactly the
same objectives.
If you hear anyone on acquisition say “we got the customers
in now it's up to CRM to get the value” call a meeting. This
culture will destroy your marketing efforts and should be
nipped in the bud.
In summary, your CRM team need to care as much about
CPA as your acquisition team and your acquisition team
needs to care as much about CLV as your retention team.
In fact, I always say that the best approach is to look at the
return on ad spend as the core KPI for both sides of the
marketing coin.
Both acquisition and retention costs need to be considered.
To help eliminate conflict of interests there should be no
ambiguity in the goals set out.
As a CMO you must find out the best overarching targets that
can be practically achieved that align with your marketing
strategy.
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8. Hire People WIth Betting Experience
You should build your team around people who have
experience in gambling. I know this doesn’t sound innovative
but there are so many unique challenges in the sector.
Somebody who knows how to handle bonus abuse from a
marketing standpoint is already miles ahead of someone with
no betting experience.
For your performance marketing teams specifically PPC and
Affiliates experience is a definite requirement.
However, when looking at innovation, Above the Line is the
one area where hires from outside the sector could contribute.
On top of this, other sectors can help with your brand
positioning. This especially the case when you are targeting
non-traditional betting demographics.
All in all, you should be looking for people who have
experience in the sector and/or bet regularly.
This applies to both casino and sports.
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9. Disjointed Team Structure
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CMO
Implementation Teams
PPC
Product
SEO
Affiliates
CRM
VIP
Social
Sponsorship
ATL
Programmatic
App (Mobile)
Design
Content
Analytics Teams
Data Team
UX/Web Analytics
CRO (Conversion Optimisation)
Industry Research
Support Teams
Development
Finance
Trading

10. Disjointed Department Objectives
Disjointed Approach
● Targets are set for each implementation team in isolation.
● Overall performance is never discussed.
● No targets are set for analytics or development teams in
relation to deliverables for marketing.
● JIRA (or similar) tickets are written by unqualified
marketers and development finds it difficult to understand
the tickets.
● Trading strategy is never considered.
● Development does not consult with marketing on plans
and updates to the website.
● Marketing and Trading operate separately.
● Gaps in AML and Problem Gambling checks.
Results:
● Deliverables are too slow to be effective
● Marketing have to hack tracking and implementation
solutions because development have not got round to
integrate APIs properly.
● Fuzzy view on customer value and what drives it.
● Acquisition, CRM, Development and Finance are at
loggerheads.
● CMO has to constantly ask for reports.
● Technical SEO is poor.
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11. Effective Team Structure
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CMO
Implementation
Teams
PPC
SEO
Affiliates
CRM
VIP
Social
Sponsorship
ATL
Programmatic
App (Mobile)
Design
Content
Analytics Teams
Data Team
UX/Web Analytics
CRO (Conversion
Optimisation)
Industry Research
Support Teams
MarTech Team in
Development
Finance
Customer Service
Marketing
Project
Management
SEO to Dev Req.
Design Req.
Affiliate Platform
PPC Tracking
CRM Integrations
Reporting for ATL
Feeds for External
Sites/Ads
Trading

12. Department Objectives
Cohesive Approach
● Your target customer is defined and everybody knows
their profile.
● Targets are set overall with adjustments to each channel
based on overall result. One goal for all.
● Targets are set for analytics and development with
respect to marketing.
● Multi-product revenue is counted.
● Specialisations are leveraged and Project Managers
handle JIRA tickets and liaising with development.
● All AML and problem gambling checks are complete.
● Trading follows through on the target customer profile by
accepting bets or pricing certain markets at lower margin
depending on brand positioning.
Results:
● Individual channels are “averaged out” to achieve the
overall target.
● Project managers speed up dev deliverables.
● Marketing has everything integrated through APIs.
● Customer Lifetime Value estimates are visible.
● Implementation teams spending 90% of their time on
their core areas of expertise.
● Sportsbook and casino is working in tandem.
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13. Core Responsibilities
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> Implementation Team -
Manage and optimise advertising/affiliate channels.This is the
primary function of these teams. Take data reports from the
analytics team and brief the project management team on any
technical requirements on development.
Project Management Team -
Write user stories and manage projects using agile/scrum
methodologies. They handle all internal implementation of
marketing technology.
>
Data Analysis Team -
Set-up tracking and provide insights to the implementation
teams. Advise on possible tests and optimisation approaches.
>
Development Team -
Follow user stories written by PM team.Ensure that vital
requirements from marketing are in place.
>

14. When to use an Agency
It is always great to have your entire marketing team
in-house. However, budget or expertise gaps may not allow
you as a CMO to hire the people you want.
In this case, and agency can provide the support you need to
get the job done.
Questions to ask when deciding if an agency is
necessary.
Can you implement your affiliate/ppc strategy today?
How much are you missing out by not having a full team
in place?
How is this going to affect your end of year targets?
Are you confident all will be in place before the Premier
League/Cheltenham starts?
Are you regularly engaging customers on social media, if
not why?
Is your content team resourced to deliver great quality
content around the sporting calendar?
Have you ever ran a conversion rate optimisation test, if
not why?
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15. If you can’t deliver because of lack of resources or expertise
then an advertising agency can help.
As a CMO you should use an agency to plug any gaps and
remove any bottlenecks that are in the way of your marketing
strategy.
Remember, the buck stops with you. If recruitment takes three
months to hire a PPC manager but Cheltenham is around the
corner you will be held responsible for the revenue shortfall.
Also, it is always good to have a good relationship with an
agency.
If a key member of your team hands in their notice, you can
then engage the agency to cover until you can hire a
replacement.
Furthermore, you will not be under as much time pressure
and can take adequate time to find the best candidate.
Ultimately, depending on the size and talent pool of your
marketing team agencies can be a valuable utility for
executing and implementing your marketing roadmap.
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16. Conclusion
Here are the key takeaways when building your marketing
team.
● Everyone should be working toward the same goal.
● Eliminate KPI conflicts of interest.
● Hire people with experience.
● Project managers not marketers should work with
development to implement marketing tech requirements.
● Expert analysts should manage all performance reporting
both to management and implementation teams (PPC,
Affiliates, Social etc.)
● Don’t allow any other department to sabotage your brand
identity
● Ensure you have specialists running your implementation
teams or are using an agency where internal resources
are not available.
● Accept that some new ideas will fail. It is not about being
right all the time, it is about leveraging a testing process.
● Foster a good relationship with trading.
● Appraise overall performance including “direct”
acquisitions.
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17. this is the unit.com
Email: info@thisistheunit.com
Call: +353 (0) 85 169 46 07
Site: thisistheunit.com
We are a digital agency that specialises in
helping online casinos and sportsbooks
achieve their marketing goals through
Affiliate Management, PPC, SEO and
Conversion Rate Optimisation.