Mastering iGaming Ads: Best Practices for Southeast Asia
If you are an Advertiser in the iGaming vertical, now is a great time for you to start looking to Tier 3 GEOs in Asia like the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, for your offers. Asia is home to over half of the world’s population, which gives Advertisers a huge opportunity for brand growth and access to a diverse consumer base. So, read on to learn about the iGaming Market in Southeast Asia.
Understanding the iGaming Market in Southeast Asia
The Asia Pacific online advertising market is expected to reach US$ 250.07 billion by 2030. In the gambling market alone, revenue is projected to hit US$14.54 billion in 2025, with the Casino and Casino Games segment at US$7.82 billion. This is why now is a good time to jump into the Asian market and take advantage of the large volumes and lower CPMs. Let’s explore the Asian customs that could help you create an impactful iGaming campaign.
Device splits in SEA
The most popular device in Southeast Asia for economic activity is mobile. While there is a percentage of Desktop and Tablet users in Southeast Asia, it is clear that mobile is the primary device for about 90% of the population. Additionally, the best operating system to target is Android, with an estimated 80-86% market share, compared to iOS, which accounts for around 17-20%. 
There has also been a consumer behavior shift with Southeast Asians using real-time digital payments and e-wallet features as the top payment methods. This means your audience trusts making online payments and they have saved their card details, making it easier for them to make purchases quickly. So start creating lifetime loyalty and start building your iGaming subscriber base.
- Tip! When promoting Casino or sports betting offers, look for pre-made creatives with famous actors. A lot of Casinos (especially) provide high-quality and well-produced Banners, Pop-under pages, and video ads, which increases your ad quality and validity, giving you time to focus on strategy!
Ad Formats: Most popular online ad formats in Southeast Asia
The most popular online ad formats in Southeast Asia are Popunders, Banners, and Video ads. So let’s take a look at each of these formats.
Popular ad formats in Southeast Asia: Popunders
This is a large format that appears hidden behind the main browser window. It remains unnoticed until the user closes or minimizes the main browser window, which then displays the ad. This format works well, especially for iGaming offers as they are a nonintrusive format that increases brand recognition and often leads to higher retention and conversions.
Tip! Our top tip when implementing Popunders is to use them as a starting point for your test campaigns. It can help you understand and reach a larger audience, so when you create other campaigns with formats like Banners and Video, your end user is already aware of your brand.
Popular ad formats in Southeast Asia: Banners
This format is the traditional display format, it offers a visually engaging way to enhance brand awareness and drive traffic to websites. With ExoClick, you have access to large volumes at low prices with different Banner placements, including headers, middle and footers on mobile. Additionally, test out the Sticky Banner which follows the end user as they scroll a webpage on mobile. Banners can be used for static images and MP4 video.
Tip! If you are an Advertiser looking to create eye-catching ads with movement, try using the picture to video option on AI Video Makers that way you can take a static image and turn it into a video creative.
Popular ad formats in Southeast Asia: Video
Video is highly popular in 2025, so make the most of it by creating video campaigns. You can use video ads to build your brand awareness in Southeast Asia. Best of all there are many ways to do so, you have access to In-Stream, Outstream, and Video Slider with ExoClick, giving you even more placement options.
Tip! iGaming product owners usually have a library of video ads that you can use for your campaigns to promote their offers. Asian audiences are used to seeing celebrities endorse iGaming offers and video creatives from product owners often include celebrity appearances or may incorporate elements as seen in music videos. These elements are cultural and have been researched to ensure they appeal to the audience.
Additional Creative Tips
Creative tips for Popunder campaigns: If you decide to target Popunders, link them directly to the landing page. Effective landing pages with iGaming offers include people winning, company branding elements (including the brand colours and logo) to reinforce recognition, product showcases (like gameplay), and images or videos showing what winning will look like, and creating a truly exciting experience for the end user!
Promote sports betting and casino games simultaneously on your landing pages: Offer mixed products to encourage users to explore different options (e.g., slots alongside sports betting). This can also be tested for clicks to A/B test your landing pages for specific audiences and this can also help you to set the criteria for retargeting the audience.
Languages: There are over 1,200 languages spoken in Southeast Asia so ensure your landing page automatically detects the user’s device language.
Using slang in your ad text: Here are some slang terms that you could include in your campaign to make it more personalized for the audience.
- Walao describes a feeling of disbelief or surprise e.g. ‘Walao! I have just won the jackpot!’
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Jom means ‘let’s go’ e.g. Big Wins? Jom!
Bidding Strategy
Now that we have looked at the creative, landing pages, and some cultural elements to improve your campaigns, let’s look at understanding the iGaming Market in Southeast Asia through the best bidding strategy for your KPIs!
How should I bid on Tier 3 GEOs?
Premium Traffic is recommended for the most fruitful campaigns, as the traffic quality is high. While RON (Run of Network) provides a continuous stream of new testing opportunities for Advertisers, with new websites signing up to ExoClick every day. Tier 3 GEOs have lower CPMs than the Tier 1 equivalent. This means that you can test various options due to the large volumes and lower costs.
Traffic source: Set up separate campaigns for each traffic source. Premium and RON. If you put both of these traffic sources together in one campaign, you will be overpaying for RON ad zones because of the high bidding price for Premium ad zones. Additionally, there are new RON traffic sources being added every day to test, and these ad zones can really work for you because it is brand new traffic.
TIP! Optimize your campaigns with Smart Bid: The automated bidding feature uses machine learning to help advertisers optimize campaigns by analyzing data in real-time. It determines the best price based on the likelihood of conversions and specific factors like zones, countries, device types, and browsers. It is crucial for optimizing your campaigns because it learns from conversion events, improving your campaign visibility. It can also be more effective in Southeast Asia as it works best with large volumes of traffic to learn from.
Flat deals: Once you identify your top converting ad zones from your test campaigns, speak to your account manager to arrange a traffic share deal, for Tier 3 locations flat deals are best for high converting ad zones, ensuring you win all of the traffic for a set period of time for your chosen GEOs in Southeast Asia.
Set up fresh campaigns: Ad campaigns eventually run out of steam, which is when you should create a new campaign with fresh creatives and start the process again. Use separate campaigns to test RON & Premium traffic, and again arrange flat deals after getting results.
So start creating your campaigns and jump into the iGaming Market in Southeast Asia with ExoClick! Sign up today to gain access to large volumes of traffic from Asia!
