Welcome to La Fleur’s Magazine’s Expanded Roundup: Major Digital Advertising Initiatives for 2024. This compilation unveils insights from lotteries across the U.S. regarding their major digital advertising initiatives for the year ahead. While our print edition showcased select responses, this online version offers a more inclusive view, featuring insights compiled from lotteries that responded to our survey. Join us as we explore how lotteries are navigating the digital landscape, embracing established strategies, and testing new frontiers in pursuit of marketing excellence.
Arizona Lottery
“In 2024, the Arizona Lottery is focusing on strategic digital advertising initiatives to enhance engagement and reach. One major initiative involves retargeting through phased geo-fencing digital buys. This innovative approach allows us to target specific geographical areas and serve audiences push notifications when they are in-store at retail locations. This strategy aims to create a personalized and timely connection with our audience, encouraging participation and engagement.
“A primary emphasis of our digital advertising efforts is directed towards supporting non-scratchers product lines. Through targeted digital campaigns, we aim to increase awareness and drive engagement for these specific products.”
—Imani Keith, Public Information Officer, Arizona Lottery
Connecticut Lottery Corp.
“Our initiatives for 2024 are to continue with our learnings and findings and to build upon our robust digital strategy that works. We stay on top of trends within the digital space as well. One increasing trend is within CTV/OTT where ad-supported streaming will be even more popular. Amazon Prime will launch an ad-supported tier as well as Netflix’s launch. More probably to come as eMarketer says that US ad-supported VOD viewers will reach 180.2 in 2024!
“Considering placement on Netflix/Amazon Prime—we feel that this is a unique opportunity to be one of the first advertisers on these platforms and part of an exclusive group to test the gambling category. With limited competition we would have a strong share of voice and leave a greater impact on the audience.
“Continuously watching TikTok and if it will allow gambling ads on their platform as this is a great place to be on social for the younger end of our audience.
“Keeping up to date with AI on the rise and how that will impact digital advertising in years to come.
“We have had YouTube on our plans for a while now, but we continue to stay on top of their new offerings and placements. In 2023 YouTube reached a significant milestone where 50.1% of all internet users watched the platform at least once a month – no other standalone video, entertainment, or social media platforms draws more viewers than YouTube, so important we keep this as part of our strategy. (eMarketer)
“2024 will be our first time CT lottery draw game sales will be online, so we will be finding new ways to measure/track/optimize our campaigns with this new offering. Up until now, we had nothing to really drive the user to do on the site, so that will be exciting.
“Below is just a top level of our digital strategy by channel.
- Display Banners – Utilizing programmatic display with behavioral, contextual, lookalike targeting, cross platform re-targeting from website and CTV ads to reach CLC target audience (A18-54, state of CT) users that look and act like CLC customers/converters and heavy gamblers
- Geofencing banners – utilizing programmatic display with geofencing a 3-mile radius around casinos in/around the state: Mohegan Sun, Foxwoods Casino and MGM Casino to target users who frequent these locations
- OLV – utilizing programmatic online video with behavioral, contextual, and re-targeting from website to reach CLC target audience (A18-54, state of CT)
- CTV/OTT – utilizing programmatic and direct CTV with behavioral and contextual targeting as well as re-targeting from the website to reach the CLC target audience. Also, includes Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) data to identify user viewing habits to place ads in shows and movies where they make the most sense including content preferences, ad completion rates, average watch time, channel surfing patterns, completed view rates, and other parameters
- Streaming Audio – utilizing streaming audio and podcasts with contextual targeting and re-targeting users who have been served an audio ad with a follow-up display ad. Also includes 1st party GPS data segment, comprised of device IDs of CT residents layered in with our demographic segment of Adults 18-54
- Social Media – YouTube, Meta, Instagram, Snapchat
“One new creative tactic we tested out this year in the launch of holiday and Fast Play was 3D Animated banners – something unique to stand out in the digital space. We utilized a 3D animated display with behavioral targeting and purchased-based targeting finding customers who are likely to buy lottery tickets based on their shopping history and target new players by finding those who have not previously purchased lottery tickets. Also, includes re-targeting users who have previously browsed the CT Lottery site or engaged with previous animated display ads.
“We had great success with this, over indexing on performance metrics by 1%!
“Some examples of our creative below and links to the animation:
https://console.bighappy.co/preview?id=cr231101006 (Holiday) and https://console.bighappy.co/preview?id=cr231003011 (Fast Play).”
—Linda Tarnowski, Director of Advertising, Connecticut Lottery Corp.
Florida Lottery
“We have quite a number, but if we had to highlight a few it would be:
- Launch of the First Screen Native Unit on Samsung TVs: A new and unique ad product that positions The Florida Lottery as the only brand on a user’s Samsung TV Home Screen when they first turn on the TV, featuring an expanded banner and autoplay of our TV spot.
- Reward-Driven Mobile Video and Mini Games In-App to allow our audience the choice to further interact with our brand thereby increasing qualified engagement as well as improving the user experience and increase brand favorability.”
—Amber Seale, Deputy Secretary of Marketing, Florida Lottery
Hoosier Lottery
“We remain focused on expanding the benefits and promotional opportunities available to our myLOTTERY members as we work to continue to add value to our player program. As part of this work, we are working to enhance our data capture and data hygiene practices to ensure a seamless user experience that is more personalized to the users.”
—Brittany D’Haenens, Senior Director of Marketing, Hoosier Lottery
Illinois Lottery
“The Illinois Lottery has evergreen digital campaigns that reach consumers at various points of their journey (from awareness all the way to app download, registration and purchase). New product launches flow through these campaigns throughout the year.
“Digital media support of Instants tickets is also a priority, and our strategy has evolved to support this retail-only product in a digital world with new tactics such as utilizing shopper media. Supporting this activity are new cohorts and audience activations, which were identified in fully customized consumer research conducted in late 2023.”
—Nicole Schaefer, Media Manager, Illinois Lottery
Kentucky Lottery Corp.
“Following the success of shifting further spend to digital advertising in 2023 based on success of sales, the Kentucky Lottery is planning to continue to invest heavily in digital channels with digital advertising investment surpassing traditional channels. With a larger breadth of digital channels, we have increased our capability to measure marketing effectiveness. In addition, we plan to increase our efforts in measuring which marketing tactics in both digital and offline are most effective.
“With the transition of our media mix to more digital placements, we are also looking to launch a new flexible video format for Instant Play games that can evolve with new games and updated offers. This format will allow us to test messaging to optimize to a new winning formula.”
—Edie Frakes, Vice President of Marketing, Kentucky Lottery Corp.
Maryland Lottery
“The Maryland Lottery will be launching a new mobile app in the spring of 2024, which will enhance and streamline the player experience, delivering all the information our players need in one modern, clean, fun package. Players will be able to customize their app experience to see what they want to see first, whether it be winning numbers for their favorite games, or the current jackpot amounts.”
—Melanie Losover, Digital Manager, Maryland Lottery
Minnesota Lottery
“We continue to explore new tactics in the evolving digital space to reach new and unique audiences to grow our player base. Our strategy changes based on the campaign, but our goal is to include one new digital tactic in each campaign. These tactics could include retargeting platforms, geofencing, unique notification opportunities, etc.:”
—Vicki Holets, Dir., Sales & Marketing, Minnesota Lottery
Missouri Lottery
“For the first half of 2024, we plan to drive home the new Scratchers launch every month, branded as MO Money Monday. Each month from Jan 29 through at least April 29 (budget pending), we will do a full media campaign for two weeks, including broadcast TV/radio, streaming video/audio, paid social (Facebook/Instagram) and digital OOH.”
—Rhonda Fehr, Advertising Manager, Missouri Lottery
New Hampshire Lottery
“It all starts with the New Hampshire Lottery and the products we offer. Our position is to advertise our traditional retail products, as well as our iLottery platform. We continue to rely on a combination of digital strategies including SEM, Social (Paid & Organic), Display, and CTV to generate top-of-the-funnel awareness for the Lottery products offered at Retail. In addition to that, we utilize those same tactics with the goal of driving registrations and first-time deposits for our iLottery program while constantly seeking lower CPAs.”
—Maura McCann, Director of Marketing, New Hampshire Lottery
New Mexico Lottery
“We plan to continue to buy CTV, online video, digital display, and streaming audio.”
—Wendy Ahlm, Dir. of Advertising & Marketing, New Mexico Lottery
Ohio Lottery
“We are focused on digital sampling for KENO, new member acquisition for our rewards club, and player engagement within our rewards club.”
—Tom Ackerman, Deputy Director, Office of Marketing, Ohio Lottery
Oklahoma Lottery
“Our upcoming initiatives involve conducting pilots to enhance app downloads and usage. We aim to foster engagement among our Players Club members, emphasizing the availability of our mobile tools, including the new mobile claims feature. We are exploring interactive CTV as a means for people to not just view our ads but to interact with our content in ways they haven’t before. Through these interactions we will also have the ability to promote products, encourage app downloads and increase website visits.
“As part of our strategy, we’re implementing targeted pilots to foster meaningful engagement and organic growth among our social user community. The emphasis is on crafting and sharing content that authentically represents our brand identity. This approach aims to build sustained connections and enhance our digital presence.”
—Abby Morgan, Director, Marketing & Product Development, Oklahoma Lottery
Oregon Lottery
“We are constantly optimizing our digital advertising approach and every campaign is rooted from that space. Depending on where you classify Connected TV, we continue to expand in that space as it matures.”
—Shad Barnes, Senior Manager, Digital Marketing, Oregon Lottery
Pennsylvania Lottery
“We will continue to work with our digital partners to drive higher player engagement and loyalty. We will be testing a handful of initiatives to support the consumer journey, meeting the consumer where they are in the moment. Some examples of this include the Holiday Snapchat filter that we created for our Holiday Scratch-Off Campaign, ‘Celebrate Like You Mean It’ (Images Attached). Additionally, on organic social, we created unique content such as, ‘Find Gus’ (Image Attached).
“Additionally, we’re looking to increase our streaming/connected TV presence as consumers evolve their viewing habits.
“For our PAL Online brand, we will continue to analyze our conversion data and optimize throughout the year. Considerations for next fiscal include increasing our draw games support as well as reacting to a media mix model that will be completed in spring 2024.”
—Kelly Cortez, Director of Marketing, Pennsylvania Lottery
South Carolina Education Lottery (SCEL)
“Our major concentrations this year will be around our new rewards program and re-launch of our revamped instate game Palmetto Cash 5.”
—Josh Whiteside, Director of Marketing, SCEL
Texas Lottery
“For 2024, the Texas Lottery will continue utilizing highly efficient and tactical digital advertising support. Statewide advertising campaigns receive significant media weight via digital video (Hulu, Peacock, Locality, Vevo, etc.) and streaming audio (Pandora). These initiatives support exciting scratch ticket families like Power Blitz (January 2024) and Hit (May 2024). Paid social also supports these campaigns as well as approximately nine other micro-campaigns throughout the year.”
—Andrew Leeper, Brand Strategy Coordinator, Texas Lottery
Virginia Lottery
“Our biggest initiative this FY is a new partnership with our media agency fully dedicated to the support of iLottery. In February we plan to launch an evergreen, always-on, programmatic and rich-media brand campaign driving interest in and awareness of online play. We did a trial run of something like this in December, running a similar iLottery holiday campaign in-market alongside our normal holiday campaign, and saw significant incremental growth in our daily acquisition numbers during a non-jackpot-run period and hope to continue that trend with this initiative.
“Additionally, we will also plan short-run, product-specific campaigns to layer on top of this evergreen brand campaign to help drive awareness of and engagement with eInstants since our most valuable online players engage with that product. We may focus on new product launches or try to capitalize on the success of existing games we know are popular, especially our progressive jackpot families.”
—Lindsay Yowell, Brand & Advertising Manager, Virginia Lottery
Washington’s Lottery
“AI is a big area of testing for us this year as we look for different, unique, and fun ways to engage with our consumers and build two-way communication. We are excited about the AI Experience we are building out as part of our Department of Imagination campaign.”
—Randy Warick, Assistant Marketing Director, Washington’s Lottery
West Virginia Lottery
“Our major goal for 2024 is promoting our new, all-digital platform. As we continue with our iLottery launch, our focus is on ways to enhance both the continued support of traditional lottery, but also introduce the new concepts that will be presented with this channel. Our vendor of record, NeoPollard Interactive (NPi), offers Ignite Marketing, which we will be partnering with as we move forward. Ignite Marketing specializes in iLottery solutions, with an approach that supports both the growth and development of these digital programs by focusing on player acquisition and engagement. The strategy behind this is to utilize Ignite’s award-winning attack as we present a brand-new concept to our wide-ranging player audience, who may seem skeptical at first.”
—Danielle Snidow, Deputy Director, Marketing & Sara Harpold, Advertising Manager, West Virginia