Given the unprecedented volume of games and nations at the World Cup, it is little wonder that sportsbooks worldwide view this year’s football extravaganza with unparalleled optimism.
At 39 days, the tournament co-hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada will be 25% longer than the previous edition in 2022. With 48 teams, there are 50% more nations involved this year than last time out, many of whom are emerging or flourishing regulated gambling markets.
However, for operators that fixate on the five-and-a-half week window of action in isolation and fail to consider the long-term implications, an unprecedented opportunity could slip through their fingers. Indeed, while World Cups engage fans and punters like little else, operators often suffer post-tournament blues, with newly acquired players vanishing in the aftermath.
Nikolaus Beier, senior vice-president of Marketing Services at Sportradar – which sits at the intersection of sports betting, media and technology – is ideally positioned to address this challenge.
Beier believes that post-World Cup competitive advantage will be defined by decisions operators make now in relation to how they structure their marketing, their data foundations, and their ability to build trust and relevance at scale.
While global attention levels will supercharge acquisition opportunities for sportsbooks this June and July, the operators that emerge as the true winners will be those that have planned for what comes after the post-final celebrations fade.
Pillar one: Build your brand for lifetime value
The World Cup checklist for sportsbooks that want to enjoy lasting results rather than a temporary uplift broadly encompasses three pillars. The first of these, Beier says, is to build lifetime value, rather than merely attract temporary traffic.
Events like the World Cup naturally encourage aggressive acquisition, he explains. As budgets increase and competition intensifies, the temptation to optimise purely for short-term volume becomes obvious.
However, Beier argues that campaigns not designed with retention and long-term lifetime value in mind often end up attracting the wrong audience, and players motivated by bonuses rather than brand and experience.
Therefore, it is vital for operators to find the right balance and avoid leaning too heavily into performance marketing at the expense of brand building, which will ultimately enhance familiarity, trust and long-term loyalty.
“During big events, some operators are aggressive in acquiring customers, but it is so important not to forget the importance of strengthening your brand, as that is what will create long-lasting value. You want customers to be attracted to your brand, and not just by short-term offers,” he says.
“If you have a longer-term approach with your marketing and learn lessons on a continuous basis so you can adapt your strategy, then success is going to be much more likely.”
As a rule of thumb, operators may benefit from starting with a 50:50 split between performance and branding-related marketing expenditure, before optimising based on factors such as market maturity, competitive position and regulatory context, he adds.
Across performance and branding campaigns, the 70:20:10 model is encouraged, with most of the budget invested in proven, high-performing activities, 20% allocated to testing optimisations or extensions, and 10% reserved for entirely new approaches.
Crucially, experimentation only creates advantage if learning is captured. Operators should establish clear post-campaign review processes, share insights in cross-functional forums, and build internal playbooks so test results inform future activity across the business, not just one campaign or channel.
Pillar two: Start early and be flexible
However, timing matters just as much as multi-campaign and multi-channel balance.
Over the three most recent major international football tournaments – the 2022 FIFA World Cup and the UEFA European Championships in 2021 and 2024 – betting intent began to rise three to four weeks before the opening matches, according to Sportradar.
With registrations and first-time deposits spiking around two weeks before the big kick-off, operators that wait until opening day will be late to market. They will also miss crucial learning time, Beier adds.
Sportradar recommends that branding campaigns should begin at least three weeks before the tournament starts to be top of mind when acquisition performance accelerates. This early window allows operators to test messaging, understand which audiences convert, and refine their approach before the all-important knockout rounds.
These lessons, borne out of early testing, will fuel the second of the three key pillars outlined by Beier: adopting a dynamic and flexible approach.
“During the tournament itself, flexibility is critical, because attention and acquisition are heavily influenced in a market by how the local team performs,” Beier adds.
“If you have a longer-term approach with your marketing and learn lessons on a continuous basis so you can adapt your strategy, then success is going to be much more likely”
“When a local team advances, attention increases significantly, and that’s the moment when it makes sense to scale spend and push harder on acquisition. If a team drops out of the tournament, attention naturally declines, and acquisition becomes tougher, so operators should be prepared to scale activity down accordingly.
“This kind of dynamic and flexible approach helps optimise short-term goals like return on ad spend, rather than applying the same strategy regardless of what’s happening in the tournament.”
Pillar three: Prioritise trust and relevance
Such flexibility enables operators to differentiate their offering. Distinguishing between World Cup betting platforms will come from the third pillar underpinning competitive advantage – trust and relevance – rather than volume alone, Beier says.
Regulation is often seen as a constraint on marketing, but Beier explains that it actually plays a critical role in building credibility.
Trust is especially important for younger audiences. Research consistently shows that Gen Z prioritises transparency and credibility when choosing brands, alongside seamless mobile experiences and socially engaging content.
Long term brand building creates trust. So by doing marketing activity that increases awareness and familiarity of your brand, you’ll increase the trust consumers have that their money will be safe and their wins will be paid out, ultimately making it easier to acquire and retain new customers.
Relevance, meanwhile, is driven by context. While messaging that feels disconnected from what fans are watching, or how they are feeling, is easy to ignore, the World Cup provides countless storylines within games that can be leveraged to make an impact.
Operators can ramp up engagement efforts to make the most of the moments that matter – the spectacular strikes, the controversial red cards and the last-gasp goals, for example, that will define success or failure at the tournament.
Sportradar’s Sports Moments technology gives operators the power to craft and deliver advertising creative and messaging – whether via programmatic, digital out of home, connected TV or social channels – based on live data. This enables sportsbooks to automate creative updates, adapt messaging, show live match data and, above all, ensure contextual relevance across campaigns at scale.
“Our Sports Moments technology allows operators to tailor ads and messaging based on exactly what is happening before, during and after games,” Beier says. “For example, if Harry Kane scores in the first 10 minutes of a game, and England have won on the last three occasions he has scored in the first half, then that is a compelling campaign narrative to build upon. Alternatively, if a key player is injured, it could affect the live odds on the outcome of the match.
“Harnessing memorable moments can be a key differentiator for brands during the World Cup.”
Personalisation done properly
When executed well, this approach delivers measurable results.
For example, during Euro 2024, one brand working with Sportradar achieved a 73% increase in deposit value and a 90% reduction in cost per acquisition compared to competitors by running localised, dynamic digital out-of-home (DOOH) campaigns.
Beier points out that by tracking which moments spark the most engagement, operators can segment audiences by interests and behaviours, helping to refine future campaigns relating to other competitions.
“If you plan holistically for the long term, you will yield better results than if you treat the World Cup as a tautology,” he adds.
“After the World Cup, retention becomes the priority, and that’s where personalised CRM strategies are essential. AI enables more personalised engagement, and from a technical perspective, there’s no reason today not to address users on an individual level.
“When personalisation is done properly, it becomes much easier to continue engaging players acquired during the World Cup, even after attention shifts back to domestic leagues.”
Building a full-funnel marketing intelligence system
Ensuring cohesive systems and infrastructure to support such an approach is equally important.
As Beier underlines, data-driven tools sometimes operate in silos, resulting in a collection of isolated tactics rather than a true full-funnel marketing intelligence system.
For AI and personalisation to deliver real value, all marketing data, CRM insights, and channel performance signals must be continuously consolidated and accessible across the organisation. Only then can operators adapt campaigns in real time and shift focus without rebuilding activity from scratch, he adds. Companies should audit their current martech stack and data flows now, identifying where silos persist and prioritizing system connection ahead of the tournament.
Moreover, there is also a broader opportunity to look beyond first-party data alone.
Future-proofing is also about investing in open APIs and industry partnerships, so new data sources or marketing innovations can be integrated without major disruption or long lead times.
Additionally, industry-level insights that have been aggregated, anonymised and analysed across markets can surface patterns far earlier than any single operator independently. This “collective intelligence”, Beier says, accelerates learning and reduces risk.
“Sometimes I feel that operators rely too heavily on their own data and learnings, but we have so much knowledge and data, and we are offering products around that intelligence,” he adds.
For Beier, the message is clear: operators that succeed long after the trophy has been lifted will be those that resist short-term thinking, invest early in connected systems, and earn trust through relevant, responsible engagement.
By treating the World Cup as a catalyst for long-term growth rather than a standalone campaign, sportsbooks can ensure the impact of 2026 extends far beyond the final whistle.
Want to hear more from Sportradar? Don’t miss out on their World Cup marketing strategy webinar, now live on iGB!
Nikolaus Beier, senior vice-president of Marketing Services at Sportradar
Sportradar’s Nikolaus Beier outlines why building long-term value, activating dynamic marketing strategies, and earning trust through relevance will define sportsbook success beyond the 2026 FIFA World Cup.