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Bing Predicts The 2016 AFL Season

                                 

Footy season is back and so is Bing's AFL experience with the latest scores, schedule, predictions and the AFL ladder just a click away at Bing.com. If you’re an advertiser, read on further below to learn about how you can benefit from this experience too!

Bing's unique prediction models analyse historical data, team and player form, stats, venue data and other signals from the web, social and traditional media to bring fans up to the minute predictions on which team will come out on top in every 2016 AFL game.

After correctly predicting that Richmond would clinch the season's opener versus Carlton, fans can simply search "AFL" or their favourite team at Bing.com to see what Bing Predicts.

                                         

What does this mean for Bing advertisers?

Bing Advertisers can expect increased traffic to their websites as more users engage with Bing Predicts throughout the regular AFL season and final series.

The Bing team have made every effort to build a high quality prediction model by sourcing information that is most trustworthy to contribute to the end prediction results.

Advertiser checklist:

If you’re intending to advertise on Bing Ads during the AFL season, please take the below into consideration:

Ad Copy

  • Include all special offers for a specific game or round in your ad copy. It’s suggested to have at least one special offer in variation in each ad group.
  • Ensure ad copy is up-to-date around key season timings; season launch, finals series and grand final.


Bids and budgets

  • It’s suggested that all bids and budgets are increased at peak times during the AFL season including the month of season launch and the finals period, particularly the grand final week. This will allow you to serve the increase volume of traffic.
  • Setting bids and budgets a few days before the start of each round is recommended. Budgets can take time to refresh in the system, which may cause advertisers to lose valuable impression share and click traffic on the day.
  • Advertisers are advised to have a strong incremental bidding strategy in place for mobile and tablet devices. It is recommended that bids and budgets are set highest for mobile devices for up to three hours before kick-off.
     
  • Geographical location: implement incremental bidding by geographical location. For example, increasing all bids for the Victoria audience would be recommended as 50% of traffic with AFL betting terms originates from Victoria.


Keywords

  • Make sure that your negative keyword lists are up-to-date to ensure your maximising performance and getting the most relevant queries.
  • Keywords surrounding AFL were trending on a linear fashion during the period of December 2014 until an exponential growth period from the start of the new AFL season (February and April 2015). As seen below.

                         

App extensions 

  • App extensions can prove to be effective for advertisers to acquire new customers. If an advertiser has an app available for download, it is recommended that they enable app extensions for relevant campaigns. This will enable the advertiser to be more likely to convert a customer from a onetime user of their service into a potential lifetime customer.

For more information, please view Bing Predicts.