Playbooks

LeadJourney for iGaming & Sports Betting

The complete setup for sportsbooks, casinos and iGaming operators – connect your ad platforms, track every step from click to registration to First-Time Deposit (FTD), then fold in the value that comes after (qualifying deposits, redeposits and Net Gaming Revenue) through your player platform or CRM, and see true CPR, CPA per FTD, NGR and player LTV per campaign, ad set and ad.

In iGaming the click is cheap and the deposit is everything. A campaign that delivers thousands of registrations but few First-Time Deposits (FTDs) is burning budget; the one that brings fewer players who deposit and keep depositing is the one to scale. This is the end-to-end playbook for sportsbooks, casinos and iGaming operators: connect your ad platforms, track the full path from click → registration → FTD, then bring in the value that comes after the FTD – qualifying deposits, redeposits and Net Gaming Revenue (NGR) – so LeadJourney can show you CPR, CPA per FTD, NGR and player LTV down to the individual ad.

What you'll be able to see

For every channel → campaign → ad set → ad: clicks, cost, registrations, FTDs, average deposit, redeposits, NGR, player LTV, CPA per FTD and ROAS – so you know which campaign brings players who deposit and stay, and which one quietly fills your funnel with sign-ups that never fund.

Two acquisition motions, one workspace

Most operators run two motions at once: direct paid media (Google's gambling-certified search, Meta where permitted, programmatic, ASO/app installs) and affiliate traffic (partners paid on CPA, revenue share or hybrid). LeadJourney measures both in the same workspace, so every euro of spend – and every affiliate payout – is judged against the deposits and NGR it actually produced.

The chain you're building

LeadJourney stitches together the click you paid for, the registration it caused, and the deposits and gaming revenue that follow – often weeks later:

Ad click → tracked visitor → registration → First-Time Deposit → redeposits → NGR & player LTV.

The catch that's unique to iGaming: the FTD and everything after it fire server-side, days or weeks later, inside your player platform – long after the browser is gone. The fix is one idea you'll set up in step 3 – capture the click ID once at registration, store it on the player, and replay it on every later event. If you want the concept first, read How attribution works.

What you'll set up

StepCoversWhy it matters
1. The advertiser foundationAd platforms, tracking domain, scriptSyncs spend and tracks every click – nothing attributes without it.
2. Map your iGaming funnelRegistration → FTD → redeposit → NGRDecides which events you send and what your reports show.
3. Capture & replay the click IDStore it on the player at registrationTies the FTD and downstream value – which fire days later – back to the ad.
4. Track the First-Time DepositThe headline conversion, via your platform / CRMUnlocks CPA per FTD, average deposit and ROAS.
5. Track post-FTD valueRedeposits, NGR, reactivationTurns counts into real player value and LTV.
6. iGaming reportingCPR, CPA/FTD, NGR, LTV, ROASThe numbers an acquisition team actually steers on.

Build the advertiser foundation

Connect the ad platforms you spend on so cost syncs automatically, add a first-party tracking domain, and install the tracking script so every click and page view on your site is recorded. This is the same base every workspace needs – the Advertiser playbook walks through it once, then come back here for the iGaming-specific parts.

Advertiser playbook

The foundation: connect ad platforms, set up a tracking domain, install the script.

A first-party tracking domain matters more in iGaming

Sportsbook and casino audiences run ad blockers and tracking-protection at high rates, and many land via affiliate redirects. A first-party tracking domain keeps click IDs intact where third-party cookies would be dropped – so more registrations actually match back to the ad that earned them.

Map your iGaming funnel

Decide which stages exist for your product and name each event after what your team already says (REG, FTD, QFTD, RD, NGR). Each event name is just the type you send.

Funnel stageWhat you call itEvent typeHow you send itRevenue?
VisitClick / traffic(tracking script)Automatic
RegistrationREG / sign-upLeadForm listener or server route
First-Time DepositFTDWonClientServer route from your platform / CRM✓ deposit amount
Qualifying depositQFTD / qualifiedQualifiedDepositServer routeoptional
RedepositRDRedepositServer route
Net Gaming RevenueNGRNGRUpdateNightly cron / server route
ReactivationReactivated playerReactivationServer routeoptional

Track your iGaming funnel

The complete event-by-event guide – registration, FTD, redeposits and NGR, with code.

You don't need every stage on day one

Two stages already give a usable funnel: Registration (Lead) and First-Time Deposit (WonClient). That alone gets you CPR and CPA per FTD. Add redeposits and NGR once those are flowing.

Capture the click ID at registration – and replay it forever

Here's the iGaming twist: the click ID lives in the browser at registration, but the FTD, redeposits and NGR happen later, server-side, inside your player platform – with no browser to read the click ID from. The fix is the single most important idea in iGaming tracking:

Capture the click ID once, store it on the player, replay it forever

At registration, read localStorage.getItem('clickId') and save it on the player record (a column like lj_click_id). Every later event – FTD, redeposit, NGR – reads that stored value back and sends it along. One capture, reused for the whole player lifetime. Always send the player's email (and phone, which iGaming verifies anyway) too, as durable backup match keys.

The capture-and-replay pattern

Store the click ID on the player at registration, and the server route that replays it.

This is also where your player platform / CRM comes in: it's the system that knows when an FTD happens, so it's the system that sends the FTD and every later event to LeadJourney's Conversion API (step 4). If you run a supported CRM, you can map these from there instead – HubSpot · Pipedrive · Close · Attio.

Track the First-Time Deposit

The FTD is the conversion that matters – the moment a registration becomes a funded player. Your player platform or CRM fires it server-side to LeadJourney's Conversion API as a WonClient, replaying the stored click ID and carrying the deposit amount as revenue. That single event unlocks CPA per FTD, average deposit and ROAS per campaign.

Send the FTD

The server route and the exact FTD payload, with the deposit amount as revenue.

Optimise toward the FTD, not just the registration

Turn Send back to Ads on for both Lead and WonClient so platforms can optimise toward the step you care about. Many operators optimise toward registrations early for volume, then switch to optimising toward FTDs once there's enough deposit data – the headline metric is CPA per FTD. See Events & the Events Manager.

Track the value that comes after the FTD

A funded player is the start, not the finish. Send the post-FTD stages so counts turn into real player value and you can compare campaigns on the money players actually generate, not just how many deposited once.

Redeposits, NGR & reactivation

Send redeposits and NGR without double-counting, and reactivate churned players.

  • Qualifying deposit (QualifiedDeposit) – a deposit that clears your minimum / bonus terms. Useful when raw FTDs include tiny or bonus-only deposits you don't count as real.
  • Redeposit (Redeposit) – each subsequent deposit. Send it with revenue to grow the player's value over time.
  • Net Gaming Revenue (NGRUpdate) – the real revenue a player generates after winnings and bonus cost. Send it from a nightly cron so each campaign's NGR (and player LTV) builds up.
  • Reactivation (Reactivation) – a dormant player who returns and deposits again, so you can see which campaigns bring players worth winning back.

Bring affiliate traffic into the same reports

Affiliates and influencers are a huge slice of iGaming acquisition. Because they send players to your registration page – which already carries the tracking script – their players are tracked like any other channel. Tag the source so you can compare affiliates against your direct paid media on the same CPR / CPA / NGR basis.

Separate affiliate from direct media

Use lj_* / UTM source tags so each affiliate and partner shows up as its own channel.

  • Give each affiliate or partner a unique source / sub-id in their link (built with the UTM Builder or your own URL parameters) so it lands as a distinct traffic channel.
  • Now CPA per FTD, redeposits and NGR are visible per affiliate, so you can settle CPA / revenue-share / hybrid deals against the value each partner truly delivered – not just the FTDs they claimed.

Build iGaming reporting

With spend on one side and deposits/NGR on the other, the metrics an acquisition team lives on fall out of the data. Use the Report Builder to slice cost ÷ FTDs per campaign (CPA per FTD), registration→FTD conversion rate, and NGR ÷ players (player value), then pin the views your team watches to a Dashboard. Add any non-API spend (affiliate fees, sponsorships, SEO) under Channel Costs so CPA isn't flattering.

Report Builder

Build CPA-per-FTD, reg→FTD rate and NGR/LTV views per campaign and save them to a dashboard.

See your results

Once registrations, FTDs, redeposits and NGR are flowing, the reports answer the questions an iGaming acquisition team lives on:

  • Traffic Channel Report – every source side by side: clicks, cost, registrations, FTDs, NGR, ROAS and profit. Your "where should the budget go?" view, with affiliates next to direct media.
  • Campaign Report – drill campaign → ad set → ad, then sort by FTDs, average deposit or NGR to find what to scale and what to cut.
  • Lead Overview – the real players behind the numbers, each with its full journey from first click through registration to FTD and beyond.
  • Report Builder & Dashboards – build CPA-per-FTD, reg→FTD rate and NGR/LTV views and pin them where the team will see them.

Just ask

Don't want to build a report? Ask in plain English with Ask Atlas – "Which campaign had the lowest cost per FTD last month, and what was its average deposit?"

Attribution for the registration→FTD gap

A player often registers from an ad today and makes their First-Time Deposit days or weeks later, via a brand search or a direct visit. With last click that FTD lands on Direct and the ad that created the player looks worthless. For iGaming, switch the report's Attribution dropdown to first click so the channel that acquired the player gets the credit – and make sure your attribution window covers the real gap between registration and deposit (often 30–90 days, not the default). It only changes the view, never the data. See Attribution models.

Tips for clean iGaming data

  • Store the click ID at registration – this is the whole game. Without it, the FTD and every deposit after it fire server-side with nothing to attribute them to. Email and phone are your backup, not your primary key.
  • Always send a revenue value on the FTD. Without it you get FTD counts but no average deposit, CPA payback or ROAS.
  • Decide what counts as a "real" FTD. If bonus-only or tiny deposits inflate your numbers, track a separate QualifiedDeposit for deposits that clear your threshold and report on that.
  • De-dupe server events. Player-platform webhooks retry and crons re-scan, so set Lead and QualifiedDeposit to Ignore duplicate postbacks – an FTD happens once per player by definition.
  • Add non-API spend. Affiliate payouts, sponsorships and SEO won't sync from an ad platform – add them under Channel Costs so blended CPA is real.

Consent, age-gating and ad-network rules are yours to own

iGaming advertising is heavily regulated and varies by market. LeadJourney is the measurement layer – it works regardless of which networks you run, but it's on you to fire tracking only after the player's consent, to respect age / geo restrictions, and to meet each platform's gambling-advertising rules. Treat the patterns here as the technical how-to, not legal advice.

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