How we did it

We focused primarily on their most expensive advertising: radio, newspaper, and billboard. This was done over time as we rotated the designs and placements of their billboards. Interstate 80 was the closest billboard as their casino was right off the main freeway coming from Reno. Their other billboard locations were on Highway 50, where commuters came from another smaller community, Fallon, NV.

In our first baseline measurement, the I-80 billboard displaying a $20 free play offer for new players brought in over 60% of the self-reported new players. Newspaper and radio each came in under 5%.

The next measurement took down the I-80 free play design (we changed it to a generic slogan ad), and the self-reported new players from a billboard dropped to 13%. Radio and newspaper each came in under 5%.

The third part of our study tried moving the $20 free play offer billboard design to the Highway 50 location, swapping it out for the casino’s restaurant ad. Surprisingly, this only brought in 16% of self-reported new players. Again, radio and newspaper came in under 5%.

Conclusion

We confidently cut radio and newspaper advertising budgets to almost $0 ( we ran holiday food ads and quarterly free play coupons in the newspaper for a while longer). We also cut the Highway 50 billboards, saving thousands each month in sub-optimal performance.