GEO Spotlight 2025: PropellerAds reveals what’s driving user acquisition
PropellerAds, a global advertising network, releases GEO Spotlight 2025, outlining what’s driving user acquisition across Mexico, the Philippines, South Africa, Brazil, and the USA – and how iGaming brands can scale smarter in the year ahead.
Diversify to de-risk
With costs rising in saturated markets, performance teams are balancing Tier-1 GEOs (US) with Tier-2 and 3 (MX, PH, ZA, BR). PropellerAds’ global reach and local market insight help advertisers test faster, allocate budget dynamically, and sustain ROI across campaigns.
“Advertisers that balance their campaigns across diverse markets can better optimise spend and uncover more fresh performance opportunities,” says Renz Gonzales, Head of Business Development at PropellerAds.
Market highlights
PropellerAds’ performance data ranking the verticals by revenue (17 September – 17 October, 2025) reveals unique opportunities in each region:
- Mexico (MX): iGaming, Finance, eCommerce, Utilities, and Giveaways;
- Philippines (PH): Giveaways, iGaming, eCommerce, Finance;
- South Africa (ZA): iGaming, Finance, Giveaways;
- Brazil (BR): iGaming, Utilities, eCommerce, Finance, and Giveaways;
- United States (US): Sweepstakes gaming, eCommerce, Utilities, iGaming.
Winning ad formats and funnels
According to PropellerAds’ latest performance insights, Push, Interstitials, Onclick, and Telegram Mini Apps (TMA) ad formats remain the most effective ad formats for iGaming campaigns across key GEOs. Success depends on smart planning, mobile-first execution, and audience-specific funnel design.
Push and interstitials: event-driven engagement
For Push and Interstitials, advertisers are encouraged to test AI-generated creatives to identify the highest-converting ones. Campaigns built around upcoming sporting events – such as the NFL, Champions League, and national leagues – perform best when advertisers run scheduled pre-event creatives, warming up users before matches begin. Dynamic, localised headlines (“Barcelona vs Real tomorrow – who will win?”) increase engagement and drive registration intent, while creatives should stay copyright-safe and avoid official team logos or branded images.
Onclick: continuous optimisation and smart targeting
For Onclick campaigns, PropellerAds experts recommend maintaining always-on RON (Run-of-Network, broad reach across multiple traffic sources) activity to identify high-performing zones using Smart CPM optimisation. Each GEO and OS should be targeted separately for cleaner data and faster learning. For brands targeting sports fans, dedicated sports-site traffic can be attached to premium-rate campaigns through Account Managers – ensuring relevance and time-sensitive exposure during live events. Advertisers who implement postback tracking enable performance-based models (CPA Goal) to learn and bring maximum efficiency, purchasing relevant traffic within a set budget.
Telegram Mini Apps (TMA): Social and high-intent traffic
PropellerAds Telegram Mini Apps traffic enables advertisers to drive users directly into Telegram communities and activate them through in-app experiences. These interactive funnels deliver high-intent engagement and cost-efficient conversions, making them a powerful complement to Push and Onclick strategies – especially for iGaming brands building loyal user bases around sports and community-driven offers.
Audience retargeting and lifecycle value
Finally, advertisers are encouraged to collect and segment audiences, using PropellerAds’ retargeting tools to re-engage users who registered but didn’t deposit, or prompt active players toward repeat deposits. This approach not only raises CTR/CR, but also allows deeper insight into creative effectiveness and funnel optimisation.
Scale smarter with PropellerAds
PropellerAds continues to empower advertisers with tools designed to successfully implement funnels described above in life:
- The Zone Groups feature lets advertisers build and scale their own custom whitelists of well-performing ad zones/subzones based on specific offers or campaign performance, delivering exceptional precision and scalability for future launches.
- Multiple-event conversion tracking lets advertisers monitor user actions while CPA Goal algorithms optimise automatically for the first key event. This setup provides complete funnel visibility and enables PropellerAds experts to fine-tune campaigns using full-performance data.
- Activity and recency targeting, as well as retargeting tools for efficient re-engagement and deep audience segmentation;
- Pre-generated policy-friendly AutoCreatives for Push ads;
- Large, affordable Onclick volumes across focus GEOs for rapid hypothesis testing;
- Anti-fraud protection refined over 14 years in the market to keep traffic bot-free.
To explore PropellerAds’ GEO Spotlight insights or connect with the team at SiGMA Rome (3-6 November, booth #3233), visit the PropellerAds blog.
Disclaimer: The content presented on this page is strictly informational and intended for B2B purposes only. SiGMA Group is not responsible or liable for any business decisions, commercial agreements, or activities conducted by attendees, exhibitors, or third parties during or after the event. All participants are responsible for ensuring compliance with applicable laws and licensing requirements, including those of the Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli (ADM) in Italy. Our events are restricted to adults aged 18 and over.
