FanDuel sees huge growth in consumers’ advertising recall

As mentioned in my prior post, sports betting is spreading throughout the country, along with consumer awareness (and use) of the sports betting app FanDuel. In this follow-up piece, we look at consumer advertising recall for this popular sports betting app.

Using QuestBrand data, we’ve tracked ad recall for FanDuel since Fall 2022. Ad recall records whether consumers remember interacting with a brand’s ad in the past 30 days. If they do, our platform further captures where they interacted with the ad (across 13 distinct ad channels).

Our data suggests FanDuel’s ad spend is being put to good use. In the graph below, we can see that consumers’ FanDuel ad recall has been incrementally rising since early October 2022 and still remains on an upward trajectory (as of mid-March 2023). Their steeper rise in ad recall as of February may be partially attributed to their national Super Bowl ad featuring Rob Gronkowski.

Responses from three distinct consumer segments are tracked below:

• Ad recall from overall US adults (grey),
• Ohio adults (blue),
• Adults from states where online sports betting is legal (purple).

FanDuel’s Advertising Recall – 12 Week Moving Average

QuestBrand. 10/1/22-3/15/23. Base: Gen population of US adults, n=6,173. Base: Gen population of adults in Ohio, n=221. Base: Gen population of adults from states with legalized online sports betting, n=2,506.

Predictably, adults from states with legalized sports betting more often remember interacting with FanDuel’s advertising than overall US adults. This makes sense – FanDuel would not waste advertising dollars in states where their app is illegal to use.

Ohio is a particularly interesting case – the state just legalized sports betting in January 2023. This recent legalization accounts for Ohio’s steep increase in ad recall beginning in January. In February, Ohioans’ ad recall even surpassed consumers’ ad recall in other states with legalized online sports betting.

So, where are these adults seeing FanDuel ads?

In January and February 2023, Ohio adults report most often interacting with FanDuel’s ads through:

• Online/streaming video (16.0%)
• TV (cable/satellite/broadcast) (9.5%)
• Social media (9.2%)

In comparison, adults in states with legalized online sports gambling report most often seeing FanDuel’s ads on:

• TV (11.2%)
• Online/streaming video (9.5%)
• Online gaming (4.8%)

This perhaps signals a slightly different advertising strategy in Ohio from the other states.

QuestBrand. 1/1/23-2/28/23. Base: Gen population of US adults, n=3,039. Base: Gen population of adults in Ohio, n=117. Base: Gen population of US adults in states with legalized online sports betting, n=1,238.

As more states legalize sports betting, and FanDuel adjusts their advertising strategy accordingly, their ad recall numbers will continue to fluctuate.

Perhaps we will continue to see large spikes in newly legalized states like we did in Ohio if FanDuel strategically floods new markets with ads in an attempt to convert new app users.