Being seen and heard amid the crowd, all while staying on the right side of compliance standards and without blowing out your budgets, is vital. 

All of which is to say, having skilled marketing managers in place to help you get ahead is a game-changer when it comes to mastering this complex landscape. 

To bonus or not to bonus? 

Before you even get to the question of what kind of promotional strategy is the most effective for any given jurisdiction, your marketing team needs to be well versed in the rules and regulations governing bonus offers in every territory where you operate. 

These days, it’s not just enough for marketing managers to be up to date on the latest social media trends, they have to be well versed in the considerably more stodgy world of advertising regulations. 

A badly run ad campaign could see you lose out on revenue, but a non-compliant one could lead to fines, licence revocations and knock-on reputational effects with international regulators. 

The rules also vary wildly from country to country. In the UK, for example, there have historically been no limits on bonuses, but a new 10x cap on wagering requirements came into effect at the end of 2025. 

In Sweden, retention bonuses are forbidden, while in Belgium they are banned entirely. 

Which is before you get into the tax rules surrounding promotions. In some markets, bonus cash given out to customers can be set off against an operator’s tax bill, while in others they cannot. The landscape is particularly confusing in the United States, where some state laws allow this practice and others do not. 

All of these factors have a huge influence on the success of any particular campaign and it’s simply the reality in the modern world that a successful marketing manager has a thorough knowledge of the advertising rules for the markets in which they work. 

Numbers, numbers everywhere 

Marketing, ultimately, is a numbers game, so there’s another less glamorous attribute that is nevertheless worth being on the lookout for when it comes to hiring a new marketing manager. 

The success of a promotional campaign is not measured by sticking a finger in the air, nor even by company-wide revenue growth. 

Analytics are a core part of assessing how marketing is performing and learning what can be improved for the future. 

Knowing how to interpolate and understand statistics like sign-up conversion rates, customer acquisition costs and how engagement translates to deposits are highly valued skills for a marketing manager. 

That means a good head for numbers is a big boost, but luckily for the less mathematically literate among us, the growing use of AI in the workplace can fill that gap. 

There’s still no substitute for human expertise, so AI’s role in analysing marketing analytics is, for now, still best used in an advisory capacity. 

However it can work through some of the more crunchy elements of the numbers and allow a seasoned marketing pro to skip straight to the analysis and insights phase. 

So the best questions to ask in interviews are now ‘what would you do if presented with this output?’, rather than ‘do you understand the fundamentals of how the figures are calculated?’. 

But don’t forget the basics 

Of course, creativity in a marketing manager will always be valued. No matter how competent they may be at understanding figures or knowing the local regulations back to front, there is no substitute to top tier right-brained thinking. 

Understanding what will surprise and delight potential customers is an invaluable skill and something that should still be top of the pile when considering candidates. 

It’s possible to out-efficiency your competitive rivals, but it's much more powerful to out-think them. Marketing managers with a spark of invention will help you stay one step ahead of the crowd when it matters most. 

Pentasia has a proven track record of finding the right marketing hire at the right time for a vast array of different gambling businesses.  

Partnering with the Conexus Group also opens up a world of possibilities, as group companies lean in to support your hiring journey.