285K Purchases in One Month: Mobile-First is Big for iGaming Ads

In October 2026 alone, campaigns running on Adcash in Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia generated more than 285,000 eCommerce purchases and around 7,500 travel bookings. The audience in these markets clicks, and it buys.

eCommerce isn’t the only vertical that’s been putting that traffic to work. In the Philippines, an iGaming campaign cut its eCPA from more than $20 to $16, helped by players who kept coming back to deposit. Shopping campaigns tend to peak around sale days. This sort of iGaming traffic is both future- and season-proof.

Below, you’ll find what happened in each market, how the iGaming campaign got there, and the setup you can use ahead of 12.12 and keep it going way into 2027.

Why Southeast Asia, Why Now

Southeast Asia’s digital economy keeps growing. The latest e-Conomy SEA report from Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company expects it to reach $368 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV) in 2026, up 17% from last year. eCommerce is the largest part, with GMV forecast at $226 billion.

That growth is spread across the region. According to Momentum Works, Indonesia remained the largest eCommerce market in 2025, with 37% of platform GMV. Malaysia grew 47.6% that year, one of the two fastest-growing markets in Southeast Asia, and the Philippines posted double-digit growth.

More spending online means more people seeing and clicking on offers every day. That’s the traffic behind the campaigns in this study.

What the October Numbers Show

Indonesia is the region’s biggest eCommerce market, and it produced the biggest single result: more than 80,000 purchases from campaigns promoting Shopee, plus more than 15,000 from campaigns promoting TikTok Shop. The same audience was planning trips too, with campaigns promoting Traveloka driving around 6,860 bookings.

The Philippines delivered the most eCommerce purchases of the three markets, more than 108,000. Campaigns promoting Shopee, TikTok Shop and Lazada all ran at scale, which shows how broad the online audience is. It’s also where the iGaming campaign below ran.

Malaysia showed that the audience converts on more than one kind of offer. Campaigns promoting TikTok Shop and Shopee each generated more than 40,000 purchases, and campaigns promoting Traveloka added around 680 bookings.

iGaming in the Philippines: From $20+ to $16 eCPA

Can that audience work for other verticals? An iGaming campaign in the Philippines put it to the test. It launched on sports traffic. For an iGaming offer, that’s the obvious place to start. The eCPA sat above $20. Definitely room for improvement.

The first change was to widen the targeting. Alongside sports, the advertiser added traffic from the NSWF category. Naturally thrill seeking, the users there converted too, and the eCPA started to fall.

The second change was retargeting. The wider targeting had built a bigger pool of players who had already registered or deposited. The advertiser went back to them with new creatives built around repeat deposits.

It paid off. Almost half of registered players (49%) made a first deposit, and repeat deposits made up 64% of all deposits in October. Each repeat deposit lowered the cost per action, which brought the eCPA down to $16, at least 20% lower than where the campaign started.

The lesson for other advertisers: your audience may sit outside your own vertical. Test the categories next to it, then use retargeting to bring your best players back.

Demand That Doesn’t Wait for Sales Days

Shopping campaigns in the region often build around big sale days like 9.9, 11.11, and 12.12. iGaming and Sports demand doesn’t follow the same seasonal spikes. Players deposit around the matches and events they care about, all year round. That makes iGaming a steady vertical to build on in Southeast Asia with Adcash, in December and every month after.

The Setup Behind the Results

Run Each Market on Its Own

Give each market you target its own campaign, budget, and reporting. Results in October varied between countries, even for campaigns promoting the same platform. One regional campaign would mix those results. You couldn’t see which market converts best for your offer so you couldn’t move any budget toward it. For iGaming, check local rules before you launch, since regulation differs from country to country.

Start With Pop-Under, Then Add More

Use Pop-Under for acquisition testing. A Pop-Under ad opens in a new window behind the current tab. The user sees it once they finish what they’re doing, with the full screen given to your offer. That full-page view at volume makes it a quick way to find out what converts.

Once you have data, test the other formats in separate campaigns so you can see what each one adds. In-Page Push ads look like notifications and appear directly on the page, with no opt-in needed. Display ads sit in fixed spots like headers and sidebars, and they suit promotions and sale-day offers. Video ads run in-stream or as a slider at the bottom of the screen, which helps when a product is easier to show than to describe.

Before you know it, you’ll find the winning combinations which allow you to scale. 

Send Traffic Where the Buying Happens

For eCommerce, link to specific product and shop pages, especially trending products. Compare direct links with localized promotional landing pages where the brand allows it. A homepage makes the shopper do the searching. A product page puts the offer in front of them straight away.

For iGaming, A/B test pages built around a sport, such as football, UFC or basketball, against standard registration or welcome bonus pages. Not only that, but have event-themed pages prepped and ready to deploy for larger events. Pages that match a game-day are known to perform a lot better than generic ones. 

Start Wide, Then Narrow

It’s tempting to start carefully, with tight targeting and low bids. A conservative start limits what you can learn. The Philippines iGaming campaign shows the alternative: its eCPA started to fall once the targeting went wider.

Let the data show you the productive placements. Then adjust bids by source and build whitelists once enough conversions come in. For CPM campaigns, Auto Rules can do much of this work for you. Set your result thresholds, and Auto Rules adjusts the campaign automatically when performance changes.

Scale on Approved Conversions

Raise budgets when approved conversions and purchase economics stay stable. Give the numbers time first. In eCommerce and travel, attribution delays, cancellations, and returns can all change the picture after the first report.

Holidays Are Coming: 11.11 is Here. 12.12 is Next

Sale days bring more shoppers and more competition for the same traffic. If your bids and budgets stay at their usual level, your campaigns can lose their share of traffic when demand peaks.

Raise daily budgets and bids as the date gets closer, and point traffic at the products and offers built for the sale. If 11.11 came too fast, 12.12 is the next chance to put the same setup to work. For more on the 11.11 audience, read our Singles Day advertising guide. It covers the key dates and strategy in depth.

Conclusion

October showed that Southeast Asian traffic converts, at scale and across very different offers. eCommerce proved the audience. The iGaming campaign in the Philippines showed what another vertical can build on top of it: a lower eCPA and players who keep coming back.

If you run iGaming, dating, or another vertical with year-round demand, this is traffic worth testing.