Acquiring Funded Traders for Fanatics Markets Across Five Paid Channels at Scale
Fanatics Markets is a prediction market platform where fans trade on sports outcomes, cultural events, and financial metrics. Launching into a field dominated by Kalshi, Polymarket, and Robinhood's event contracts, the platform needed to acquire and activate traders fast. We manage millions of dollars in monthly spend across paid social, Apple Search Ads, search, video, and programmatic while producing all ad creative and building the attribution infrastructure.
From Michael Rubin's Ecommerce Empire to a Prediction Market for 120 Million Sports Fans
Fanatics Inc started in 1995 when Alan and Mitch Trager opened Football Fanatics in Jacksonville, Florida, selling licensed NFL merchandise. Michael Rubin transformed the business after selling GSI Commerce to eBay for $2.4 billion in 2011, buying back the sports ecommerce arm for $277 million and building a vertical commerce platform now serving over 100 million fans. Funded by Insight Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Temasek, Alibaba Group, and Silver Lake across rounds totalling nearly a billion dollars, Fanatics expanded into collectibles, the $225 million PointsBet USA acquisition for sports betting, and live commerce through Fanatics Live.
In December 2025, Fanatics launched Fanatics Markets, a prediction market platform where users trade binary and multi-outcome contracts on sports results, player statistics, and cultural events. Built on blockchain settlement with a Crypto.com partnership for fiat and crypto onramps, the platform competes with Kalshi, Polymarket, and Robinhood's event contracts for 62 million active US participants. We manage millions in monthly spend across paid social, Apple Search Ads, search, video, and programmatic, producing all creative and building the attribution layer that ties every dollar to a funded account.
Allocating 7 Figures Monthly Across Five Channels Based on Funded Account CPA
We allocate Fanatics Markets' budget across Meta, TikTok, Apple Search Ads, Google Ads, and The Trade Desk programmatic. Meta Advantage+ App campaigns optimise for KYC completion events, not installs, because installs without identity verification have zero lifetime value in regulated prediction markets. Apple Search Ads runs competitor conquesting against Kalshi and Polymarket branded terms alongside category queries. Budget shifts between channels weekly based on funded-account CPA, with event-driven surges pre-allocated around NFL, NBA, and MLB calendars where trading volume spikes 10x and acquisition costs drop as intent peaks.
Three Creative Formats That Teach Contract Mechanics While Driving First Trades
Prediction markets require creative that educates and converts simultaneously. Most users have never traded an event contract, so our pipeline produces three distinct formats for Fanatics Markets. UGC testimonials show real traders explaining their first contract. Motion graphics animate how binary outcomes settle at $1 or $0, demystifying the mechanic. Event-specific statics reference live matchups like NFL playoff scenarios and NBA MVP races. Each variant enters a 72-hour window measured on funded-account CPA, with failures paused automatically and winners receiving scaled spend. The entire library rotates on a three-week cycle to prevent fatigue across a finite sports-fan audience.
An Hourly Dashboard That Reconciles Platform Installs Against Server Side Funding Events
Fanatics Markets' attribution layer tracks the full journey from ad impression through app install, KYC verification, account funding, and first trade. Our hourly-refresh dashboard pulls data from Meta, Apple Search Ads, Google, and The Trade Desk into a unified view, surfacing CPA at each funnel stage by channel, creative variant, and event type. This granularity lets us reallocate budget intraday during high-volume events like the Super Bowl rather than waiting for weekly reviews. We reconcile platform-reported installs against server-side KYC and funding events to eliminate overcounting, ensuring every dollar of the monthly spend ties to verified trader acquisition.
Engineering a Five Channel Funnel That Converts Sports Fans into Funded Traders
The technical challenge in prediction market acquisition is funnel depth. A click means nothing until a user downloads the app, completes KYC verification, funds an account, and places a first trade. We architect every channel around this four-step conversion chain, optimising for the deepest event each platform can reliably report.
On Meta, Advantage+ App campaigns optimise toward KYC completion rather than install, using value-based lookalikes seeded from users who funded within 48 hours of signup. Apple Search Ads captures branded queries for Kalshi, Polymarket, and category terms like 'prediction market app,' where intent is highest and CPA to first trade runs significantly below social channels. Google Ads targets event-specific queries such as 'Super Bowl contracts' and 'NBA prediction market' via exact and phrase match, feeding dedicated App campaign asset groups. Programmatic runs through The Trade Desk with sports inventory packages across ESPN, Bleacher Report, and The Athletic, frequency-capped at four weekly impressions to manage spend at the 7 figure monthly spend level. Creative ships as UGC testimonials, motion explainers of contract mechanics, and event-timed statics for NFL, NBA, and MLB calendars, each variant entering a 72-hour kill-or-scale window against funded-account CPA thresholds.
Prediction Markets Reward the Fastest Acquirer and Fanatics Is Building That Advantage
The engagement has delivered a 17% lift in KYC completion rates, 24% more funded accounts, and a 31% reduction in CPA to first trade. These gains compound because prediction markets live on liquidity. Each funded trader increases market depth, tightens spreads, and attracts the next cohort of participants.
Our key innovation is treating event calendars as the primary budget allocation framework. Super Bowl week generates 10x normal trading volume sector-wide, so we pre-build creative, pre-scale budgets, and pre-populate Apple Search Ads with event-specific keywords weeks before kick-off. This event-led structure captures demand spikes that slower competitors miss, converting casual sports fans during peak attention windows when Kalshi and Polymarket also surge.
The US prediction market is projected at $50 billion with CFTC tailwinds after 2024 event-contract approvals. Among 18 to 34 year olds, 85% access sports content on mobile and 60% of Gen Z prefer crypto onramps, precisely the demographic Fanatics Markets' Crypto.com integration targets. The emerging battleground is live in-game contracts where real-time trading during an NBA quarter or NFL drive converts passive viewers into active traders, a format that rewards the platform with the deepest liquidity and fastest settlement.
