79k Registrations Before the Whistle: How A Sportsbook Crushed Mexico Mobile Pops
FIFA World Cup 2026 is just weeks away. The opening match kicks off at Estadio Azteca, the whole of Mexico is glued to the build-up, and every sportsbook in the country is hunting for the same thing: registered, deposit-ready users – fast and cheap.
One Mexican giant already did it. Between January and April 2026, our partner used PropellerAds Mobile Popunder traffic to lock in 79,821 registrations at ~$10 a pop, with first-time deposits clocking in around $50 and a Reg→Dep conversion rate of ~17%. Total invested: $802,312.
Head-spinning, right? Let’s dive in!
Who is Our Partner – And Why Does This Matter Now?
Our partner is one of the biggest sportsbooks and iGaming brands in Mexico. They’ve been running on PropellerAds since 2022 through a performance-marketing agency, so this isn’t a one-off test; it’s a multi-year partnership with the data to prove it.
FIFA World Cup 2026 is the first World Cup to be co-hosted by Mexico, the United States, and Canada. Estadio Azteca opens the show. For a Mexican sportsbook, this is a once-in-a-generation acquisition window.
And the cheapest deposits? They happen to users who registered BEFORE the tournament – not during it, when CPMs spike.
Our partner’s plan for Q1 2026 was simple: build the audience now, monetize it during the matches.
The Brief: What Did Our Partner Actually Need?
Three things, no compromises:
- Volume in a single GEO. All traffic from Mexico. No widening to LATAM to “cheat” CPA down.
- Stable unit economics. ~$10 per registration. ~$50 per first-time deposit. Anything higher and the funnel breaks.
- A remarketing pool. Every dollar spent had to leave a registered user behind – someone the brand could retarget cheaply once tournament intent kicks in.
The format pick was easy: Mobile Pops on web, served on a pre-lander with a strong CTA and a short registration form. No app, no friction. Just sign up and go.
How Do you Scale in Just One GEO?
You build a machine, not a single campaign. Our partner’s account runs on a two-stage structure, and this is the part most buyers skip.
Stage 1: RON SmartCPM as the scout. Always-on RON (Run On Network – ads shown across the whole advertising network, not on specific zones) SmartCPM campaigns serve as zone-discovery engines. The real product isn’t the regs themselves: it’s a fresh, daily-updated list of zones that actually convert on Mexican mobile traffic.
Stage 2: Whitelist as the closer. Qualified zones from Stage 1 are promoted into focused Whitelist campaigns running SmartCPM and CPA Goa, pulling CPA comfortably under the $10 KPI.
Olexandr Shovkun, Sales Team Lead at PropellerAds:
RON SmartCPM and Whitelists aren’t competing strategies – they’re two halves of the same engine. The RON layer is your scout. The Whitelist layer is your closer. Skip the scout, and your closer has nothing to work with
What About Creatives?
Single universal preland? Not in this account. The team rotates different prelands depending on the site category of the publisher zone:
- Sports-themed prelands on sports-news zones
- iGaming-style prelands on entertainment zones
- Clean CTA-first prelands on the wider inventory
That single decision – match the preland to the zone, not to the buyer’s mood – is the most repeatable lever on Mobile Pops. Two campaigns with identical targeting and identical bids can have totally different CPAs depending on this one thing.
Why CPA Goal? And Why Only After RON?
Because once Stage 1 has produced enough conversion signal, the bidder takes over – and on this account, CPA Goal consistently delivers the lowest CPA layer in the funnel.
Olexandr Shovkun, Sales Team Lead at PropellerAds:
On a cold account, the CPA Goal bidder has nothing to optimize against. You have to feed it first. We never launch CPA Goal until the RON discovery layer has been running for a few weeks – that’s the single biggest reason this works.
And What About Remarketing?
This is the layer most performance buyers skip – and the one that quietly powers the tournament window.
Our partner retargets registered-but-not-deposited users and lapsed depositors through PropellerAds. Re-engagement deposits land at ~$17 – roughly 3× cheaper than the ~$50 cost of acquiring a fresh first-time depositor cold. Over four months, that layer alone delivered 47,164 re-engagement deposits.
And it only exists because the registered base was paid for BEFORE the World Cup, not during it. Sportsbooks that wait until June to start spending will pay tournament-window CPMs and miss this layer entirely.
Anything Else Under the Hood?
Inside whitelisted zones, the team segments by OS, browser family, and language. Mundane work – but on Mexican mobile traffic, the gap between Android and iOS, and between Spanish and English browser locale, is big enough to justify dedicated bid lines.
Small lever. Big compounding effect over four months.
The results – Jan–Apr 2026, Mexico, Mobile Pops
Full KPI delivery with stable scaling in MX
The campaign delivered stable results across the full window, combining efficient registrations, first-time deposits, and strong re-engagement volume.
Full KPI delivery was maintained while the campaign continued active scaling in Mexico.
What Сan You Steal From This for Your Own World Cup Play?
- Build before, monetize during. The cheapest deposits in this account are re-engagement deposits at ~$17: roughly 3× cheaper than a cold FTDs (first-time deposits), but they only exist because the registered base was paid for in January–April. Don’t wait until June.
- Separate discovery from harvest. Run RON SmartCPM as a continuous scout. Promote only winning zones into the Whitelist/CPA Goal. That’s the single biggest structural decision in this case.
- Match preland to zone, not to your mood. Rotate prelands by site category. Low effort, big delta on CPA.
- Don’t launch CPA Goal cold. Feed the bidder with RON conversions first. Otherwise, it has nothing to learn from.
- Web, not in-app. For a regulated sportsbook with a web product, Mobile Pops on web keeps the funnel measurable end-to-end.
Time to Grow?
World Cup 2026 is a once-in-a-generation acquisition window – and the cheapest deposits are about to disappear. Ready to launch your own play on Mobile Pops? Open a PropellerAds account today and let your account manager build you the same Run-On-Network → Whitelist machine.
This article is provided for informational and educational purposes only. All references to the FIFA World Cup 2026 and any related names, logos, or trademarks are used solely for descriptive purposes to identify the event being discussed. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or otherwise connected to FIFA World Cup 2026, or any of its organizers, partners, or official sponsors. Nothing in this article should be construed as an offer, promotion, or commercial communication associated with the tournament.
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