Money-Saving Marketing Strategies
By Insights Online
Published October 20, 2026
Out of necessity, many lotteries have become experts in developing cost-saving strategies and initiatives that help provide the most bang for their limited bucks. Yet even those not facing the most limited budgets also take advantage of clever ways to reduce expenditures. We appreciate those lotteries that shared some of their money-saving strategies and thank their marketing and communications teams; their edited responses follow.
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Arizona Lottery
Cost-saving strategies and efficiencies:
We continue to optimize our spending within the budget confines every fiscal year. The largest efficiencies we’ve realized come from reducing costly sports and event-based marketing and redirecting those funds to better support our retail partners. This goes beyond the investment, as event marketing is very time intensive and often does not offer a turnkey solution, with heavy activation schedules that require additional staffing support.
Most bang for the buck:
Without a doubt, game families and holiday games. We track net ROI for every major campaign we launch, so we understand what is the most effective way to support a product launch players are anticipating. When it comes to popular families like Multiplier, our marketing investments can be conservative while still generating strong results. This frees funds up to invest in other promotions that better reach casual players.
Recent budget-minded campaigns:
Rather than producing expensive standalone efforts for every Tier 2 campaign, we established our overarching “Love the Play” master-brand creative framework. By capturing all broadcast and digital video content in a single consolidated shoot, we maximize our production resources while maintaining the flexibility to rotate different products in and out as priorities shift. We still reserve full-scale productions strictly for our Tier 1 launches.
Historically, our always-on jackpot activation media buy balanced jackpot messaging when active, and winner awareness messaging when dormant. For FY27, we shifted our default/dormant messaging from winner awareness to focus on educating players about the product to increase impressions to support softening Scratchers sales.
Colorado Lottery
Cost-saving strategies and efficiencies:
We spend our allowed budget wisely and ensure it works as hard as possible across our marketing efforts. For any outsourced projects, our agency partner shares at minimum two bids, in part so that we can compare costs. We have also found efficiencies in creative asset production. One example is doing multiple days of video shoots in a row. We have created a master services agreement with our talent to establish the cost of services for multiple years. This includes a fair, set fee for trigger commercial licensing, regardless of how much the commercials run.
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Recent budget-minded campaigns:
Our Winning Country creative platform allows us to plan and create efficiently across campaigns. The concept is based on showing off the great outdoors of Colorado, which takes advantage of the natural beauty of our state, limiting the need for high-cost production. Currently, we are using this tactic for product campaigns, including video ads, radio ads, point of sale, paid media and other standard channels. As noted earlier, we have a multi-year agreement with our talent and hope to expand more.
Kentucky Lottery
Cost-saving strategies and efficiencies:
We’ve been big proponents of lotteries sharing creative, and are big fans of the work some of our peers do. So, if they have a great ad that we could borrow or tweak that makes sense in Kentucky, it’s a lot less expensive to ask our lottery friends if we can use an ad they have created, pay talent residuals and update a logo than it is to turn on a camera and generate a new concept.
Most bang for the buck:
We partner with our Communications Department to create high-valued, earned media and social media opportunities for our products, players, winners, promotions, retailers and sponsorship/community partnership messaging.
Recent budget-minded campaigns:
A favorite this year is our first use of generative AI to create and support the launch of Millionaire for Life in Kentucky. Being our first venture with AI, there were some unknowns, but our teams delivered the concept and the output in a meaningful way. And it is a substantial cost-savings versus filming a live action TV spot.
Loto-Québec
Cost-saving strategies and efficiencies:
We focus on maximizing the value and longevity of our existing assets. Some of our key cost-saving strategies include:
Repurposing and adapting creative assets across products, platforms and formats.
Planning and negotiating media investments annually, then rotating different creative executions within the media plan.
Prioritizing owned channels, including our website, social media platforms, point-of-sale network and customer communications.
Consolidating production needs whenever possible to create content more efficiently.
We typically find the greatest efficiencies by combining long-term media planning with adaptable creative assets and a strong use of owned channels.
Most bang for the buck:
Digital and social media generally provide the strongest value because they allow us to reach specific audiences, optimize campaigns in real time and connect advertising directly to online sales. Dark social posts are particularly effective because they can be tailored to different audience segments and include a clear call to action to purchase lottery products online. They also allow us to test different messages, visuals and formats, then shift investments toward the best-performing executions.
Recent budget-minded campaigns:
Many of our social media campaigns are designed with budget efficiency in mind. We often begin with a limited number of creative assets that can be adapted into several formats and targeted to different audience segments. Campaigns typically combine targeted dark posts and paid social content; have clear calls to action directing customers to online purchase; have ongoing optimization based on campaign performance; and get support from owned channels, such as our website, organic social media and point-of-sale network.
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Massachusetts Lottery
Cost-saving strategies and efficiencies:
Our most impactful cost-saving strategy comes from our in-house creative operations. With a talented (four-time Emmy Award-winning) team of producers, designers, animators, and editors, we manage the entire lifecycle of our creative and marketing work from initial concepts and storyboards to filming and post-production. Production expenses are generally kept under $3,000 per shoot by casting employees and sourcing props resourcefully. About 40 Lottery employees have been in our commercials over the past five years.
We also strategically purchase $1 million in out-of-home billboard space in bulk at the beginning of each fiscal year. This allows us to lock in lower rates, avoid price fluctuations, and maintain an “always-on” statewide presence. Throughout the year, we rotate messaging across this inventory to highlight new game launches, jackpots, and evergreen campaigns. Additionally, we maximize our operational assets by applying full vehicle wraps to our sales representatives’ vehicles and service fleet, turning daily staff travel into high-impact mobile billboards across Massachusetts.
By minimizing creative production costs, we can allocate more of our budget toward high-performing ad placements and live events that directly engage our player base such as our “Summer Spin & Win” events hosted at each of our claim centers.
Recent budget-minded campaigns:
In 2025 we produced a three-part mini-series, spoofing Hallmark holiday movies, to announce the winners of our “Holiday Words” campaign. By casting Lottery employees and filming during our property rental at the same time we shoot all of our holiday commercials, we kept costs at under $1,000 to create an engaging social media series where viewers could watch live to see if they were a winner.
Missouri Lottery
Cost-saving strategies and efficiencies:
We look at the entire fiscal year as a whole to help maximize production schedules and budgets. Creating multiple spots – even for separate ad campaigns – during the same week that agency, production and other teams are already together has provided cost savings.
With a recent increase in our ad budget, one of our first goals is to make sure we have some sort of statewide advertising in the market all 12 months of the year. Because our budget won’t accommodate full ad campaigns to run throughout the entire year, we have assessed which campaigns will run across all channels, while also exploring how others can be optimized using fewer mediums. For example, a smaller campaign may run only on placed-based OOH and audio. Another may run exclusively on OLTV/CTV or paid social.
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New Mexico Lottery
Cost-saving strategies and efficiencies:
The New Mexico Lottery purchases media for the entire year. This allows us to negotiate lower rates and no-charge media. We can also change campaigns at will throughout the year. Each year, we receive approximately the same amount as we spend on cost-saving, no-charge, and lower-charge media, essentially doubling the value of our media spend. We also write and produce all of our content in-house, including TV and radio.
Most bang for the buck:
In addition to the added value received from our annual media buys, we can change campaigns at a moment’s notice because the media buys are not tied to any one product. This allows for enormous flexibility. Additionally, because we create all our media (digital, print, TV, and radio) in-house, we can move fast and save significant dollars on production. Prior to this change, we were limited to three to five campaign productions annually, and a limited number of media buys. We now produce about 12-15 new TV and radio campaigns annually and are present in the media year-round.
Recent budget-minded campaigns:
Recently, we created a Holiday 2nd Chance TV spot with stock footage. Music and video were used at no additional cost beyond our annual stock media membership. The spot was produced quickly and offers a unique look that stands out.
Oklahoma Lottery
Cost-saving strategies and efficiencies:
We try to make our marketing dollars work as hard as possible while still maintaining the reach and frequency needed to support our games and player engagement. On the paid media side, we negotiate rates directly with media partners and purchase inventory directly whenever possible. These relationships have helped us secure premium placements, particularly across streaming and connected TV, at more competitive rates.
We also improve efficiency through audience targeting, campaign optimization and retargeting. As our new app and website expand our CRM capabilities, we will be able to use first-party data to make our targeting more precise and our media investment more effective.
Most bang for the buck:
Our strongest returns come from making each investment work harder across media, creative and owned channels.
On the media side, we use bulk negotiations, direct buys and added-value opportunities to increase our purchasing power. We also look beyond paid impressions when evaluating partnerships and sponsorships, making full use of included content, social, promotional and experiential opportunities. Creatively, we prioritize campaign platforms that can support multiple products, seasons and formats. When an existing concept remains relevant and continues to resonate in the market, we look for ways to extend or refresh it rather than developing something entirely new simply for the sake of novelty.
We also plan production around families of assets. A single shoot or creative concept should generate content for broadcast, streaming, social, digital, CRM, retail and other placements whenever possible. Coordinating paid media with owned channels such as the app, website, email and Players Club communications extends the reach of the work without requiring the same level of additional media investment.
Ongoing testing and optimization help us shift resources toward the audiences, messages and placements producing the strongest results. AI-assisted production can support these strategies by accelerating versioning, adaptations and selected production tasks, but it is one tool within a broader approach to efficiency. Experienced judgment remains essential to determining where it adds value and where traditional production is the better choice.
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Recent budget-minded campaigns:
This year’s NIL partnerships with the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University are a strong example. We developed a planning framework to evaluate and select concepts before production, which allowed us to capture three distinct creative concepts and video themes within a single shoot. The result was a broader mix of usable content from the athlete time and production budget available, without requiring separate shoots for each idea.
We are applying a different form of production efficiency to this year’s holiday campaign by using new creative technology to extend the life of an established campaign platform. Instead of treating each season as requiring an entirely new live-action production, we are creating new, product-specific executions within an existing creative world. AI-enabled production techniques allow us to update visuals, incorporate the current holiday Scratchers and develop new campaign variations without the cost, time and logistical demands of an additional in-person shoot. This is not simply a matter of re-editing or repurposing existing assets. It allows us to evolve a campaign that still has relevance in the market, keep the creative current and direct more of the available budget toward reaching players.
In both cases, the goal is to get more usable creative from the production investment while still keeping the work fresh and relevant for players.
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Pennsylvania Lottery
Cost-saving strategies and efficiencies:
We focus on maximizing efficiency by balancing broad reach with targeted digital strategies. In digital channels, we avoid over-segmenting audiences so the platforms can optimize delivery more effectively, while still reaching eligible Pennsylvania consumers. Our long-standing relationships with Pennsylvania media partners also allow us to maintain highly competitive, often grandfathered rates, particularly across traditional channels such as TV and out-of-home, helping us manage rising media. Throughout every campaign, we treat efficiency as an active process, monitoring performance and shifting investment toward the audiences, partners, and tactics that deliver the strongest results.
Most bang for the buck:
We focus on using the right mix of channels and targeting each campaign’s specific objectives. For retail products, that often means prioritizing broad, cost-effective awareness, while online play allows for more targeted strategies aimed at audiences with higher registration and deposit potential. Once we determine the audience and approach, strong negotiation and marketplace expertise help ensure we secure the best possible value for every advertising dollar.
Recent budget-minded campaigns:
A recent example of maximizing impact with a focused budget is the Millionaire for Life campaign. Rather than spreading spend across multiple channels, we focused on Meta to build meaningful reach and frequency within one efficient platform. We focused on adults 18–44 based on research showing younger consumers were particularly receptive, giving us both a strong audience opportunity and enough scale for Meta to optimize delivery. Concentrating on the budget in this way allowed us to reinforce the campaign message over two months without fragmenting delivery. The results demonstrated the value of this approach, with Millionaire for Life outperforming Cash4Life in fiscal year 2024-25 and showing how focused investment can drive measurable impact.
Texas Lottery
Cost-saving strategies and efficiencies:
All design and creative production services are managed and completed in-house. Most media purchases are negotiated through annual or two-year agreements, which give us the most bang for the buck.
Recent budget-minded campaigns:
To support draw game player promotions taking place on specific days, social media was used to promote the Texas Two Step Monday Madness campaign. Each Monday throughout March, paid social media, retail POS, website, and mobile app messaging were leveraged to promote the player promotion. The campaign delivered 3,530,755 impressions, significantly exceeding the estimated 2,428,570 impressions. Overall, the campaign over-delivered by 45%.
Virginia Lottery
Cost-saving strategies and efficiencies:
There are three cost-saving strategies that we have implemented (or are in the process of implementing):
We have decided to bring the development of creative concepts and the management of production company partners in-house, rather than maintaining the services of a separate creative advertising agency.
For select video productions, we have completed the editing of raw footage internally, rather than using a production partner. We have also produced multiple other assets internally that traditionally may have been completed by an agency partner.
We are extending campaign flight times and reusing previously produced campaigns to gain additional value from production costs.
Most bang for the buck:
While we are still transitioning to bringing more creative control in-house, this strategy will likely have the most significant impact because it will generate meaningful efficiencies and allow us to better leverage internal resources.
Recent budget-minded campaigns:
Last year, the Virginia Lottery produced a new Gift Responsibly advertisement. The creative concept development, production company management, and editing were all handled internally, resulting in a strong 30-second spot that was completed on a budget of less than $50,000.
Wisconsin Lottery
Cost-saving strategies and efficiencies:
A cost-saving strategy the Wisconsin Lottery uses year after year has been “donut spots” for scratch ticket products and lotto game limited time offers. A donut spot has fixed opening and closing frames (aka the donut “shell”), with the middle of the spot (aka the “hole” of the donut) having a flexible message customized for a particular scratch ticket or a lotto game limited time offer. In other words, the beginning and ending of the spot stays the same with a middle section that is changeable based on the scratch or lotto initiative that is being supported.
Swapping out the middle of a spot costs substantially less than a full production of an original spot. For minimal cost, we can change out background coloring, show multiple scratch tickets, and update music to match the ticket or offer.
These spots help keep overall TV productions down while allowing us to support three to four scratch ticket products and two or three lotto game initiatives during a fiscal year. These donut (shell) spots are used for about 12-18 months before we refresh and update the spots.
Another method we’ve used to realize cost savings is to use a “microburst” approach to media placements for scratch, meaning we run scratch donuts for a concentrated, two- or three-week media placement instead of a traditional four-week full campaign flight.
Wyoming Lottery
Cost-saving strategies and efficiencies:
The majority of our cost-saving strategies focus on maximizing the value of existing resources and assets. For example, we frequently repurpose creative assets previously developed by our advertising agency and execute promotions internally. This approach allows us to extend the value of our agency investment while reducing incremental creative and production costs.
Leveraging our internal team also allows us to be more nimble and responsive to sales trends and market opportunities, enabling us to develop and execute targeted promotions more quickly and cost-effectively. We continually evaluate where work can be effectively managed internally versus where utilizing our external partners provides the greatest value.
Most bang for the buck:
Our promotional campaigns continue to provide some of the strongest returns on our marketing investment by generating incremental revenue and maintaining player engagement, particularly during periods when national game jackpots are lower. As a draw-game-only lottery, sales can be significantly influenced by jackpot cycles, making targeted promotions an important tool for helping offset that volatility.
Promotions also provide an effective and cost-efficient way to increase awareness and engagement with our Wyoming-based games, including Cowboy Draw and KENO, allowing us to drive interest across our portfolio rather than relying solely on large national jackpots to generate player excitement.
Recent budget-minded campaigns:
One recent example was a Cowboy Draw Buy One, Get One Free promotion developed during a period of lower jackpots. We saw an opportunity to generate additional excitement around the game while tying the promotion to the upcoming America 250 celebration and the July 4, 2026, milestone.
Working with our advertising agency, we developed a cost-effective creative approach that relied on the agency primarily for the development of key campaign assets, while our internal team managed much of the execution across available channels. A significant portion of the campaign was supported through corporate and owned communications, allowing us to extend the reach of the promotion without requiring a significant paid media investment.
The BOGO promotion ran every Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. leading up to July 4, 2026. This approach allowed us to strategically support Cowboy Draw during a lower-jackpot period, create a timely connection to an important national milestone, and maximize the value of our marketing investment by combining external creative expertise with internal execution. The BOGO promotion ran for three hours on four consecutive Saturdays leading up to July 4, representing only 12 total promotional hours. During those 12 hours, Cowboy Draw generated $303,150 in sales, averaging approximately $75,788 per promotional Saturday and $25,263 per promotional hour. Over all four days, total sales increased of 179%.
The campaign demonstrates how we can combine a targeted promotional offer, timely messaging, existing communication channels and internal execution to generate meaningful sales activity without requiring a significant media investment. It also reinforces our strategy of concentrating resources around promotions that can produce measurable results rather than simply increasing media spend.
