Fortis Media Review
7.1/10A founder-led Vilnius boutique of about a dozen that sells SEO as its core product and runs a dedicated iGaming practice for casino, sportsbook, and betting. The flagship account is TwinSpires, the betting brand of Churchill Downs, and the stack around it runs from technical SEO and link building to content, digital PR, and paid media. The wider book covers SaaS, fintech, B2B, e-commerce, and enterprise, and pricing is quoted per engagement.
Our read
- The TwinSpires engagement covers technical SEO, content and outreach, digital PR, link building, Kentucky Derby seasonal campaigns, custom SEO tooling, and weekly KPI meetings.
- A client roster of TwinSpires, BetAmerica, and Churchill Downs, with Skilling and Huuuge Games in the wider gaming book, BlueBet, OC88, OVAL3, and YouBet in the portfolio, and Douglas, Genome, Fresh Clean Threads, and Drops Clinic outside gaming.
- A delivery team of twelve, six of them in SEO-titled roles, under founder and CEO Justinas Bėčius since 2018.
- No published pricing or minimums.
- Nothing at SiGMA, iGB, or SBC as a speaker or exhibitor.
- No awards or shortlists, so there is no third-party list to check the agency against.
- A twelve-person team caps how many retainers can run at once.
An operator in regulated US betting or racing that wants the search channel owned end to end by a small team that has already delivered for a regulated betting brand.
A buyer that needs published pricing before the first call, vets agencies through conference floors and award lists, or runs a portfolio too wide for a boutique.
Markets & licensing
Fortis Media works from Vilnius, and the gaming side of its book leads with the US. BlueBet extends the book to Australia, Skilling and the non-gaming clients to Europe.
Regulated US racing and betting is where the work sits, with Kentucky Derby campaign cycles run for TwinSpires. There is a Wilmington, Delaware office and a US phone number, while the delivery team works from Vilnius. A US operator gets an agency that has worked inside a regulated betting brand's constraints.
The EU-facing presence is a Dublin office and an Irish phone number, with Skilling and the non-gaming clients on the European side of the book. A UKGC-licensed operator would be extending the agency's track record rather than buying into an existing UK lane.
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Licensing tier: not applicable.
Clients, partners & engagement
Agencies are judged on the accounts they already run and the platforms and registries they work through. The delivery model shows how the team is staffed day to day.
An engagement starts with business development and operations, then runs through the split on-site and off-site SEO delivery teams, with content managers and a paid media specialist alongside.
Work starts after a proposal sets the scope.
Services & practice areas
An SEO-led stack sold from one Vilnius team.
iGaming SEO
A dedicated iGaming SEO practice for casino, sportsbook, and betting brands, with 14 specialists on the vertical and separate sportsbook and crypto SEO lines. The flagship is TwinSpires: technical SEO, content and outreach, digital PR, link building, and Kentucky Derby seasonal campaigns.
- Casino, sportsbook, and betting worked by a dedicated iGaming practice with 14 specialists
- Separate sportsbook SEO and crypto SEO lines
- TwinSpires, the betting brand of Churchill Downs, as the flagship account
- Work spanning technical SEO, content and outreach, digital PR, link building, and seasonal Kentucky Derby campaigns
SEO
The full SEO stack: technical SEO, on-site and off-site work, migrations, audits, and link building.
- Technical SEO, migrations, and audits
- On-site and off-site SEO with dedicated link building
- LLM SEO and LLM optimization sold as dedicated lines
- ChatGPT Ads sold alongside the SEO lines
- Custom SEO tooling built per engagement, including the tooling behind TwinSpires
Paid Media
The non-organic side of the work, carried by one paid media specialist and two content managers on a team that stays SEO-first.
- PPC, paid social, programmatic, and e-commerce paid media
- Content marketing with two SEO Content Managers on the team
- Digital PR as a standalone service line, used inside the TwinSpires engagement
- Data and analytics as its own service line
- Multi-vertical client book: SaaS, fintech, B2B, e-commerce, and enterprise served alongside gaming
The history
Longevity in this industry usually comes with a change of owner somewhere in it.
Justinas Bėčius founded Fortis Media in Vilnius in 2018, coming out of online gaming and affiliate work, and still runs it. The Lithuanian entity, Fortis Media UAB, had 12 employees and revenue of EUR 1,478,945 in the 2023 financial year.
Brands & clients on the platform
Corporate
Leadership
Milestones
- 2018
Justinas Bėčius founds Fortis Media in Vilnius, coming out of online gaming and affiliate work.
- 2023
Revenue reaches EUR 1,478,945 on a 12-person team.
- 2024
6M organic clicks delivered and 92% client retention across the book.
- 2026
LLM SEO, LLM optimization, and ChatGPT Ads go on sale as service lines.
Longevity and ownership
Switching vendors is expensive, which makes the company's staying power part of the purchase. What the contract says about your data decides how expensive an exit gets.
Fortis Media vs alternatives
Most buyers in this market shortlist three or four vendors long before they take a single sales call.
| Attribute | Fortis Media | SeoProfy | ICS-digital | Revpanda |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2018 | 2012 | 2009 | 2020 |
| Team | 12+ | 100+ | 90+ | 150+ |
| Pricing | On request | Public | On request | On request |
| Market posture | Mixed | Mixed | Mixed | Mixed |
| Minimum engagement | — | $5,000 per month | — | On request |
Pricing & terms
Fortis Media quotes pricing per project. Here's how the model and the terms are structured.
The engagement
Path to launch
- 1Reach out through the contact form or the US or Irish phone lines
- 2Brief and intro call, where the iGaming practice scopes casino, sportsbook, or betting work against its 14 vertical specialists
- 3Proposal with scope and quote, built per client
- 4Retainer kickoff with a dedicated strategist
- 5Reporting cadence, which in the TwinSpires engagement ran as weekly KPI meetings backed by custom SEO tooling
Support & account management
You can't demo service before you sign, so what a vendor puts in writing is the only floor you can hold it to.