Optimove Use Case: Increasing the Value of New Sports Bettors

Introduction

Especially in an environment characterized by increasing competition, declining customer loyalty and rapidly escalating customer acquisition costs, it is crucial that online gaming operators maximize the value of the players that arrive at their websites. 

With the predicted average future value of repeat bettors being three times higher than that of one-timers, a sport bettor’s first couple of weeks of experience with a brand are critical for long-term relationship and revenue. However, most players will never deposit or bet again following their first time (for some operators, this might be as high as 70%), unless marketers are prepared with a personalized CRM strategy to try avoid this. 

Specifically, operators must combine player segmentation and personalized player messaging to increase deposit amounts, longevity (length of time remaining active on the site) and the future value of new players. 

This document presents a best-practices-based methodology that can be easily implemented with Optimove.

The High-Level Plan

To retain more players and avoid them remaining one-timers, marketers need to implement a dynamic customer journey plan for their new players. Based on years of experience within the industry, Optimove recommends that this plan be based on the following fundamental concepts: 

• Treat players differently, based on their deposit and activity behaviors.
• Communicate with players based on their individual play experiences.
• Address each new player 2–3 times per week, for the first two weeks.

Furthermore, to accurately test the effectiveness of such a plan, it is recommended to set aside a control group of 10% of all new players, who will receive the standard messages that the company has been sending until now. The remaining 90% of new players should receive the automated marketing plan described herein.

The Two-Week Automated Marketing Plan

Data shows that new players are ideally defined as those who are within the first two weeks following their initial deposit. 

Although it is enticing to send a campaign every day, Optimove research shows this is counterproductive, with the best practice being to spread the campaigns over the two-week period at different intervals. A comprehensive example is described in the schedule shown here and the following sample campaigns.

1st Campaign: Welcome Newsletter

All new players should receive an educational “welcome” email on the day of their first deposit. This email should include a warm thank-you message, helpful instructions, and tips and details about upcoming events. 

With the exception of this campaign, the messaging and incentives in each of the subsequent campaigns should be directly related to each player’s individual behavior, characteristics and current situation.

2nd Campaign: Deposits and In-Play Activity Personalization

Optimove research reveals that players who place most of their bets during live games (called “in-play” bets) are worth 2.1X more, in terms of lifetime value, than players who mostly bet before games begin (called “pre-game” bets). 

With Optimove, marketers can use this insight to create three different campaigns to be sent to three different segments of new players on the day after each player’s first deposit was made:

3rd Campaign: Play Experience Personalization

The third campaign, scheduled for five days after the first deposit was made, offers individual players incentives based on each one’s play experience, as expressed by the player’s payout ratio: the total amount won divided by the total amount wagered. 

Optimove can automatically calculate this ratio, allowing marketers to automatically segment players accordingly. Optimove’s best practices recommend segmenting players into three groups, according to this ratio, and then providing messaging and incentives designed to encourage the relevant desired activity for each group:

4th Campaign: Number of Deposits Personalization

Not surprisingly, players who make more deposits tend to have a higher future value. Thus, there is a strong motivation for sports betting operators to encourage players to make as many deposits as possible. However, different players should receive different incentives. 

With Optimove, marketers can analyze their customer data to determine how best to tier their players. For example, for the sports betting website represented by the following player data, there are three clear value tiers corresponding to the number of deposits made:

So, for this campaign, sent to new players on the eighth day since each one’s first deposit, the messaging and offer should be differentiated by these tiers. The lowest tier should be targeted with a very aggressive offer, such as 20% matching for the next two deposits. The medium and high tiers each might receive deposit matching bonuses of 15% and 10%, respectively, for deposits higher than the average of their individual deposits to date (e.g., if the average of a player’s first five deposits was €115, the minimum deposit amount to receive the bonus would be set at €120).

5th Campaign: Risk-of-Churn and High-Roller Personalization

The fifth campaign, sent to new players on the eleventh day since each one’s first deposit, should be segmented into three groups, based on a combination of two factors: days since last activity and activity level. Together, these two factors are used to infer which players are at risk of churn and which are potentially valuable “high rollers.”

By using Optimove to analyze player data to determine the relevant tiers, operators can create definitions for the segmentation of this campaign, such as this example:

• Risk of Churn = Players with more than 3 days elapsed since their last activity
• High Roller = Players meeting all three of these criteria:
  • 3 or fewer days elapsed since their last activity
  • At least 6 days with either a deposit, bet or both
  • Total deposit amount to date in the top 20% of all new players
• All Other Players = Players that don’t fall into the above two segments

Appropriate messages and incentives can then be automatically sent to each of these three segments, like this:

6th Campaign: Follow-up to 5th Campaign

The final campaign in the series, sent on each player’s thirteenth day, serves as a reminder to take advantage of the bonus offer sent two days before. For those players who already made another deposit since the previous campaign, a softer message should be sent.

Advanced Best-Practice: Daily Remaining Balance Campaign

Besides the scheduled campaigns in the plan described above, savvy operators create a parallel “remaining balance” campaign: If a particular player has a remaining account balance of at least the amount of the player’s own average daily bet amount, then the Daily Remaining Balance Campaign would be sent to that player instead of any other pre-scheduled campaign slotted for that particular day. 

Using Optimove, it is easy for marketers to create calculated customer attributes, such as “bet factor” (each player’s remaining monetary balance divided by his/her average daily bet amount to date). If the player’s bet factor is greater than one (i.e., there is enough money in the account to make an average-sized bet), then the Daily Remaining Balance Campaign should be sent. 

Two additional conditions should be taken into consideration before sending this campaign, in order to provide a more personalized experience and avoid communication fatigue: 

• Has the player performed any activity on the site in the past two days?
• Has the player already received this campaign in the past three days?

Only if the answer to both these questions is “no” should the player receive the Remaining Balance Campaign. This flowchart summarizes the logic:

Proven Results for Sports Betting Operators

A case in point: Using Optimove, a sports betting operator defined its new players as those who made their first deposit within the past 14 days. These bettors were characterized by the following KPIs during the three months prior to implementing a new bettor marketing plan similar to the plan described above:

The operator tested a marketing strategy following the guidelines above for a 90-day period, with 11,160 new players (90%) receiving the plan’s messages and 1,240 players (10%) serving as a control group. The following statistically credible results summarize the observed KPI improvements:

The strong results across all selected KPIs speak for themselves: a well-crafted personalized and automated CRM strategy can generate dramatic results. 

With Optimove, marketers can analyze their player data and put in place best-practices based methodologies to similarly improve the business performance of their operation. 

To learn more, contact us.