Rob Pryce, Chief Revenue Officer for Xtremepush, highlights what leading operators are doing to optimise player acquisition and engagement, as well as the most crucial tactics and strategies for them to have in place. 

Everyone in the industry, particularly here in Europe, understands that the cost of acquisition is high and is rising all the time. That’s true of other verticals, betting and gaming is not unique in that.

Where this industry does stand out is around the KYC obligations and the level of competition between the various brands out there. Those two factors mean that you need to be smart in terms of how you maximise your conversion of visitors into players. FTD (first-time deposit) is a core goal that we work with operators to accelerate.

So, based on our learnings from over 200+ brands, one of the first use cases we strongly recommend that operators implement is an automated nurturing process. It is super important to understand how operators engage and connect with potential customers before they actually make that first deposit.

As soon as a new potential customer lands on an operator’s site, we begin to build up a digital picture of them. We’re measuring their on-site or in-app behaviour from that first interaction. And of course, if they’ve been driven to the site via a digital ad campaign that information is stitched into the profile as well.

The benefit of this is you can start personalising their on-site experience straight away. You can also enrol them in a nurture funnel designed to move them through the initial KYC and account creation process towards their first deposit and experience.

We know that players don’t always complete the registration process on their first attempt. They may need to submit multiple documents. So you need to make it as easy as possible for a player to get themselves set up. You’re sometimes looking at two or three, if not more, visits before a player is actually in a position to make their first deposit and start playing.

And to optimise your volume of new accounts, you should be proactively nudging them through the process with their preferred channel of communication whether that be with emails, SMS or push notifications. It may require a combination of channels. But whatever channel you use, make sure you’re deep-linking the player back to the exact point in the process where they left off.

If I look at what our most successful clients are doing, that’s one of the big learnings. They have an onboarding journey in place that’s personalised and gently nudges the player through each step with timely reminders through the best channel for each individual.

And having that rich engagement data gives the ability to tailor offers as well. For example, if a player has gotten most of the way through the process, but for whatever reason hasn’t been back for a week or so to complete the last step, you may need to change up your messaging to get them over the line.

And the results speak for themselves. We’re seeing operators deliver uplifts in player activity of 5-10% just by optimising this crucial first stage. And that’s before we even get into the long-term player engagement and retention strategies.

Xtremepush recently released a case study with BlueBat Games detailing the impact of its engagement and retention software. It’s available to read here.

Rob Pryce and the Xtremepush team will also be exhibiting at this month’s SBC Summit Barcelona (21-24 Septembers). For full event details, click here.