iGaming Business magazine Gaming Platforms 2018 | Page 9

Gaming Platforms
START-UPS
2018
AND
player retention
A few basic steps can go a long way to help start-ups retain their
hard-won clients, says Vladislavs Hveckovičs
If you think about it, player retention should
not be the main topic of discussion for a newly
launched casino. A new casino should focus on
player acquisition, while retention should come
much later. However, in our practice as platform
developers, the subject of player retention comes
up as one of the most popular issues. It takes a
lot of effort to convince start-ups to focus on
offering a good deal to new players and building
their operations before they think about activating
their client base and improving retention-and-
engagement fi gures.
The reason start-ups prioritise player retention
is that all the big guys are doing it. If you have millions
of monthly active users, as some of our clients do,
even a 1-2% difference becomes a huge factor and
it would be a shame to ignore it. If you take a liberal
approach to statistics, you can even say that up to
70% of profi t comes via player-retention work.
The problem with this argument is that the analysis
is done on the big companies, who have already
been massively successful in attracting players.
What basics can most casino operators fi x?
The fi rst thing I would look at is the availability
of player data: geography , bets, wins, the games they
play, the number and amount of deposits and so on.
This should be automatically available to the
marketing guys without the need to bother someone
in IT for a report. Actually, you should focus on
removing the IT department from the process
after building the tools required for marketing.
Setting up targets and the ability to easily monitor
success are essential.
Current technologies make it very simple to collect
and analyse even the minutest data. Five years ago, most
marketing specialists were happy with 10-15 parameters,
the likes of geography, mobile/desktop and so on.
Now everyone wants full behavioural data on each of
their players – where they click, which pages they use
and for how long, when they click a back button or
when they go to another site.
Data, automation, multilingualism –
and the personal touch
It is important to keep marketing requests in check,
ensuring that their requirements are practical and will
be used successfully. I’ve seen many examples in many
industries of a report or a tool that is a must-have and
cannot be changed even slightly, but which is already
forgotten by the time it’s developed (and which shouldn’t
have been developed in the fi rst place before other,
simpler things were taken care of).
Once you have the basic data, there’s a lot you
can do. You should ensure that your platform allows
automatic campaigns to be launched. That means
that, once you select a player base to which you think
you can offer something, you should engage them
automatically daily without the need to manually create
queries or campaigns. Big competitors can afford to
run campaigns manually because they can hire a
team of retention specialists to do the work. A start-up
should make as much use of automation as possible
because your retention team is probably one guy, and it’s
probably not even his full-time job.
Adding a personal touch – something big names
often cannot afford – is another successful strategy. Our
activity reel shows most important events, such as failed
deposits or failed log-ins, in real time for the operators
to pick up. The ability to solve those issues by launching
a live chat session, or even calling players who have
indicated a willingness to talk by phone, can work
wonders for client loyalty.
One more thing casinos often forget about is
multilingual support. English will get you quite far but
there are many players who have diffi culty conversing in
anything but their native language. It’s costly, as you need
to make sure your support staff are both good at their job
and can freely use the languages of your players.
Once you fi x the basics, then you can move on to all
the areas that most marketing guys get excited about:
custom-built or purchased tools for data analysis, player
segmentation, A/B testing and the like. But before you
do, it pays to make sure the product is good and the
experience is top-notch.
Vladislavs Hveckovičs is
a gaming systems integrator,
casino back-offi ce software
developer and the CIO and
co-founder of SoftGamings,
a B2B igaming software company
founded in 2008. SoftGamings
offers online casino platform
solutions, including development
of white label, turnkey and
self-service casinos, as well
as advanced bonus and
loyalty engines.
iGamingBusiness | Issue 110 | May/June 2018
79