Apps versus websites
The smartphone sports betting market is rapidly evolving with operators ramping up marketing spend, but where should they prioritise their investment? Roger Suggett explains.
Sports betting is perfectly suited to the smartphone customer who relishes its immediacy and ease of use but we’re often asked about the best route to market “ native apps or mobile sites? It’s easy to delve into too much depth with regards to the benefits and disadvantages but, let’s take a quick look at the current smartphone betting market, and hint at the direction it could head.
Optimising your site for mobile users
With Google stating that more than 79% of large online advertisers generally do not have a mobile optimised site there is a real opportunity to steal a march on your competition.
Many businesses have already created mobile optimised websites, including the smaller more innovative bookmakers. Boylesports, for example, has created a mobile optimised website with good usability.
Considerations such as minimising excess content on screen to keep the experience simple, creating large buttons that are easy to touch on screen and spacing out your information so the site has a lot of clear space is key. Making sure your calls to actions such as ‘Free Bet’ and ‘Bet Now’ are clear, upfront and obvious is also important. Indeed, bookmakers seem to be realising that mobile sites are going to play a large part of their marketing strategies, with the likes of William Hill and Paddy Power investing heavily in television advertising, helping to drive traffic online. So, if a mobile website is fully optimised, then why build an app?
Building apps
Apps lend themselves to creative graphics that allow users to interact with a product in a unique way. While searching through the app store, however there seem to be few innovative ideas in the sports betting arena with the majority of apps on the market appearing to be scaled down versions of the online site, offering no additional special features.
William Hill’s app, Shake-a-Bet, for example, provides a novelty experience where a user can generate a random bet to suit the stake and returns they want. However, we would question how often a person who bets on specific sporting events, the big ‘punters’ with high life time values, use this app?
There is huge potential here for sports betting “ research shows that people who download an app are more likely to be engaged with the brand “ but a truly innovative app, rather than a generic sports betting application that simply replicates your site, maybe the only justification in building one. The time and cost of developing apps for each individual platform/device may be better spent initially on optimising your site for mobile users first.