Ladbrokes targets rivals' retail customers for online boost
CEO Jim Mullen says firm has set about converting William Hill and Coral retail customers into Ladbrokes.com punters
Ladbrokes plans to wrestle customers away from its land-based rivals before converting the new recruits into online players through a staff incentivised scheme, according to the operator’s chief executive Jim Mullen.
Speaking to analysts shortly after announcing a 6.4% increase in Q3 digital revenues, Mullen said the firm’s recently adopted multi-channel approach starts with winning over customers currently betting in shops belonging to the likes of William Hill and Paddy Power.
Once through the doors of a Ladbrokes’ shop, customers can expect to be ushered towards the operator’s improved digital products with retail staff effectively acting as affiliates following the recent introduction of an online sign-up incentive scheme.
Getting new customers through the door is the harder part but the firm believes new products such as the increased roll-out of SSBTs, an improved The Grid loyalty card, enhanced prices during Happy Hour and its new Bet Slip Tracker combined makes an attractive proposition. And that’s before an increase in marketing spend.
“We are clearly targeting retail customers so I would be looking to index across the estates of William Hill, Coral and Paddy Power, so a fair cross section of shared wallet from those retail customers is what we’d expect,” Mullen said.
“If we assume that it would be £100 to acquire a customer through an online affiliate site, what we are saying is it will cost around £10 to £20 acquire via our retail estate.
“Where is that money paid to? It’s paid to staff and colleagues through an internal incentive scheme in order to drive sign-ups and we’ve been very clear in the governance of those sign-ups and how they are acquired, which is why we spent a period of two to three months in training,” he added.
Ladbrokes said this new strategy had so far resulted in more than 20,000 new online accounts, which in turn has driven down CPAs and also provided customers of greater yield, estimated to be 1.5x more valuable than those attracted though digital marketing channels.
The firm said it had also felt an online boost from its Bet Slip Tracker, which enables customers to monitor the progress OTC bets via their mobile with more than 320,000 bets tracked since its August launch and provides an opportunity to cross-sell from retail into digital.