Q&A: Nick Zajdel, digital director, Ladbrokes

Ladbrokes has invested heavily in its mobile product in recent times and the attention it’s giving the channel seems to be paying off.

Having lagged behind many of its key rivals in terms of mobile product, the switch to Mobenga’s front-end in 2014 gave Ladbrokes a much-needed boost and laid the foundations for growth.

Mobile staking grew 77% in the final quarter of 2015 while mobile accounted for 71% of total sportsbook stakes over the full-year, figures which are the envy of others.

Steering the Magic Sign’s digital strategy is Nick Zajdel, moved up the ranks by CEO Jim Mullen when Andrew Bagguley departed last year.

EGR spoke with Zajdel to discuss Ladbrokes’ digital ambitions and whether he agrees with Mullen’s assessment that the operator has the best mobile product on the market.

eGaming Review (EGR): Ladbrokes’ full-year results showed strong mobile growth, what’s behind this rise?

Nick Zajdel (NZ): First of all there is an underlying organic adoption rate towards mobile in general. There’s the convenience and personal nature of the mobile device which we’re building on and we’re recognising this from customer feedback.

Another interesting trend in the market is within multichannel operations and customer behaviour where customers see the benefit of using mobile or a retail companion type of application which then enhances their retail space.

Also we are focusing on a mobile-first strategy so everything we do is with mobile in mind and we’re actively trying to accommodate that organic growth and adoption rate. So it’s tying into that adaptive approach and we want to be available on all mobile devices including tablets.

We’re also looking to promote the journeys that customers come through from external sources to land on our mobile product and we want to keep them on there.

EGR: What is your strategy and development plan for mobile?

NZ: In terms of the platform, our platform is now device agnostic and device responsive but our approach is actually adaptive rather than fully responsive.

We don’t want to have a product that looks and feels the same but is scaled up when you go to a larger screen size. We want to deliver the best experience on the respective platform and screen size which is tailored to that customer segment.

We’re continuing to pursue this in 2016. We have a substantial amount of investment going into our mobile offering – around two thirds of our overall digital development efforts go into our mobile product. We are looking to deliver the optimal experience for the device in question.

EGR: Jim Mullen recently described Ladbrokes as having “one of the best, if not the best” mobile product in the market. What makes it stand out?

NZ: It’s reflecting the investment we’ve made. Our mobile product today is one of the quickest and easiest to use. It’s very simple in its navigation and the experience it is delivering to the customer so we’ve built a platform around convenience.

Layered on top of that, and why I think it’s such a strong proposition, is that we’re building features around the relevant betting experience. So we’re building on live streaming and ‘my accas’, which is an interface to set up your football accumulator and also to track the performance of those in-running.

This allows us to build around experiences that customers expect and also that we go a step further where we want to delight our customers by investing in scoreboards, live streaming and everything around the package which makes the customer experience of betting with Ladbrokes such a delightful experience.

EGR: How does cross-selling on mobile differ to desktop? Have you had to make adjustments to strategy?

NZ: We are motivating our sportsbook customers to also enjoy gaming products. Naturally when we have such a strong growth on the mobile sportsbook this flows through to the mobile gaming product verticals.

Last summer we finalised the single wallet platform so we merged the gaming and sportsbook wallets into a single wallet so there’s a seamless journey and experience moving or transacting on sportsbook or in gaming products.

We see very strong cross sell on mobile and it’s not as far behind on desktop either because of the work we have done to merge the platforms with an adaptive design rather than the responsive design.

EGR: Do mobile customers bet on a smaller field of markets due to the smaller real estate on mobile phones?

NZ: This is a question we’ve been asking ourselves and our customers when we develop these platforms. Going back to simplicity, convenience and relevance, we talk about an adaptive approach rather than a responsive platform.

Because of the navigation structure and the level of personalisation we’re delivering it’s not such a big deal that the screen size is smaller on mobile. On smart devices, which the majority of our customers use today, it’s not such a big difference.

EGR: Bingo is considered to be the weakest mobile vertical. Can bingo succeed on mobile and what’s your strategy?

NZ: I think mobile bingo is trending quite positively. In the last year we’ve seen mobile bingo picking up at a similar rate that we’ve seen in other gaming product verticals. Bingo as an experience is less rich if you’re looking at an iPhone. We have a bingo client that is fully functional on an iPhone or a similar device but I believe the segment we are strategically pursuing at the moment is on the tablet.

The experience requires the interaction of the chat platform which is more suited to the screen size of a tablet and that’s where we’re putting our efforts as well. In the last year we’ve upgraded to the latest mobile bingo client with our supplier, Virtue Fusion, a Playtech company.

On the customer facing layer on top we’ve done some work to improve the selection of games, navigation and made it much more simplified so our customers can very quickly get into the bingo rooms, purchase the tickets and enjoy the action.