Igaming marketing migration: Better the devil you don’t know

With the cost of player acquisition, re-engagement and retention continuing to rise, operators and their marketing teams are going to great lengthens to streamline spend and drive the highest customer lifetime value possible. There are many ways of doing this – bonusing, rewarding loyalty, exemplary customer support, etc – but if the operator is not using the right analytics and marketing technology, the resources allocated to doing this are at risk of going to waste. But operators are often fearful of moving away from their current technologies and platforms with the ethos of “better the devil you know”. But this risks them losing ground to their rivals and in such a competitive industry, this can be the difference between success and failure. Before discussing why operators should not fear migrating analytics and marketing platforms, it is first important to understand the challenges marketing teams are facing and how modern technologies can help to overcome them.

Marketing across multiple channels

Operators need to engage players across multiple touchpoints along the customer journey if they are to successfully acquire and retain them. The digital world alone has numerous channels that need to be taken into consideration on-site, email, social and search to name but a few. Of course, each has its own independent platform to manage the campaigns. This makes for a complex ecosystem where marketers receive data from multiple sources – game providers, payment providers, social media, paid media, etc. But it is often the case that these data sources are not connected to each other which can lead to data overload or fragmentation as marketers simply can’t gather and analyse it all. This means there is no source of truth to measure the effectiveness of campaigns which in turn means it is incredibly difficult to measure ROI. It also leads to a disjoint between the acquisition and retention of customers, with activity often siloed rather than aligned. Ultimately, marketers can find themselves working in the dark and this often leads to higher bonusing costs as they do not have the required visibility to see what is and is not working. Nor can they tweak campaigns based on how they are being received by players.

Clear these hurdles with modern technologies

Modern analytics and marketing platforms can provide the solution to these problems. Most bring all channels and activity under one roof which in turn provides a centralised view of ongoing campaigns across acquisition, re-engagement and retention. They also bring together all data sources and provide a clear real-time view of how activity and campaigns are performing. This allows marketers to easily and quickly identify what is and is not working and then alter campaigns accordingly. This ensures that operators and marketers are generating the highest return on investment instead of burning money on campaigns that fail to deliver because performance can only be assessed after the campaign has run.

Don’t fear the migration

With so many upsides, it is a wonder that operators and their marketing teams are fearful of switching platforms. But in reality, their concerns are understandable – migrations are huge undertakings, but this should not stop them from happening. There are plenty of migration tools now available that ensure a smooth and seamless process. Proper planning with clear cut off dates for various stages of the migration can also help overcome challenges and mitigate any risks that come with switching platforms. In some cases, a full migration might not be required either. There are analytics and marketing technologies out there that can sit on top of existing platforms to provide operators and marketers with access to some of the advanced tools and features they offer. If operators do not embrace these modern technologies, it will take them much longer to increase overall ROI and they will find they are sending the wrong messages to the wrong players via the wrong channels at the wrong time. With marketing costs so high, these are mistakes they simply cannot afford to make. Those willing to move to new technologies will be able to streamline acquisition and retention costs and ultimately get the jump on their rivals. Matt Larter has more than 15 years experience in igaming following a successful career in management consulting, implementing large scale CRM projects across multiple sectors with PwC. Following senior roles running various operational, commercial and product teams for both B2B and B2C businesses, his continued focus on CRM led to the co-founding of AretoNet, a BI and CRM platform designed to empower operators with key, actionable data insights and powerful tools to reach the right customers at the right moments in their journey.