Sharpening the bonus delivery through real time data

Restrictions on the way operators can market their product offering to end users is driving even more emphasis on retention and reactivation techniques.

Various changes in mature casino markets, such as the UK, indicate that player acquisition will continue to be expensive, which means holding onto existing customers is imperative.

Delivering a quality product to keep players engaged is the absolute goal for everyone, but in order to cut through the noise within this saturated market, the industry as a whole must evolve to meet with changing consumer behaviour.

Players crave for a personalised gaming experience, which is why this area of gaming will become key in the coming months as operators look at alternative methods to keep customers on board and stop them from switching from site-to-site.

Technology will undoubtedly play a key role in retention going forward, particularly the way in which online casinos and sportsbooks reward their players. These promotional offers exist already, but the overall practice is in need of innovation.

By utilising real-time data, operators will be able to sharpen the way in which they deliver rewards, resulting in an improved gaming experience, as well as increased retention rates.

Personalised rewards

Marketing tools such as free spins have become a staple fixture in online slots and are an effective way to entertain players, but the time has come to evolve this approach and add new ways to player engagement.

Creating bonus offers and rewards tailored towards each individual customer will certainly enhance the gaming experience and will become a core area of focus within the gaming sector. With an abundance of data already available to operators, it’s a case of utilising an engine that is capable of monitoring individuals and rewarding them based on their own behaviour.

Sophisticated systems that can modify the gaming experience in real time will hold the competitive edge. There’s also an opportunity to create advanced and more complex rewards, such as “achieve 10 wins and unlock a reward”, which complement traditional triggers and appeal to a wider audience.

Changing the rewards on offer after every spin will help to sharpen the way in which bonuses are offered, which will lead to increased dwell time and ultimately greater revenues, at a time when margins are becoming squeezed.

Cross-game configuration

Rewarding players in real time can only be achieved through flexible and easy-to-use software. This poses a challenge to many legacy platforms built before the advent of mobile.

To make this possible, campaign managers need to have a single access and point of configuration. We will achieve this through the launch of our new E-Rewards engine by the end of 2019.

 Having the ability to create bespoke offers with real time data will give our partners the freedom to select their campaigns based on player data while in turn encourage and drive engagement levels. Requiring bonusing features to be available on a specific game provider’s back office portal can become a hindrance.

Platform-level bonusing is now essential, particularly when it comes to operators being able to offer the same bonus incentives and gamification tools across all games and not just per supplier. Flexible and easily configurable solutions will be the key to delivering higher levels of player engagement in the long term.

Jane Ryan is COO at Nektan, the industry’s fast-growing international gaming technology platform and services provider. She has been with the casino and bingo specialist for over seven years and has extensive experience in product and operations across both the B2C and B2B industry sectors.