Why Performance Updates Matter More Than New Features
When software companies announce product updates, they usually focus on the new features. These can include new dashboards, integrations, and automation tools.
However, some of the most valuable product updates go unnoticed by the users of the software.
Performance improvements have a greater impact on the company’s performance than introducing entirely new features. For publishers, affiliates and casino operators, performance improvements increase productivity, the user experience, and revenue every single day.
In the highly competitive iGaming industry, performance is a feature of any software product.
Why Performance is a Product Feature
When discussing product features, users usually think of the visible interface features. However, the performance of a product impacts the functionality of all available features.
The performance of a product will impact the following features:
Dashboard responsiveness
Traffic routing
Campaign management
Reporting speed
Affiliate tracking
Player onboarding
A fast software platform will allow a user to make decisions quicker and work more efficiently.
Speed Improves the User Experience
The user experience of any software platform will rely on the software being fast enough to provide an outstanding experience.
If a software platform takes too long to respond to user interactions, it will frustrate the users.
Performance improvements will allow the user to:
Navigate the software faster
Generate reports quicker
Access analytics dashboards immediately
Complete their tasks quicker
Faster dashboards allow the users to make decisions quicker. Marketing teams will spend significant time in front of the software’s reporting dashboards.
They will use the reports to gain insights into the marketing campaign’s performance and make improvements accordingly.
The software will allow marketing teams to respond to information quickly and improve business decisions made daily.
Improve Traffic Processing
The iGaming industry handles thousands of website clicks every minute.
The following aspects of traffic will benefit from a focus on software performance:
Redirect speed
Traffic validation
Traffic routing
Link resolution
Tracking of website clicks
Optimized traffic processing will significantly reduce the latency between a user clicking on a link and being redirected to the desired content.
Optimize Database Performance
As the number of traffic clicks increases, the software will collect increasing amounts of data.
Without proper database software optimization, databases will slow with time.
Engineering teams will optimize the following aspects of the software database:
Query execution
Index performance
Data retrieval
Storage efficiency
Cache management
Database performance will significantly improve as teams increase the efficiency of the database.
API Performance Matters
Most software platforms use Application Programming Interfaces or APIs to communicate between software applications.
Improving API performance will allow teams to generate faster:
Affiliate reports
Customer relationship management (CRM) reports
Payment processing
Analytics
Third-party software integration
Background software improvements will significantly improve software performance without affecting user-visible features.
Many software product updates will focus on the performance of background applications and services, such as:
Report generation
Notification services
Data synchronization
Scheduled tasks
Queue processing
The users will enjoy improved performance in these areas without significant changes to the visible user interface.
Mobile Performance
Many software publishers and operators use various devices to access and manage the software dashboards.
Performance updates will focus on improving the software’s performance on mobile devices, including:
Mobile loading speed
Responsiveness on mobile devices
Data usage
Navigation on mobile devices
Touch interactions with the software
Reducing infrastructure costs for software providers
Performance improvements will benefit software providers as well.
By optimizing software performance, software providers will experience:
Reduced need for server capacity
Reduced bandwidth usage
Reduced database resource use
Reduced costs associated with using cloud infrastructure to host the software
Stability is just as important as speed
The speed of the software is less important than its stability if the software fails frequently.
Performance improvements will focus on the following aspects to increase the software’s stability:
Platform uptime
Error handling
Memory management
Resource allocation
Software reliability
A stable platform will allow customers to place more trust in the software and reduce the number of support requests made by dissatisfied customers.
Better performance supports increased growth
The number of publishers and operators in the industry will increase.
Software performance improvements will allow platforms to support:
Increased traffic volumes
Increased operators
Increased number of affiliate programs
Increase the number of users of the software
Increase the number of reports generated by the software
A platform that can grow with the number of users will provide a strong foundation for future growth.
Measure the performance of the software
To measure the performance of the software after implementing update or optimization, software teams should use the following indicators:
Dashboard load time
API response time
Report generation speed
System uptime
Error rate
Customer satisfaction
The most important software performance metrics will help engineering teams to showcase the value of the software’s performance.
AI is assisting engineering teams with software performance optimization
Artificial intelligence will help engineering teams to diagnose and fix software performance issues automatically.
Artificial intelligence software will be able to detect:
Slow database queries
Infrastructure bottlenecks
Improvements in caching software
Optimize server allocation
Identify software performance anomalies
The automation of performance issues will significantly reduce the number of instances when customers encounter issues with the software.
Communicating software performance updates to the customers
Software performance updates deserve the same level of communication as feature updates.
The product team should create software release notes that communicate the following information:
What software features or areas have been optimized
The importance of the software update
How the users of the software will benefit
The expected improvements in performance of the software
Product teams need to make performance updates and improvements a practice to provide the users with the best experience.
Best practices for engineering and product teams
For engineering and product teams to remain in-sync with users’ needs and provide better performance for the software’s users, teams can follow the best practices listed below:
Always prioritize performance as much as the features of the software
Continually monitor the performance of the software
Test the software under high traffic loads to ensure it can handle increased traffic
Optimize the software database routinely
Improve the efficiency of the APIs used by the software
Review the feedback submitted by the customers of the software
Benchmark the software before and after performance updates
Following these best practices will ensure engineering and product teams maintain a more reliable and stable platform for their software users over time.
The future of software performance optimization
The future of software performance optimization will increasingly automate these tasks.
The emerging trends in software will include:
Artificial intelligence-assisted software optimization
Predictive infrastructure scaling
Self-tuning databases
Edge computing
Intelligent caching of data
Automated performance testing
These innovations will significantly improve the software’s ability to be fast and efficient with minimal manual intervention.
Final Thoughts
Software product updates are not just for adding new features. Updates can be used to optimize existing software features for better functionality. Faster software dashboards, APIs, infrastructure, and stability create value for the publishers, affiliates, and casino operators every day.
As the industry continues to grow in size and complexity, software performance optimization will be an essential part of providing users with the best possible software experiences. The best software products will not have the most features but the one that allows the users to perform their tasks the fastest and with the most confidence in the software’s functionality.