Why Player Quality Beats Player Quantity in iGaming
For years, iGaming advertisers have focused on one primary goal: acquiring as many new players as possible for their operator partners.
While the number of new registrations may appear to be a successful outcome of a marketing campaign, it does not necessarily mean that the advertiser has achieved a good return on their marketing spend.
The advertiser may have successfully recruited 10,000 new players, but if the majority of those users do not deposit in the game or continue to play after their initial registration, the advertiser will have to acquire many more players in order to see an even modest improvement in their profits.
The modern advertiser looks at acquiring players who will not only make their initial deposit but will continue to generate revenue for the iGaming operator over an extended period of time.
Why Player Quality Matters
Every new player that is acquired by an iGaming operator has a cost associated with their acquisition.
That cost may be incurred from working with affiliate publishers who bring in players to the operator, pay for displayed advertisements, social media advertisements, or content marketing campaigns.
The advertiser wants to acquire as many players as possible whose revenue will exceed the cost of acquiring them.
High-quality players will ultimately improve the profitability of the operator.
Defining a High-Quality Player
Different iGaming operators will define the attributes of a high-quality player differently. However, each company’s take on the attributes will include the following factors:
They have completed registration with the company
They made their initial deposit into their gaming account
They have returned to the company’s games
They have played multiple gaming sessions
They have demonstrated responsible gambling behavior
They have remained active with the company over an extended period of time
High-quality players are not measured by how difficult it was to acquire them but by how engaged they become with the company’s games and features.
Registrations Are Only the Beginning
Knowing the number of players who registered on a gaming website is a start for the advertiser. However, there are other metrics that must also be evaluated to determine the quality of the advertiser’s efforts. These metrics may include the number of users who made their first time deposit, the average size of their deposits, the number of times they played, the number of users who continue to return to the website, the average revenue per user, and the customer lifetime value of each player.
Focus on Customer Lifetime Value
The customer lifetime value (CLV) of a player determines the total amount of revenue that will be generated from that player over the lifetime of their relationship with the iGaming operator.
A player who returns to a company over a twelve-month period will typically generate more revenue than several players who only visited the site once.
By knowing the CLV of their players, the advertiser can make better decisions about the players they will acquire, the advertisements they will air, and their overall profitability.
Work With High-Quality Publishers
The quality of the publisher that an advertiser uses to distribute the player advertisements varies.
Rather than focusing on the number of players that a publisher acquires for the advertiser, the advertiser should focus on the number of players that each publisher acquires who will make their initial deposit and continue to play games with the publisher over time.
Publishers who can acquire fewer but high-quality players will be the most valuable to the advertiser.
Optimize Geographic Targeting
The various regions of the world have different characteristics in terms for their iGaming players.
Ad advertisers should consider the number of players from different regions who will make their deposits, the value of each player from those regions, the availability of licensing for those regions, and the regulatory environment for those regions.
By using targeted advertisements to different regions, the advertiser can significantly increase the number of high-quality players that they acquire.
Improve Landing Page Relevance
The landing pages that a company uses when airing advertisements should be relevant to the advertisements. These landing pages should feature:
Bonus offers that are relevant to the advertised games
Strong value propositions for the players
Fast loading speeds for the landing pages
Mobile optimization of the content of the company’s landing pages
Simple registration processes for the players
Reducing the number of steps and offering quality incentives for the visitors to a company’s landing page will encourage them to register.
Reduce Low-Quality Traffic
Ad advertisers should work to reduce the number of low-quality traffic sources for their company.
Low-quality traffic to evaluate and reduce may come from bots, users who register for incentives, fraudulent users, users who register once then play no games, and users from regions that the company does not serve.
Reducing the number of low-quality users who register will ultimately save the advertiser money.
Align Marketing With Player Intent
Ad advertisers can improve the effectiveness of their advertisements by understanding why players visit certain websites.
For instance, advertisers may be able to determine that players search for specific bonuses at various casinos, look for the best sports betting odds, search for specific payment methods, and read reviews of the best gaming companies.
Ad targeting according to player intent will increase the quality of the advertisements and landing pages that are viewed by the players.
Invest in Retention
The number of players that are acquired is only one part of the equation for an advertiser. However, the number of players that are retained is another significant part of that equation.
Players who are retained will generate more revenue over time for the advertiser. Methods of increasing player retention may include running personalized promotions, loyalty programs, creating email campaigns and rewards programs for the top players, and incentivizing high-value users.
Reducing the number of players who leave an iGaming company over time will ultimately increase the advertiser’s profits.
Measure Every Traffic Source
Different traffic sources attract different types of players.
By measuring the quality of the various traffic sources that bring in players, the advertiser can improve the allocation of their marketing budget to generate the highest return on investment for their traffic acquisition efforts.
Use First-Party Data
First-party data has become increasingly valuable for iGaming advertisers as regulations have been enacted to protect the data of internet users.
First-party data that can be collected and used by advertisers may include information about players’ registration, their deposits, the number of gaming sessions they have played, the promotions they have engaged with, the type of device they use to play at the company’s games.
Using this data will allow the advertiser to improve their targeting of specific groups of players.
Technology Supports Better Decision-Making
A variety of modern technology tools can help an advertiser understand the quality of players that are being recruited by a company. These tools may include software that enables advertisers to monitor the lifetime values of the players, track the quality of the traffic that they acquire, the number of fraudulences in that traffic, and the potential lifetime values of players during the acquisition phase.
These technologies allow advertisers to make better, faster decisions with the goal of increasing the efficiency of their marketing spend.
Build Strong Affiliate Partnerships
Adapters should work to build strong partnerships with the publishers who bring in players for the iGaming company.
Such partnerships can be improved by establishing plans for reporting data on the number of quality players that are acquired, the reliability of the publisher’s payments to the advertiser, rewarding good performance, and improving the communication between the advertiser and publisher.
By building such strong relationships, the advertiser will secure a higher quality of traffic.
Common Mistakes Advertisers Make
Due to the focus of the majority of advertisers on acquiring players, many of them make several mistakes that prevent them from achieving good profits for their operator partners.
Some of the most common mistakes include rewarding publishers for the registration of players rather than rewarding them for the number of players that make their initial deposit, ignoring the metrics related to player retention, focusing on the cost of acquiring players from specific channels rather than their quality, evaluating the success of their advertising campaigns too soon after their launch, and underinvesting in the relationships between themselves and their publisher partners.
Correcting these issues will lead to the advertisers using strategies that generate better profits for their partners.
Future Trends in Player Acquisition
The future of the advertiser will become increasingly driven by intelligence.
For instance, artificial intelligence will be used to increase the targeting of specific audiences, the predictions of the lifetime value of players, the tracking of quality of traffic in real time, the creation of personalized campaigns to acquire players, and the automated reallocation of marketing budgets.
These technologies will allow the owners of iGaming companies to acquire players who generate the most value for the company prior to incurring the costs of acquiring those players.
Final Thoughts
The best advertisers in the iGaming industry recognize that acquiring the right players is the goal rather than the acquisition of the most players.
While the number of players who register with an iGaming company is a helpful metric to measure, that number should be evaluated in conjunction with the number of players who make their initial deposit, return to the company, their lifetime value, and the company’s profitability.
By focusing on acquiring only the best quality players, improving their relationships with their publishers, increasing the target of their advertisements, and making better decisions about their advertising spend based on first-party data, the companies and advertisers can improve their profits and their customer base’s value to them. In the world of the highly competitive iGaming industry, quality is the key to success - not quantity of the players that are acquired.