A new problem for CRM

Suppliers have consistently advanced the online gaming industry, but one of the latest developments has been to the detriment of the market. Now, they are looking to destroy retention marketing by offering players the horrible choice of exactly what they want.  

Quick recap: Online gaming operators rely on CRM, not on affiliates. Why? Because by retaining players for longer terms and increasing their lifetime value, they can sustain a healthy CPA, knowing their team of data geeks can make an impressive ROI out of the players you have sent them. Operators aren't your friends and they don't enjoy your jokes - they just like your traffic.  

Now, operators can segment their databases into numerous groups and offer each one the exact amount of bonuses they need to keep them ticking over. Obviously, it's way more complicated than it sounds, and requires experience, analytical skills and creativity. This is how they manage to grow player values beyond the average standard and actually maximise profit and extend player engagement. Quick tip; if you are sending traffic to a casino that has a rocking CRM team - take the revenue share deal. You'll thank me after your first jet.  

That said, a key component within this activity is being able to communicate directly with the players. Unlike sports betting operators, who lure players based on matches, races and tournaments that happen anyway in the real world, online casinos must artificially inflate the level of interest by creating promotional events and tailoring offers to the above-mentioned segments. Why? So they can differentiate themselves from the rest of the 972,528,577,539 other online casinos who are as unique as rare snowflakes (assuming snowflakes also use the Playtech platform).

Such interaction with the players is done via emails, text messages, chats etc. There are various best practices on which channel fits which scenario, according to the progress made through the user journey, but essentially you get the picture - content sent from the operator to the player.

"NOW, THEY CAN WITHDRAW 80% OF THE TOTAL DEPOSITS (NEARLY DOUBLE THE STANDARD IN OTHER EUROPEAN MARKETS) AND WAY LESS THAN 20% EVER TICK THE “BE A PAIN IN MY BUTT AND NAG ME ANYTIME YOU RE-THINK OF THE SAME OLD BORING PROMOS" CHECKBOX. NOT SO COOL ANYMORE, EH?"  

Fast forward to 2019, and the growing number of regulated markets required a higher level of KYC to be enforced, and as such, several payment processors wanted to help process more transactions by offering a neat feature; players that have already been through the KYC process. They had the details of those customers who already worked with them, fully approved, and allowed the online gaming operators to start providing their services to these players without the need for further checks. One of the leading names in this niche is the Swedish-facing online banking solution, Trustly.  

Up until that point, the market was different, to say the least. People had no sense of commitment, and would just jump around between the brands, according to what is advertised more on TV, simply shopping around for the better pre-deposit free bonuses. As long as proper CRM could be applied, such absence of loyalty could have been somewhat compensated, due to the high average player values and by offering sophisticated VIP programmes and innovative products.

Not so long ago, someone thought of a genius concept; let's offer players the chance to simply pay through Trustly, and start playing instantly, without even bothering with registration or login of some sort using their email address/phone numbers. What a cool idea.

Oh, quick note before we continue; now you can't do CRM at all, as you have no idea who's playing and you can't try to convince them to return after they leave. Now, they can withdraw 80% of the total deposits (nearly double the standard in other European markets) and way less than 20% ever tick the "be a pain in my butt and nag me anytime you re-think of the same old boring promos" checkbox. Not so cool anymore, eh?

As you can imagine, the impact was quite mesmerising, and most experts now agree that once the Pay N Play option has been floated, there will be no room for non P & P casinos in the Swedish market by 2020. Bartender - I will have what everybody else had, at once.

So what can still be done if you can't send any messages to players, because you don't know who they are and don't have their contact details? I could offer the simple answer, which is "be smarter," but I will break it down for you.

The only thing you know for certain under these terms is that the player who's playing now is currently engaged with your lovely themed slots with the Atari-like graphics. As such, the objective has transformed from "bring them back" to "keep them around." It's still retention, but in the same way cricket is like baseball.

What P & P operators should adopt are systems that would allow conducting the same user journey, but in real-time and with native embedded pop-up capabilities that don't require the players to install an app (hence, no push notifications). Taking the same logic applied in the multi-days cycle (e.g. a player didn't deposit for five days, first send an email, and after three more days send an SMS) and shrink it into sessions that last minutes, demands many adjustments. My advice is picking the most sophisticated and flexible marketing automation system; one which can also allow triggering personalised bonuses based on each player's current gaming behaviour.

Instead of a segment with hundreds of players in it, and cashback offers of "up to 10% of your losses from the weekend," imagine offering each and every player dynamic percentages based on the past three minutes. Fight fire with fire, my friends.