Operators would benefit from a shift in perspective when it comes to how they engage players with bonuses, according to Scatter Group’s CEO, Alexis Wicen.
He emphasised on a recent SBC Webinar that bonuses are a vital tool, however should be utilised to reward “gameplay and winning” rather than “depositing or losing”.
Wicen continued: “Deposit bonuses [have] a very high bonus cost. You can get so much more out of giving some free spins and [players] get more fun out of it. They get the enjoyment out of actually playing those free spins.
“If you give someone a 100% deposit bonus, people know that they have a huge wagering requirement they need to go through. They often will start betting higher so they will actually bet maybe one and a half or two times more than they normally would, which in the end leads to them probably losing the money just as quickly as they would have had they not had the deposit bonus. So in essence, they might not feel that they got more fun out of it.
“Moving towards rewarding players when they’re playing continuously with smaller rewards, so you get more dopamine exposures for the player, is probably much better than one huge deposit bonus in the beginning.”
Graeme Powrie, Chief Commercial Officer of EEZE, also echoed this sentiment, noting that a wider expectation of “on-demand entertainment” from consumers means that smaller rewards more often “has to be more prevalent”.
He also added that due to the “insane” costs of bonuses and promotions, it is key to understand the demographic you are targeting.
He said: “Back in the day, it used to be login and spend X, get Y and you would send it to everyone. But very quickly you spot that 70-80% of those are just logging in to do that. If you’re not getting the returns, it’s about having the data to see which segments [are] getting a return rather than doing a shotgun approach and hoping your activities spike.
“You’ve got to be a lot more targeted and run multiple campaigns, which feels like more work, but you should get a better [return on investment].”
The Game window
Also present on the panel was Christian Melin, Chief Product Officer of Blixx Gaming, he detailed the importance of keeping customers within the game window rather than requiring them to leave in order to collect rewards or search for new games.
“Not many are taking it as seriously as they should,” explained Melin. “We worked a lot at Entain on how you show leaderboards and how you show if you have a mission you need to complete, which is very hard as you need to make sure that you do not take the player away from the feel and mood of the game.
“If something is around that you want to keep them there and not have [them] go out and collect the free spins, not many operators have got that right. [At Entain], we made [the game window] shorter and had a bar on top where you could see where you were on the casino tournaments.”
Melin added that when a feature was included to search for different games within a game window, session lengths improved by 12-13% which“makes you more money”.
On this point, Powrie added: “When you speak to customers, intuitive navigation and attractive designs are much more important, but the most important thing is not to overcrowd the interface and that there is a fine balance between giving the customers just enough information and pulling away things they want.”
To hear more about balancing the bonus budget, gamification and more, click HERE to watch the full webinar.
