Not since Bingo was invented in 1929 has the game been more popular than it is today. This is due to the explosion of online Bingo websites and mobile apps that allow players to experience the excitement of the game together with other Bingo lovers around the world, anywhere, anytime. It is estimated there are now more than 100 million online bingo players worldwide (!), 70-80% of whom are women, mostly between 30 and 50 years of age.
Thing is, more than 80% of online Bingo players have registered to more than one site, creating a space in which achieving player loyalty is a key challenge. This highly competitive industry, where players receive generous offers from marketers competing to hold on to every player, requires online Bingo operators to invest in their existing players, to encourage them to play on their site time and again.
Bingo players’ behavioral patterns are different than other real money gaming (RMG) patterns. This requires adjustments when creating strategic customer marketing campaigns to effectively engage and retain those players.
For this Bingo player analysis, we delved into the various “personas” our Optimove AI discovered in the data, to see what opportunities exist for improving retention marketing.
Persona segmentation is based on the clustering of numerous customer attributes, behavioral history, predictive analytics, and other factors. Here, we’ll present a number of common Bingo player personas, along with some suggestions of how to best interact with them.
The Fun Player
Description
The Fun Player is one who has created an account (registered to a site) but has not yet made their first deposit. On many Bingo sites, Fun Players can experience the game with virtual currency.
Insights
The data shows a direct correlation between the activity levels of Fun Players and the likelihood of them converting to become paying players, and generating revenues for the site: Fun Players with higher activity levels are worth more to the operator in terms of Customer Lifetime Value, on average than ones with lower activity.
The data also shows that around 60% of Fun Players who convert (i.e., make their first deposit) do so within the first two days from registration. After two days, there is a sharp drop-off in the rate of Fun Players who make a deposit.
Actions
The Fun lifecycle stage represents an important, yet narrow window of opportunity for Bingo operators.
It is critical to quickly engage Fun Players during the first few days after registration with the goal of motivating them to make their first deposit. In other words, incentivize your Fun Players to make a deposit during the super-important first two days.
As Activity Levels correlate with a conversation, incentivization can also come in the form of getting them to just play more in the first couple of days, even without directly incentivizing them to make a deposit.
For those who don’t convert in the first few days, continue incentivizing them with even more enticing offers to play and/or deposit as the days go by. This is likely your last chance of converting them. Once two weeks have passed from a Fun Player’s date of registration, it is usually only worthwhile targeting Fun Players who remain active (playing with virtual currency), and not “wasting” special offers on that segment.
The New Player
Description
The New Player is one who is within a specific initial period (typically, 14 days) from making their first deposit.
Insights
The data shows clearly that New Players who have a better playing “experience” will remain active players longer (instead of churning). In other words, the better experience a player has in their early days, the longer the player is likely to remain active on the site.
To measure “experience,” we segment New Players into three experience personas, based on the ratio of how much money they wagered to how much money they deposited (i.e., total wagers divided by total deposits):
Great (ratio > 5X)
Good (2-5X)
Bad (< 2X)
This measure is a good proxy of player experience because players with a higher ratio are those who are playing more and for longer durations.
New Players in the better experience personas are more likely to become Active Players (see next section) while those in the worse experience personas tend to move into the Churn lifecycle stage much faster.
Additionally, the data shows that players who make more than one deposit tend to remain engaged for longer than one-timers, and also have a higher lifetime value. This is regardless of the total amounts the player deposited and wagered.
Actions
It is important to view New Players as being in an “incubation” stage. The goal is to provide them with offers that will encourage them to become Active Players.
While still in the New lifecycle stage, proactively encourage players who have made only one deposit to make a second deposit. Consider this your primary objective with these players.
Then, make sure you are providing different incentives to players based on their experience level. For example, offer to compensate one-time-deposit players who’ve had bad experiences with a cash-back for their loss, to encourage them to continue playing.
Likewise, entice players who had a good experience with offers aimed at preventing them from withdrawing their money (and perhaps redepositing that money with a competing operator!). In each case, the goal is to make offers that keep players active and engaged, each according to his or her particular experience.
The Active Player
Description
The Active Player is one who made at least one deposit at any point in time and has played recently (the number of days considered “recent” depends on various factors determined for each operator).
Insights
Multitasking during Bingo, primarily while the Bingo numbers are being announced, is very common in the online Bingo world. Players simultaneously enjoy available activities such as using the interactive chat functionality to communicate with other players and playing instant casino games (such as slots and digital scratch cards) provided by the operator.
The data indicates that players who frequently play the instant games offered alongside the Bingo game itself exhibit, on average, double the lifetime value of players who ignore the instant games! On the other hand, those players who tend to almost completely ignore the Bingo itself, and spend almost all their time engaged in the side activities, tend to remain active for shorter periods of time.
So, there’s a fine balance to strike here.
While the instant game-only players will generate more money in the short term, Bingo players tend to remain active longer if they are also are playing instant games.
In order to further segment Active Players for insight on how to communicate with them, we can use RFM segmentation (RFM stands for Recency, Frequency, and Monetary). This type of segmentation helps us understand things such as: Who are the strong/weak players? Which players play most frequently? Which players have high total wagers on the one hand, but are at the risk of churning on the other hand?
Using RFM to segment Active Players into personas can indicate which groups of players offer the highest lifetime value potential to the operator, and suggest points of intervention (e.g., players at risk of churn).
Actions
The best way to keep Active Players engaged over the long term is to ensure that communications to each player are relevant, given the player’s behaviors and preferences.
Because of the greater lifetime value exhibited by players who play Bingo and also play the instant games presented to them, encouraging players to play both is useful. One way to encourage the desired behavior is with multi-pronged promotions such as, “Deposit bonus & free bingo tickets” for customers who are not playing Bingo, and vice versa for instant game-only players.
Gamified campaigns are also very effective and can help encourage players to try a variety of new games and products. For example, “Play in at least 3 different Bingo rooms in the next 10 days and receive a $25 bonus.”
In terms of RFM segmentation, keep a close eye on your various Active personas. For example, effectively engaging risk-of-churn players before they churn is much more effective than trying to entice them to return at a later time (when it’s basically “too late”). One effective way to do this is to run daily campaigns that offer particularly attractive promotions to each individual segment of Active Players who fall into the risk of churn lifecycle stage.
Likewise, pay attention to your high-rollers—likely your most valuable players—to make sure you are giving them the best experience possible. The same goes for every Active Player persona. All while doing your utmost to deploy best-inclass “Responsible Gaming” mechanisms and strategies.
The Churn (Inactive) Player
Description
Churn Players are those who made at least one deposit, but who have not played or made a deposit for a particular length of time.
Insights
Players who repeatedly churn and return tend to have higher future values than those who have churned and returned only once.
The repeating churn-return players also tend to remain active for longer periods of time:
Actions
The key objective with Churn Players is to bring them back to activity. This is usually accomplished by offering very attractive bonuses or other offers. However, operators should not extend their most valuable offers to players who have churned and returned many times.
The best way to do this is to sub-segment Churn Players according to the number of times they have churned and returned, and gradually decrease the promotions offered as the player repeats the cycle more often. Instead of big bonuses, remind these players why they engaged with your brand in the first place and try to re-engage them on that basis and/or to continue from where they stopped last time.
The Reactivated Player
Description
A Reactivated Player is one who had previously churned, but who has since returned to play again (using an old balance or a new bonus) or make another deposit, regardless of how long it’s been since any previous activity. After a brief “incubation” period, the player will either become Active or revert back to Churn.
Insights
The data shows that there is a significant difference in future value between players who reactivated by making a new deposit and those who reactivated by wagering a past balance or free bonus: players who reactivated by making a new deposit are more valuable and more likely to remain active for a longer period.
Actions
Targeting customers intelligently, based on how they reactivated, is the way to proceed with Reactivated Players. For players who reactivated using an old balance or free bonus, the goal is to encourage them to make a new deposit. Players who reactivated by making a new deposit—your more valuable Reactivated Players—should receive special treatment, enabling them to stick around for a while.
Bingo operators should tread lightly when communicating with Reactivated Players. In fact, it is worthwhile treating Reactivated Players very much like New Players during their incubation stage. It is important to provide highly personalized offers to each player’s behaviors and preferences—something that is done more easily with Reactivated Platers than with New Players because of the more extensive historical activity data available for the Reactivated ones. The goal, of course, is the same: to encourage the player to return to the Active lifecycle stage at the end of the incubation period.
Conclusion
The online Bingo space is extremely competitive, requiring marketers to closely analyze player behavior and look for ways to increase engagement, loyalty, and retention. Online Bingo operators need to communicate with their players intelligently by carefully segmenting players and then targeting each according to their particular affinities and preferences.
Understanding—and utilizing—the different behavioral patterns observed among Bingo players can help marketers communicate with them more effectively, thereby increasing player engagement – and revenue.
Tanya is a data enthusiast with a passion for applying data insights to marketing challenges. A veteran Marketing Data Scientist, Tanya works closely with CRM executives of top online entertainment and e-commerce businesses on building their retention marketing programs, better understanding their customers, and taking their CRM methodologies to the next level. She holds a BSc in Industrial Engineering and Management.
