Suppliers innovate with promotional tools

Back in 2015, Yggdrasil launched BOOST, a collection of promotional tools that sparked a new wave of innovation through the igaming sector. 

Developer-led promo tools crossed over from an ancillary feature to something most suppliers wanted in their competitive toolkit, firing the starting gun on the race to create the ultimate promotional suite Since then, we have seen a plethora of  features being introduced, cementing the tools as an integral part of many suppliers’ offerings.

As developers seek to gain traction in an increasingly competitive market, it’s a logical step to look at how best to encourage a long tail on older titles in the games portfolio, but also how to make a compelling offer for upcoming titles. With the flood of content in the online casino sector, the shelf life of games has reduced significantly and with it the ROI on each release. By boosting stickiness and engagement with titles that would otherwise be relegated to the back pages, promotional tools help to improve profits.

Promotional elements are now a staple in the majority of suppliers’ portfolios, creating a highly competitive environment  where innovation continues to push the boundaries. If you look across the market today, you can see a group of common player-facing functionalities, free spins and jackpots for example, but the specific implementations can differ widely, creating plenty of choice for customers depending on their preferences. 

From what we have seen over the last few years, the most successful tools are not always the ones that are the most original or advanced, but instead offer a twist on already popular mechanics. This has massively helped developers to differentiate, with one such example being Red Tiger’s successful Jackpots suite, which greatly increases acquisition, engagement and retention levels just by slightly tweaking and enhancing the classic jackpot drop.

It goes without saying that ultimately the player is at the heart of developing promotional features. Ensuring they enhance the player experience is fundamental to a good promo tool suite. However, a good product also offers operators convenience and efficiency.

The ability to connect a large portfolio of titles with little if any additional integration time and a virtually plug-and-play back-office functionality makes as good business sense for operators as it does a good experience for the player. Automation and coordination are also key. Just multiply the number of potential back office tools by the number of suppliers and you will be able to empathise with casino managers.

In a highly competitive and increasingly heavily regulated market, promotional tools can also help operators control spend. As the industry continues to mature, we will move away from the spectacularly effective but cost-inefficient days of old into the future where precision will become the name of the game. This has always been the end goal, of course, but with accurate, timely targeting, it’s becoming more of a reality. The other chief instrument for spend control occurs around the concept of expiration, which covers points or bonuses expiring at the right time, as well as  configuring jackpots that drop once a specified value has been reached. This way we’re using both time and money as instruments to increase efficiency whilst also giving the player a great experience.

As an industry, we are known to be innovative and be quick to adopt new technologies. The future of promotional features will be no different. If regulations will allow it, the most important development we will see is player segmentation, as it allows us to cater for all player types. Suppliers will be able to suggest products or a particular player journey based on the person’s previous actions on the site. This is similar to what Amazon has been doing extremely well for a long time. The software will be able to recommend a tournament or event to a player, or a different slot game or a table game to maximise engagement. We also see potential in evolving the social aspect of promo tool suites – an  element that is largely missing in most available products.

At Kalamba we are in the process of rolling out our own RGS and promo tools under the brand Bullseye with the aim to put operators in control of spend and to optimise monetisation and retention. We are innovating by selecting and testing the ideas that offer something different, but at the same time are  straightforward to implement so we can evaluate fast and pivot if needed. Our leaderboards and the newly released Big Win Replay, a concept that is very underutilized among suppliers, promises to unlock new levels of cross-promotional potential and incredibly valuable information.

In our view, promotional tools hold the key to long standing success in the igaming sector. The suppliers that continue to push the boundaries and innovate in the space will come out as winners. 

* Andy Sekula is Head of Games, Kalamba Games