With online sportsbooks experiencing an unprecedented number of new registrations during the 2022 World Cup, we sat down with Flows sales director, Domenico Mazzola, to learn more about how data and no-code automation tools can help operators to convert casual bettors into long-term customers.

With the World Cup in Qatar creating a surge in new sign-ups, the main challenge for sportsbook operators now becomes finding new ways to convert these “big event” bettors into regular customers. As is so often the case in the gambling industry, the key here is customisation and personalisation, but in a way that really focuses on bettors’ needs and offers them something different, something special.

The tournament was a great opportunity to gather data insights and the best way to do this was to add  a bit of fun to their promotions while also collecting data that could be used to keep customers betting throughout the World Cup and beyond.

So how could they have done this? Well, as we know some punters can be very competitive and leader board promotions are a proven retention tool for operators. Therefore, one stand-out way for operators to engage with customers could be to offer a promotion where players battle against each other for the title of “best bettor and where bettors fill in their predictions to collect points and climb the rankings.

In fact, why not get a little more creative and offer a challenge such as  “who can make the best predictions and score the most points on our World Cup leader board or Premier league leader board?”. Using this as a base, operators could even take things a step further and use Flows to drill down into their data to create a series of leader boards separated by country, allowing them to add an additional level of localisation to their promotions.

Of course, the applications of this type of offer extend far beyond the World Cup – operators could also use it to engage with players during the Champions League or the next Euros. After they’ve gathered the necessary data and fed it into Flows, many new promotions become possible. They just need to use their imagination and provide something special that keeps their customers coming back.

However, for this to be successful, it’s important for operators to think about what promotions they want to offer going forward and how to factor these into their marketing strategy. If they were smart during the World Cup, they would have used the tournament to gather data on users’ betting behaviour – i.e. the teams or markets they wagered on – as well as the location that these bets were placed from.

The knock-on effect of this would be that they would now be able      to offer tailored promotions based on bettors’ favourite teams or home countries, creating a personalised link to them for future marketing. I really can’t stress enough how important data collection is for this process – it’s the key to enabling operators to offer something that’s relevant to customers’ activity, habits and personal circumstances.

Looking specifically at the World Cup, bets were being taken on countries rather than specific teams, so operators will need to get a bit creative in terms of how they use this data going forward. Now that the tournament is over, there are still opportunities to utilise information gathered to target bettors for friendlies in the lead up to the Euros, which will be the next round of fixtures for the national sides.

By analysing the data collected during the World Cup, operators can, for example, see whether customers bet on a specific player to be first goal scorer. Based on this, they can see which club side this player represents and recommend specific bets accordingly. Alternatively, they could check whether a customers’ location is within a specific radius of a stadium. If so, which match is being played there next, is it a sell-out and can they be offered a promotion to bet if they didn’t get tickets?

Of course, while many customers that signed up for the World Cup can potentially be converted into long-term bettors, there are two other key user profiles that operators will also have to deal with going forward. These are bonus abusers – i.e. those that signed up purely for the World Cup offers and have no intention of betting going forward – and casual bettors who are only active for big events.

Starting with the former, most operators will already have a process in place for preventing bonus abuse. However, in terms of reaction time, it’s far more effective for them to streamline their risk strategy by using automated workflows. By doing so, they can implement all of their bonus abuse rules automatically based on common patterns, allowing them to act quickly and improve the bonus terms.

The other customer category is a little trickier, but there may still be opportunities to cross-sell casual sports bettors who signed up purely for the World Cup to other products like casino games. Again, no-code automation tools can help operators identify this type of customer and target them with relevant offers and promotions based on the trends and patterns established through their betting behaviour.

One example would be for a sportsbook to track how often a casual bettor is logging onto their website or app, how many bets they’ve placed and what these bets typically look like. Based on this, they can then ear-mark the type of customer that might be receptive to casino games and use their no-code automation tools to create and send personalised emails or messages that promote these products.

By looking into the data, a sportsbook could send an email to a customer that has shown an interest in casino games in the past or to one who has placed a high number of sports bets, but hasn’t yet tried any of the other products they offer. This email could include information about the sportsbooks’ casino games, a special bonus to help get them started      and direct links to the casino website or app.

Bearing this in mind, there are a wealth of opportunities for sportsbook operators to convert their momentum from the World Cup into the regular betting calendar. By using no-code automation tools that analyse data and automatically send out personalised messaging, they’ll be able to better target casual sports fans with relevant offers that will ease their journey to becoming long-term customers.