The best you can be


If you build it, will they come? And more importantly, will those who do come to your Website stay there and play? One big online operator is counting on an optimisation programme, writes Barnaby Page


G


etting visitors to your site through advertising, promotions, cross- selling from land-based casino locations, search-engine friendliness and the like is only


half the struggle. A significant number of customers who point their Web browsers at a gaming service end up going away without placing a bet, just as a huge number of online retail transactions are abandoned before completion.


In both cases, the reasons can be manifold – the consumer might be frustrated by awkward registration processes, they might not be able to pay by any of the accepted methods, or they might simply find what’s on offer insufficiently appealing to persuade them to part with their time and money.


Self-evidently, some Website structures,


processes and designs work better than others in holding on to the customer through to the conclusion of a transaction. But how do you know whether yours are doing the job as well as they could?


To find out, online operator PartyGaming turned to a firm called Maxymiser, which specialises in helping Websites improve the percentage of visitors who become customers – the conversion rate. It used multivariate testing methods to establish the effectiveness of multiple possible copy and design approaches on PartyGaming’s pages (a grand way of saying that it provided different combinations of elements to different visitors, and measured which worked best).


And within four months, PartyGaming was 26 MARCH 2011


already seeing the result in an increase in completed downloads from its PartyCasino.


“As a business, we had always relied on our


own in-house tools and mechanisms that we had developed over the years to manage our online conversion strategy,” said Nick Fleetwood, Optimisation Analyst at the gaming company.


But PartyGaming was aware that that


wasn’t enough. “Our main objective is for optimisation to become part of the culture of our business, and become a key element of our processes for putting content onto the Website. By constantly testing our site we can ensure that any changes we make to the content and layout of pages are the correct ones, and that every change carries with it uplift in overall conversion. This removes the need to make changes to Website content based on gut feeling,” said Fleetwood.


“With every test we enhance our knowledge


regarding what colours, copy and design elements our visitors respond to most positively. These design rules then feed back into further tests to ensure that each and every test evolves both the understanding we have of our customer’s usability needs and our site’s overall conversion rate.”


A simple concept, perhaps – but one that


needs to be applied with scientific rigour if it’s truly going to move your Website optimisation far beyond the level of “the Managing Director’s mum likes that colour”, still the basis of too many design choices made by businesses.


What recession? The world’s online gambling market grew by


12 percent in 2010, according to Global Betting and Gaming Consultants (GBGC), to just under $30bn, or 9.4 percent of all gaming revenue. And that trajectory is set to continue – the firm expects that within three years it will be worth nearly $42bn.


Of that total, 41 per cent was provided by


sports betting, aided by the World Cup and handicap betting on football in Asia, and 46 per cent was games such as Poker and Blackjack. Bingo, though growing rapidly in Europe, only contributed about 4 per cent of the total.


“Internet gambling is clearly growing strong


roots and becoming more of a mainstream leisure pursuit, and our analysis suggests that, with few exceptions, countries are moving to regulation rather than damnation, with seven EU member states bringing forward Internet gambling legislation for 2011. This is a healthier engagement with a business certain to continue growing at a rapid rate, encouraged by an increasing number of applications developed for mobile phones and the global spread of broadband,” said Warwick Bartlett, GBGC’s CEO.


Stock markets seem to share that confidence;


GBGC’s index of publicly-traded Internet gaming firms performed better than an index of land-based outfits. However, the consultant cautioned: “The profitability of individual companies is not necessarily keeping pace with this growth as marketing, taxation and regulatory costs increase.”


To counteract those mounting costs with


extra revenue, of course, you could always turn to Website optimisation…


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