Analysis


CRM - ONLINE/OFFLINE


campaigns and offers and how they can affect player behaviour. The benefit of this information comes in the reduced cost of player acquisitions, enabling clients to optimise the campaigns they deliver through both affiliates and their own channels. The ability to lower the cost of acquisition and target bonuses at the most profitable players, means that you're maximising all your interactions with your customers.”


The technology may be rocket science, but the thinking behind it is much more straightforward: 'the more you personalise your message to the customer, the better the response.' The sites drawing the most profit from players are studying and predicting their behaviour on their sites. Response rates can be lifted by as much as 15 per cent based on personalised emails. The more individual the message, the more you understand your player, and the better the response.


“In some respects, it's much like land- based casino comping players," states Mr. Martin. “The CRM solutions offered by Unica take that element of land-based gaming and bring it to life online. In the most recent PartyGaming annual results, they talk about the levels of personalisation the company can now achieve. In real terms, it's about reacting to the player. We group players by individual behaviour, with over 1,100 customer player groups, the player gets the right offer at the right time as part of a 24/7 programme that sees companies making up to 15,000 separate offers to their player base every day.”


If you're running an operation 24/7, fortunately there's not herds of people at the back end servicing that facility. Campaigns are set-up by the business, which in turn react to certain parameters, certain sets of activity in a self-learning process. Unica use extremely clever algorithms to calculating the responses needed to turn a fully staffed data centre into a ‘lights-out’ operation with minimal staff. Clients can then extract exactly what type of information they need in very visual chart-based reports, again to whatever granular level is required.


POWERTOTHEPEOPLE In May, Ireland’s largest gaming company, Paddy Power, jumped onboard with the Unica On-Demand web analytics system. Paddy Power, one of the UK's largest gaming companies and the largest in Ireland, selected Unica’s web analytics solution, NetInsight On-Demand to provide advanced player-level web analytics and optimise its online customer experience. Paddy Power worked with SCL, a web analytics consultancy and Unica partner, to provide consultation;


SCL plays a central role in the implementation and day-to- day management of the solution. Available as an on-demand or on-premise solution, Unica NetInsight delivers self-service capabilities built on a flexible and open data architecture.


NetInsight allows marketers throughout the enterprise to perform in-depth analysis of website visitor behaviour by cleanly separating tagging from the way that data is analysed. NetInsight's role- based flexibility enables business users to streamline exploratory ad-hoc analysis and custom reporting for a quick view of trends, success indicators, and visitor behaviour.


"The vast majority of online gaming organisations are paranoid about their customer data and for the most part host everything themselves as a result," describes Mr. Martin of the Paddy Power deal and set-up. "In Paddy Powers' instance, they recognised the need to achieve this in a phased process, using our software as a service in regards to their own internal capability. What Paddy Power want to analyse with this data is entirely their business. We provide the technology to analyse that information on their website.


“Online gaming companies like to internalise these things themselves and in the future Paddy Power will probably do the same. However, speed to market can be all-important, especially during a summer that included the World Cup. Unica offers a fast track into CRM that can be adapted and brought in-house at a later stage, but initially can provide rewards in a very short space of time.”


It would be wrong to say that these CRM solutions are plug and play - it isn't as straightforward as all that and does involve complicated software. It is also unrealistic to expect a solution provider to rebuild every component and integrate the solution into an existing company system overnight. However, Unica is, as described by Mr. Martin, somewhat of a technological floozy, able to integrate and extract data from any point as directed by the customer.


“We have already demonstrated that this can be achieved in relatively short timescales - 3-6 months for example,” explains Mr. Martin of the process. “But it’s not just about the technology, it’s about business change. The people involved have to change their processes and there can be resistance. Never mind us and our clever software, the client has to change how they run their business in order for it to work.”


G3i I ISSUE 2 I PAGE 58


Since this interview, IBMhas closed its


acquisition ofUnica Corporation.


ThroughUnica, IBMis acquiring enterprise and cloud-based


marketing software solutions that help businesses


streamline and


automatemarketing processes, and understand and


predict customer preferences.


Through both the Unica and


Coremetrics


acquisitions, IBMwill enable its clients to developmore relevant and targeted


communications whileminimising marketing


expenditures.


With the closing of the acquisition,


approximately 500


Unica employees join IBM’s Software SolutionsGroup.


The technologymay be rocket science, but the thinking


behind it ismuch more


straightforward: the more you


personalise your message to the


customer, the better the response.'


HOWITALLWORKS There are two strands of CRM operating as a player enters a gaming site. The first follows the registered player, who enters, logs in and establishes who they are with the system. This brings up a history of that particular player and the response that player has had to previous offers. The system uses this profile to interact with the player, for example offering the chance to play against in-house professionals (an example used by Full Tilt), or play multiple hands at the same time. The player profile increases the knowledge and understanding of that player and makes offers specific to their past behaviour.


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