The problem of good CAC/bad bettors is rife, even among some of the biggest brands in the business. Allan Stone, CEO at Intelitics, explains why determining the predictive lifetime value of a player within 72 hours of sign-up is key.
More often than we’d like to admit, betting brands are left scratching their heads as the data shows a great customer acquisition cost, but also bad bettors.
This happens for several reasons but one of the most significant is the way that ad networks and affiliates reward early clicks while ultimately, sportsbooks win on lifetime value.
If you optimise too early, you overfund bonus hunters who ultimately shift allegiance to the next brand offering a tempting sign-up promotion while underfunding the legit players who stick around.
This is the disconnect between ad networks and affiliates, and operators – a disconnect that’s costing operators real margin.
Some of the top betting brands understand this and have switched up their approach as a result. This includes…
1. Feeding value scores back through the Conversions API (CAPI) or server to help determine the player’s “stickiness”.
2. Once armed with this value score, they suppress bonus hunters and promo abusers as money spent on these players is ultimately wasted.
3. Considering state, sport, device and KYC speed when determining the potential LTV of a player.
4. Weighting deposits, churn risk and net gaming revenue to give a more accurate understanding of bettor quality and loyalty.
5. Accepting a higher customer acquisition cost when the payback on that cost is going to be faster.
6. Shifting budget towards high-LTV cohorts as these are the players who are going to keep wagering with your brand over time.
7. Predicting LTV using first-party data as ultimately, player loyalty is dependent on the experience being offered by the brand.
The driving force behind this is being able to determine a predictive LTV (pLTV) within a 72-hour window of the player first signing up to the brand – something that can be done with Intelitics.
Determining pLTV gives enough of a signal to spot real behaviour without drowning in early noise – accounting for time of day and day of week registrations, too.
For example, someone who signs up on Thursday to bet on Saturday’s slate won’t be labelled low value as their activity just hasn’t happened yet.
The 72-hour window is super important, as it keeps players in the model while balancing short-term efficiency with long term accuracy, allowing operators to keep good bettors and filter out the not-so-good.
When you stop chasing cheap sign-ups and start optimising for lifetime value, you change the economics of your marketing.
But to do this, operators need a cutting-edge platform and this is something we provide via Intelitics’ AI-Native Marketing Intelligence Platform – the first of its kind to link marketing spend to downstream profit.
Whichever platform operators use, it needs to be able to handle the complexity of modern digital marketing and the unique economics of betting and gaming, using first-party data and AI to give companies a real-time, predictive view of which campaigns, channels and partners are actually driving long-term player value, and not just clicks or deposits.
Most importantly, it needs to be able to deliver a highly reliable predictive Lifetime Value within 72 hours of player acquisition, backed by billions of first-party signals.
This means operators and their marketing teams can invest with confidence and eliminate wasted spend before it compounds.
Determining pLTV is vital and the only way to ensure operators are investing in quality players.
In an industry with a long payback period for customer acquisition costs, predictive LTV replaces constant guesswork with something much more concrete, and this, in turn, allows operators to generate a much larger ROI on their marketing investments and spend.
Not only that, but with Intelitics, they get a single view of all channels, whereas most platforms just focus on affiliates or paid media.
Operators also get eyes on those channels as well as performance partners, Meta, Google, TikTok, native apps and more. And with a consistent view of all channels, as well as a clear pLTV, they can create more accountability while super-charging results.
The betting and gaming industry has moved on from customer acquisition at any cost.
Marketing teams can’t just spend more to drive growth; they must spend smart and with accountability. This means building the best marketing mix and optimising every campaign as it runs – but they need a sophisticated platform to do this.
The problem of good CAC/bad bettors is rife, even among some of the biggest brands in the business, but by focusing on simple metric – pLTV – and adjusting course accordingly, operators can invest in loyal players while filtering out the bonus hunters and promo abusers.
And this is mission critical to establishing a successful, sustainable online betting brand in any market around the world.
The post Intelitics: why great CAC can lead to bad bettors appeared first on G3 Newswire.
The problem of good CAC/bad bettors is rife, even among some of the biggest brands in the business. Allan Stone, CEO at Intelitics, explains why determining the predictive lifetime value of a player within 72 hours of sign-up is key. More often than we’d like to admit, betting brands are left scratching their heads as…
The post Intelitics: why great CAC can lead to bad bettors appeared first on G3 Newswire.