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It's that time of the year again, we're just a few weeks away now from the Eagles taking on the Cowboys in the NFL's opening game as the franchises look ahead to a season, hopefully culminating in Super Bowl glory next year. Well, an exciting time for players, it's perhaps even better for fans and for sportsbooks. So how can sportsbooks capitalise on the NFL kick off and re-engage with players who may not be as active throughout the rest of the year? iGaming Daily is brought to you by OptiMove, the number one CRM marketing solution for the iGaming market. Welcome back to iGaming Daily. I'm Charlie Horner and joining me to discuss all of this is Jeff Laniardo, Director of Sales at OptiMove. Jeff, thanks a lot for joining us. How are you doing today? Hey, doing great. Thanks for having me, Charlie. Excited to be speaking today. Brilliant. You're looking forward to the new season. guess, know, Jets fan judging by your attire. Yeah, this is the rare part of the calendar year where the Jets are still technically in playoff contention and hopes are high, at least higher than they typically end up in November, December, January. So, yeah, always looking forward to the weather starting to turn up in the northeast of the states and that football weather is right around the corner for us. Beautiful. Yeah, as an Arden football or soccer fan, I'm just a couple of weeks away now from the Premier League, so I know the feeling. Let's talk about this from a betting perspective then. So just how important is the NFL season for US Sportsbooks? Yeah, it's crucial. It's one of the most important times of the year. It's one of the most important weekends of the year. And this time of year right now, we're in August, just June, July, August leading up to NFL. You would think that maybe this is a slower time of year. Most other industries, I think, have their summers be a little bit quieter. But in the NFL, even when there is only baseball going on, this is a really pivotal point of the year for sportsbooks because it's when operators are rolling out new technologies. It's the time where we see some of our clients maybe switching platforms. They're discussing initiatives and going over strategy for NFL. And it all culminates in week one, which week one is one day, right? It's a couple days really, but it's a single weekend that kicks off the NFL season, but it really sets the tone for the rest of the NFL for the 18 weeks of the regular season and then obviously leading up to Super Bowl. And it's a really important point in the calendar for sports books because it's their first opportunity to reengage a lot of players and it's, have a chance to get off on the right foot before. this longer football season. it's only a single day, but it really sets the tone for the rest of the season. And, you know, obviously we'll talk about some strategies for re-engagement and tapping into the existing database and how CRM plays into that. But I will, I'll give you a little bit of an anecdote here that has absolutely nothing to do with sports betting, but nonetheless, I'll, do my best to tie it back. So I moved into this house that I'm in five years ago, my wife and I bought this house five years ago. And we, when we bought the house, it's in the suburbs of New York city. And I remember then we had just done the inspection. We were new to the town. We were leaving. We didn't know the area. And we're like, oh, let's grab a bite to eat. We're like, all right, let's grab some pizza. And, know, in the North Jersey area, there are probably, there's probably 15 pizza places within a five mile radius of us. So there's plenty of options. And we found this place on Google, we called them up and went to go order and my wife has celiac. So we were asking if they had gluten free pizza and the girl who answered didn't know if they had gluten free pizza. We sat on hold for a few minutes and after a few minutes we said, you know what, let's just call somewhere else and call tomorrow. They had gluten free pizza. had regular pizza for me and I now frequent that place weekly. And I always think back to that really minor interaction that I had with that initial pizza place because, you know, they had no way of knowing this, poor girl, but my lifetime value as a pizza eater, and I eat a lot of pizza, Charlie, it's probably, you know, hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars over the five years and counting that I've lived in this house. And now I'm loyal to this second pizza place. And, you know, maybe if it's a different initial interaction with that first pizza joint, it could have gone differently. And, you know, bringing this way back around to the NFL, Now we have this really unique opportunity to re-engage players. We have first time depositors. That initial interaction, the first payment that they make, the KYC process, the content that we're putting in front of them, the messaging and the CRM and all those little moments are so pivotal in making sure that they're getting off on the right foot and hopefully building up that loyalty with that brand. Yeah, you're right. It's all about personalization and making sure those interactions are tailored to your needs, whether that's for pizza or whether that's for sports betting, know, it's all the same. We like experiences that feel tailor-made to us. So we mentioned that we're trying to re-engage players and, you know, we have the VIP player segment and we have those really extreme recreational players. But there is a middle ground of those players who might bet fairly frequently throughout this season, but there could be more or higher lifetime values from them. So how can operators engage and re-engage those players to improve that LTV? Yeah, when I saw this topic, I was excited to speak about it. think it's a little bit of an under discussed area. Obviously, if we think about the spectrum of players, VIPs are very commonly discussed. They make up a disproportionate percentage of revenue for sportsbooks and there's plenty of focus on VIPs. And even at the other end of the spectrum, first time depositors, that's also a big focus, right? We have these players that come in, maybe they're grabbing a bonus and they're leaving, but there's this middle tier player that is probably under talked about it. I think under strategize for him. We have obviously a lot of great data and OptiMove working with so many operators and even though this middle tier makes up a smaller percentage of revenue. volume wise, It's about 37 % of users that we define as this mid-tier cohort, and they make up only 17 % of the revenue. So it is an underrepresented group, but I would kind of hypothesize that this is the segment, this is the cohort that has the most opportunity to tap into for a number of reasons. I think one, maybe they're not as paid attention to. And I think secondly, this group of players, which are more likely to be casual recreational betters, they are probably more susceptible to different strategies. And I'll kind of explain what I mean by that. you know, the VIP, they are generally established, establishing some level of status, some level of loyalty with a specific brand. They want to increase their VIP tier. you know, it's very challenging to get them off of that, that setup that they have established as a loyal VIP. The lower tier, the first time depositors and these, you know, kind of bonus bandits or whatever you want to call it. They are also challenging to build loyalty to because they're, you know, kind of just taking advantage of whatever the latest opportunity is. And, you know, a very challenging cohort to really establish that value with. This mid tier has more opportunity to create that loyalty. you know, I think I've said the word loyalty a bunch and I would say The industry that is probably most effectively tapped into loyalty is probably travel and airlines in particular. And just speaking from my own personal experience, I live in New Jersey. I fly at a Newark typically. I am in the hierarchy of United, nowhere near. I'm a peon in the status, but I have minor status with United and I try to fly United when I can. even if there's another airline that's more expensive or maybe a better flight time or a better situation, I still try to fly United because I've just built up that loyalty. And if I were to get an email or a promotion from a Delta or from a JetBlue, I'm just less likely to act on that promotion because I probably in the eyes of United, I'm a VIP, quote unquote. But the agnostic flyer or player is more apt to be responsive to a really compelling offer or a really engaging email or really personalized content. And so that mid-tier that really hasn't established that level of VIP status, that's where we can really tap into more effective CRM, more personalized bonusing, and try to grow that middle cohort that we're talking about. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I guess in a time where there aren't many new states launching sports betting, you've got to try and squeeze more LTV out of individual players. And I guess loyalty schemes and bonusing. comes into that. So what steps should sportsbooks take to ensure that they have a more profitable NFL campaign this time around? Yeah, it's I think, you know, the word that comes to mind, it's a little bit of a buzzword, but it all comes down to data. It all comes down to how well do you understand your customers? And, know, I often think about just the online gaming space in general and how you know, how great of an opportunity is to have so much data available. There's such a immense volume of data available to especially marketers. And I often compare this to other industries, right? If you were to wake up tomorrow, Charlie, and you're a marketer for Macy's or Banana Republic or pick a retailer and you know, maybe I'm a customer, I'm Jeff and I buy a blue shirt, right? And you know that, okay, Jeff likes blue shirts. And maybe if I'm a really good customer, three weeks later, four weeks later, I'll buy a pair of pants. And okay, you know that now that Jeff likes pants and there's such a limited scope of understanding that you have about these customers and even the top tier customers, they're only engaging every three weeks, every month, depending on the business, different cadences. In the world of online gaming, we see our best players every day. They're engaging with us on a daily basis. And if you consider just how much intelligence we're collecting, every login, every click, every bet, every leg of every parlay, did I win, did I lose? How is my balance fluctuating? Operators are collecting all of this data and all of this intelligence, and hopefully they're harnessing it to tailor messaging and cater and experience to these different customers. So when it comes to tapping into that database, like you said, we're not really opening up many new states. Operators are forced to shift from acquisition to retention, mining that existing customer database. they should have some level of understanding of who these customers are. And a player who bets on his or her favorite team every week should be marketed to completely different than somebody who is trying to hit a 10-leg parlay and turn $5 into $50,000, right? What we kind of call a jackpot hunter. And the messaging and the content should be completely different based on who that player is and operators, if they can properly... take advantage of this intelligence they have about this customer, they should be able to personalize that experience based on who that player is. A hundred percent. Data is so valuable and important, especially now. You know, it's so competitive out there, particularly in the U.S. that I think operators simply have to be able to leverage that data to create personalized and really individual experiences. know me for certain, if I was, you know, offered golf bets, I might not use that operator, but if it was Premier League bets, I would be coming back. So brilliant, great insights there, Jeff. We'll take a quick break and then we'll talk about how operators can maybe utilise that data. Welcome back to iGaming Daily, where we're talking all things NFL and the start of the new campaign. I'm with Jeff Laniardo, the Director of Sales at Optimove. Jeff, we've talked about how important data is and gathering that data for personalised experiences. What marketing strategies do you find work best to re-engage with these sort of middle ground players that we're talking about here? Yeah, it's a great question and I often, this was a conversation I had probably three or four years ago with an executive at an online casino and I was talking to him and he said something that has stuck with me for years. He said, when our players walk into the doors of our digital casino, I want them to feel like they're met. with a personal handshake. And I think that's kind of the holy grail of every operator, right? How do they have players, you know, feeling that really human experience and not having them feel like it's a generic, you know, experience as they land onto an app or a sports book or a casino. And that's the challenge that these operators are facing with, right? How do they tap into, you know, not just the mid-tier obviously, but all player segments to have that really tailored experience. You know, a lot of it, goes back to data. It goes back to, you know, how do we make predictions about players and how do we, you know, understand what makes them tick? We have players and, you know, we're obviously talking about the NFL season and kind of the seasonality of the off season and going into week one and then, you know, that period of time. There are some players that we know are going to be NFL only, no matter what. And when we go to re-engage those players, it's really important to understand What type of player are they? And they may be dormant now, maybe they churned, understanding maybe why they churned, right? Did they make an initial deposit and they depleted their account in week six and they no longer engage with us after that? And maybe we think those are the types of players that are gonna make an initial deposit at the start of NFL and let it run through however long they get through. Are there players that are depositing every week? You know, again, those jackpot type of hunters are their players who only do frappets and bet on their favorite team. There's all these nuances in player behavior. And when we go to try to reactivate those players, making sure that we are engaging with them based on what we know, having them walk into the digital doors of our sports book and, you know, putting the right content and messaging in front of them is really key. And, you know, from a sports book perspective, from a business point of view, we can anticipate that there are some players that are probably going to reactivate when it's NFL season. And they may not need that bonus. They may not need that promotion. you know, profitability is obviously a huge topic for sportsbooks. I've been at Optima for six years and I would say that probably the first two years were more focused on, you know, licensing and new operators rolling out and new brands coming to market. This middle phase was more focused on growth than know, expanding and acquisition. I would say the last two years has really shifted to focus more on retention and profitability. And, know, at CRM, we're right in the heart of that. And so making sure that when we're sending out a bonus to a player, making sure that we're sending out the right bonus, we're not overbonusing players that maybe don't need that more generous bonus to reactivate. And also just making sure that, you know, we are driving players in the direction that we want them to go. Um, you know, we talk about sports betting and profitability. It's hard not to go into same game parlay is and parlay is how big of a, an aspect that's become of, of the American sports betting. You know, there's so much data out there on how popular parlay is become New Jersey releases a lot of granular data and you know, 72 % of revenue last year in New Jersey came from parlay is and it's taken the whole percentage from. you know, non-parlays are four and a half percent hold up to 24 % for a hold percentage for parlays. so sports books can try to encourage players into specific directions and, know, they can maximize their profitability and boost the bottom line through some of these different activities and behaviors. Yeah. CRMs are, yeah, like you said, at the heart of this. yeah, same game parlays always marketed as these fun types of bets and makes the game more entertaining, yeah, you write much more profitable for the sports book. know, hold rates are going to have to go up in light of the lack of state launches that we mentioned in the first half of the show. And that means that operators are going to have to increase those hold rates and if they want to be more profitable. So how difficult is it for operators to manage to continue the big, like, momentum that they had in the last three to five years, say, because an OptiMove publishes reports on betting activity during NFL campaigns and through Super Bowls and the numbers are only going up and up. But in this new era where state launches are slowing down, how difficult is it to carry on that momentum? Yeah, it's definitely a challenge, you know, especially when we think about the landscape of the US and we have 30 something states that have legalized sports betting and a fraction of those states allow for online casino. so especially for, you know, these publicly traded companies that are getting pressure to turn a profit. And, you know, just even last past week, we have a handful of clients that are publicly traded. We are seeing a shift now to some level of profitability, some sustained positive EBITDA trends, and that's great to see. And a lot of that is because of this shift into more of a focus on the existing states. It's no longer this gold rush of five new states open up this year, and we see these crazy signup bonuses, and the marketing budgets are ballooning, and then that obviously affects profitability. So there's been a fundamental shift in how sports books and online operators need to refocus their efforts, you know, shifting players into same game parlay is to boost those hold rates is certainly a big part of it. Tapping into this existing database and not having this opportunity of, you know, new states and a fresh new crop of players that's popping up every few months. It's forced a transition from an acquisition focused mindset to a retention focused mindset. And, you know, whenever we talk retention, the goal is, is loyalty, right? We want to have players that are loyal. to the brand and there's a Warren Buffett quote that I think back to. So he is obviously a famous investor in Apple. at one point I guess he was asked like, why is he so bullish on Apple? And he said that if I were to offer an Apple user, an iPhone user $10,000, but you can never use another Apple product again for the rest of your life. Most people would not take that. They are so intertwined into the Apple ecosystem and they're so loyal to the products and the software. that they would not take $10,000 and he wants to invest in a brand that has that level of loyalty. And, you know, very few brands can say that obviously we're comparing this to Apple, but if I were to offer, you know, a random person, Hey, I'll give you $10,000. You can never buy a Ford again. They would probably say, okay, no problem. I'll just go buy a Toyota or a Honda or whatever. And so I think that's kind of the Holy grail. That's the North star that these sports folks are aiming for. How do they, how do they get players to a point where even if they are being enticed with another offer from another operator, they feel that level of loyalty, they feel that level of connection. building out that loyalty really comes back to the roots of all of these different aspects that we're talking about. Just really personalized outreach, bonuses that are relevant, content that's tailored for the players. That's how we can establish that level of loyalty. And at scale... this can have a meaningful difference, right? We're never going to retain every player after the Super Bowl. We're never going to reactivate every player in week one. But if we can get those rates just to move in a five percent or 10 percent in the right direction, especially for these larger operators, that's a meaningful, you know, seven, eight figure difference. Absolutely. I don't think we're quite going to have players turning down $10,000 never to use a a certain operator. But yeah, it's a it's The point stands and yeah, that level of loyalty is definitely something that everyone can aim towards. Now, it wouldn't be a conversation about data and personalization and those kinds of things without bringing AI into the conversation. So what role does AI play in all of this and helping to re-engage these kinds of players that we're talking about? Yeah, I think we hit the over on the minute mark of not bringing up AI. But yeah, it's a big part of this. It's a big part of this. And when I say AI and I tend to try to even stay away from talking about it, at least using the term, because I think it's become a little bit of a loaded term. It can mean so many different things. And I think the idea behind AI, the goal behind AI, it shouldn't be automation. think it also oftentimes gets lumped in with automation. And I think the goal behind AI is to be able to make these decisions at scale at a human level, right? And the word that I would probably use that I would almost substitute in for AI, just to avoid the buzzword and almost the crutch of the term, is decisioning. And you have operators that, you know, they have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. Some operators have millions of players that they're, especially in the world of CRM, they're sending messages to. And week one of NFL is a perfect opportunity for them to have these, you know, chances to engage these players. How do you make decisions at scale about a million players? How do you decide which bonus should go out to a million different players? How do you decide which channel you should reach them through? Which content to use? People have different tendencies and propensities and different favorite teams. And maybe somebody that has a hundred dollar balance left over, they don't need a deposit bonus, right? So being able to account for all of these different personas and player types at scale is really challenging without some sort of technology, some sort of decisioning, some sort of AI. again, I think the goal is not to have it be completely automated. We want to create and foster a human experience, but to do so at scale is impossible to do manually. So that's where automated decisioning and what we call it self-optimizing campaigns, self-optimizing journeys, these tools that we give marketers to look at 100,000 players and not have a generic one size fits all batch and blast campaign go out to 100,000 players. but really tailor the experience to each player so that we are, you know, opening up the digital doors of our sports book to a hundred, a hundred thousand different players and have them walk into an experience that feels like it was tailor made just for them in a human way. Brilliant. Jeff, thanks a lot for your insights. I just have one more question really, and that is any tips ahead of the season and are you feeling confident enough to put some money down on the Jets? Never. No, definitely not. Yeah, I think You know, I'll give like my my prediction. I guess my sister works for the Lions. She's out in Detroit working with the Lions and I would anticipate a bounce back year despite the couple coaches that they lost. I'll give a half real half biased prediction I suppose and say Lions over the Jets in the Super Bowl. I'll let you guess which half of that is facetious at which half of that is a true prediction. But yeah, I think you know tips to operators is just you know, make sure that. you're really tapping in and harnessing that data and really get an understanding of who your players are and, you know, carving out messages that are meant for different groups of players and in a meaningful way, right? We don't want to speak to, again, kind of going back to the example, a guy whose favorite team is the Jets and only bets on the Jets every week. And maybe that's me. And we shouldn't be speaking to me in the same way that we're speaking to Charlie, who is just waiting for a Premier League and, you know, wants nothing to do with golf, evidently. Yeah brilliant. Jeff, thanks a lot for your time, really enjoyed it. I've learnt a lot about the NFL season coming up and I'm sure our listeners have too. So thanks Jeff, thanks to the listeners for tuning in and join us again for another episode of iGaming Daily.