Kick off
Business problem
Acquiring new customers on the betting industry is costly & retention is difficult to achieve.
LiveScore spends more than competitors on Promotions, using a generic site-wide promotional approach. However this approach is inefficient, with 45% not returning after day one.
How do we make our promotional spend more cost-effective?
How do we improve retention?
What does success look like?
Achieve a more cost-effective promotional spend, by improving retention of users that match specific tier profiles.
Out of user Tiers 1 to 7, we’re targeting users that match Tier 2, Tier 3 & Tier 4 criteria, which weekly average spend ranges from £449 to £51.*
*About tiers data: Tiers are calculated based on active users, which are users that have logged in at least once on every calendar month on the last 6 months. Tiers are different to user personas, and assess users based on net revenue exclusively.
User Research
Understand our users:
What drives customer loyalty,
if anything
We first carried out user interviews to gain insights around our research goals. Once we’ve got insights, we did surveys to validate with a big user base these insights.
Deliverables on this phase:
Qualitative & Generative research:
User interviews (1hr, 5 participants)Quantitative research:
Surveys (373 responses)
Research Goals:
Understand how users perceive value (both inside and outside of industry)
What incentivises customer loyalty
Explore up to what extent value can be created (and loyalty encouraged) through non-monetary tactics.
Surveys helped us to see that at a bigger scale, there is little appetite for a shared betting experience, discarding this as an insight within the context of this project. It also helped us clarify some nuances around the meaning of loyalty as well as preference on rewards.
Research output in a nutshell
Key factor to achieve loyalty:
Personalisation & relevancy (only seeing promotions I’m interested on, for the amount that I’m willing to stake, for the sports event or game that I normally consume & that I’m eligible for).
Strategy as a Product Squad
We’ve gathered with the PMs and assesed the outcome of the research.
We cannot deliver Personalisation to that degree because we are missing user segmentation capability on the main backend tool where promotions are created (Lithium) as well as missing integrations between backend & back office tools to talk to each other.
Therefore, as a squad we decided our strategy should be to capitalise on other loyalty drivers from the user research such as a reward mechanic with delayed gratification , surprise & delight or choice of rewards, with the idea to explore the gamification route.
MISSION STATEMENT
Deliver a well-curated promotions experience across the LiveScore ecosystem, rewarding users for their loyalty and engagement to enhance retention for our business
Ideation & testing
Cross-team
ideation workshop
Off the back of the user research we did, we involved other teams to workshop different solutions in order to drive loyalty.
some concepts from the ideation workshop
Ideation & testing
Test user sentiment
The 3 propositions
(Low-fidelity)
We tested to learn what could drive user loyalty & retention best out of these 3 propositions. This is what we found out…
Deliverables on this phase:
Competitive anaylisis in and outside of the industry
3 conceptual loyalty propositions
Quick prototypes
Moderated user testing to gather user appetite
Test insights
We tested user appetite with 26 users
I took what I knew from the research done + ideation, & went off to do quick prototyping in order to create 3 different propositions to test user appetite.
Low-fidelity prototypes.
Proposition 1:
Points system - Shop concept - Lifestyle rewards
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Generative research showed a positive user sentiment with points - users associate it to successful schemes (eg. Nectar card). Points are often used as a delayed-gratification mechanic to build anticipation and retain users. This mechanic cound help us to link the value of rewards to a continued app usage, helping us control bonus spenditure.
Research also revealed user interest for schemes that offer lifestyle rewards/ vouchers across ecosystem brands or with third parties. Some examples brought by users were Amex, Sky & bp.
I tried to angle the constraint around lack of relevancy (not being able to offer tailored promotions&rewards based on behaviour), by providing choice of rewards instead, with a shop concept.
Proposition 2:
Leaderboards - Rewards pack -Achievement badges - Levels
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Surfacing levels as well as providing visualisation of progress towards a rewards pack was a different angle to the same research opportunity around linking the quality of rewards to continuous app usage, a hybrid proposal between earn & burn and tiered loyalty scheme types.
We explored the idea of introducing achievement badges as collectables, based on the experience of other successful schemes such as fitness apps, to understand whether that sense of achievement & ultimate engagement & loyalty can be transferrable into this other industry & context.
Proposition 3:
Contextual promos - Surprise & delight - Assistant / mascot
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Generative research showed relevancy as one of the most important factors. As much as we can’t offer relevancy based on user behaviour since we lack model logic for it, we explored surfacing promotions in a more contextual way across user journeys.
Our initial insights showed that giving something extra when least expected makes users feel valued and creates positive association with the brand. Hence, an example we explored was to offer ‘nuggets of joy’, on different unexpected situation. (eg. an uber eats voucher when users open the app on a premier league game day)
Ideation summary: User sentiment
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Delayed gratification: We’ve seen this mechanic work on Proposition 1 where users showed appetite to holding points for a long term satisfaction; and in Proposition 2, where users showed engagement with the anticipation of completing a progress bar to reach a goal
Flexibility on choosing their reward: Proposition 1 instilled motivation on users when it came to exchanging their points for a pool of rewards, however progress must be feasible to ensure an attainable sense of achievement. If the end goal is unrealistic, frustration begins to surface.
Lifestyle rewards was seen as a disticntive USP within the industry by 13/26 users, however there needs to be a balance between effort & result.
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On proposition 2, we learned features such as a leaderboard or achievement badges are things that users don’t seem to have interest as they lack connection with the purpose, in a context like promotions & rewards.
Highlighting progression through levels surfaced as the most popular method for motivation. Users expectation is that the reward is higher as they move up levels . Effort & level of engagement needs to be matched by a higher reward.
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Showing promotions in a contextual way across different user journeys was not seen as a differentiator. Users expect it as a baseline, and it fails on conveying to the user a clear value proposition.
Users were pleased and encouraged with the value of an unexpected ‘gift’. Value was primarily driven via the need for no action on the users part. This act was seen as a large value exchange from LiveScore to the user. It is perceived as instant gratification for their loyalty. But it raise questions such as ‘how many will be surfaced?’ There is ambiguity about the long-term value perception, ultimately indicating that this as a standalone may not be enough to retain users unless a constant stream of cash rewards can be secured.
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Interest on delayed gratification mechanic
Linking the quality of rewards to continuous app usage
Progress visualisation acts as an engagement mechanism
A clear and feasible reward (objective) needed.
Consistency in frequency of rewards, to incentivise user to return.
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Interest on having flexibility to choose their reward.
Interest on controlling their level of engagement, accumulating points at their own pace and redeem as they choose
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Consistency with the type of offering that we do as a provider, clarity on what is our USP.
The importance of having a differentiated experience and a clear offering to compete against other providers.
Design & iterations
I took what we learned from the ideation’s phase research to design this amalgamated proposition