Are you ready for app onboarding?

With the App Store bursting at the seams and downloads becoming easier to achieve the task of onboarding and retaining customers is becoming the real challenge

With Apple’s App Store bursting at the seams and users possessing more choice than ever before, it has become all the more crucial to be as visible as possible. Taking it for granted that people know where to look for gambling apps, and those that do find your app know how to bet or gamble, is no longer acceptable. The battle isn’t just to get the download, it’s to manage the onboarding process so the customer doesn’t just become an expensive failed acquisition.

“Downloading an app isn’t that hard, but lots of people download an app, try it once and then never open it again,” Len Shneyder, marketing and evangelism manager at mobile analytics firm Other Levels, says. “Depending on the metric and the publisher, users will download an app and use it once, maybe twice and abandon it within the space of 30 days.”

Getting past that stage and developing a relationship with the customer therefore requires engaging content, both inside the app and outside it through user messaging. Inside the app, first impressions remain important and onboarding new  customers with the required knowledge to place their first bet or start their first game is crucial.

Sky Betting and Gaming recently incorporated a welcome tour – a simple “how to” guide that showed users around the app when it was first opened – into its Sky Bingo app as a means of creating an instant engagement with that user. “The onus is on the app publisher to leverage app-centric communications to help educate and nurture new users into more engaged ones before they start down the monetisation funnel,” Shneyder says.

How-to guides may be an ideal onboarding tool, but it’s worth remembering that there’s a good chance those who have just downloaded the app aren’t currently registered. Directing a new customer straight to the registration page is one thing, but this page needs to be kept as simple and as brief as possible. Mobile devices tend to be hugely personal, so resisting the urge to gather as much information from a new customer as possible is another important factor to remember.

Instead, the advice is to keep it simple. Within Gala Coral’s recently released mobile bingo site is an overhauled user registration section that has been reduced to fit on just one page, regardless of device. This has been done intentionally to encourage new sign-ups, and the initial signs have been positive, according to sources at the firm.

The bonus issue

What Gala Coral has also managed to avoid is the contentious issue of using bonuses as acquisition tools. While the premise of giving a new or potential customer what seems like a good deal is a tried and trusted method in the wider retail sector, online gambling has a somewhat rockier relationship with them.

Customers are warier of their use after running foul of the often onerous terms and conditions, and the over promotion of them has proven to be a real turn-off for some mobile users. Customer feedback compiled by user experience research company Seren recently revealed that those using mobile gambling applications were put off by the presence of various adverts promoting bonus offers, with the most frequent offenders including the likes of Paddy Power and William Hill.

Gala Coral took this into account when designing the new bingo app, placing all of its in-app promotional activity under one separate tab. “From our point of view we’re not going to interrupt customers with any adverts on our gaming apps,” Itay Fisher, product and technology director at Gala Interactive, says.

Potential distrust of bonuses cannot be used to discredit the method however, and there is ample evidence to suggest that given the right approach, bonuses being made available to those that have recently downloaded the app can be the perfect way of striking up a lasting relationship. It just requires a little testing.

“A great test is to do a random 50/50 split to day two users with two offers,” Shneyder says. “One can be a welcome aboard message informing them of an interesting game play facet, the other can be an offer for a bonus.” “The next iteration of these tests can be more centred on what size of bonus, or test different information welcomes. The first test is a great start, but it should be just that; a starting point for ever finer testing and targeting.”

Complications and considerations

Simple A/B testing is always useful, but this process may be at risk of further complication considering the fragmentation of the mobile channel. Different devices are typically favoured for different products and nuances do exist from vertical to vertical, placing a renewed emphasis on user analytics.

Devices may be different, but the challenge is essentially the same from one device to another. New user rates are dismally low on mobile devices, and rates less than 1% are not unheard of. “A crisp, relevant welcome tour – and maybe reminders during later sessions – followed by a steady and relevant stream of nurture messages will absolutely drive increased sessions lengths and times for new downloaders,” Shneyder adds.

Mobile operators need to have a clear strategy to give them every chance of avoiding the early abandonment that has become rife on mobile devices. First impressions may be crucial, but it’s the second and third encounters with the customer that are all-important when it comes to keeping them on board, and not just bored.