Alexandra Breinig: "Regulation on bonuses led to true player engagement strategies"

Alexandra Breinig, Casino Sales Manager at EveryMatrix, discusses how player engagement in iGaming has evolved, highlighting the shift from aggressive promotional strategies to a more nuanced approach focused on personalization and compliance, especially in regulated markets. Breinig speaks about the importance of understanding market-specific preferences and how companies can introduce tailored solutions to thrive locally, giving examples with EveryMatrix's BonusEngine and JackpotEngine solutions that are fit for purpose.

Q: Alexandra, can we start on how engagement in iGaming has changed over the past years – what are the biggest differences between how brands engaged players "then" and "now"?

Player engagement has been constantly evolving over the past 10+ years, in tandem with the increase of regulated iGaming markets and the rise of new digital acquisition and retention channels such as social media, affiliates, and influencers/streamers. When iGaming first began, there were very few considerations for player protection or responsible gambling when looking at promotional activities and loyalty schemes; many operators had aggressively attractive strategies to draw in and retain new players with seemingly endless streams of promotions, and it wasn’t until regulators started imposing various restrictions on bonus activities that the true strategy behind effective player engagement really began.

Q: What is the main premise of engaging players in online casinos? Is it promotions, marketing campaigns, personalization, or something else entirely?

I think that this depends heavily on the market(s) that the operator is targeting. In highly regulated markets where certain kinds of promotional activity may be limited, online casinos tend to focus more on personalization and loyalty via tailored experiences, such as challenges, multi-level journeys, or progressive jackpots; these operators have to be creative in finding the balance between a competitive offering and remaining compliant, especially in regard to player protection.

In emerging and unregulated markets, online casinos tend to heavily favor promotional activities and marketing campaigns to drive player engagement, especially as they have fewer restrictions on what they can offer their players; these operators have much more flexibility, but they may have a lot more trial and error to find an appropriate mix that matches local player behavior and preferences for sustainable growth after acquisition.

Q: We continue to experience an overly saturated iGaming market where players are highly educated and informed, where they know the difference between promotions and may be more selective regarding which operators they favor versus those they choose only for certain promotions.

How do brands manage to navigate these challenging waters and convince their players that their product is worth sticking to?

It’s crucial for operators to understand the full landscape of their target market(s) and what local preferences may dictate. In more mature markets especially, players are extremely well-versed in what kinds of promotions are available to them and brands need to distinguish themselves further based on the actual content they’re offering players and adapting it towards themes and gameplay mechanics that they favour, how they've crafted their loyalty/VIP program, and what kinds of personalized player journeys and experiences they can offer their operators via gamification.

By offering more than just attractive bonuses that local players expect, and will otherwise seek out from their competitors, operators can find a more sustainable way to maintain and increase their market share by focusing on a wholistic approach to player engagement.

Q: How is EveryMatrix helping its partners boost engagement and achieve better results in this dynamic?

At EveryMatrix, we pride ourselves on over 16 years of industry-leading expertise and our continued dedication towards developing new products and features. In addition to our award-winning aggregation, currently holding more than 29K games and 320 providers, and casino management platforms, SlotMatrix and CasinoEngine, we have also developed our own gamification tools, BonusEngine and JackpotEngine, which empower operators to build successful player engagement strategies based on key performance data that improve game selection and performance, strengthen retention and loyalty, and increase overall revenue.

Through BonusEngine, operators can build tailor-made promotion and loyalty programs and run cross-product campaigns to target any player segment or vertical, with 9 different types of bonuses currently available. JackpotEngine, on the other hand, allows operators to create their own local jackpots across their entire content portfolio and for any player segment they’d like, and early-stage results point to great potential as the solution has increased the average bet amount by 50%, the rounds per session by 25%, and the game session length by 11%; this includes single and multi-level jackpots, as well as personalized jackpots for individual players. As the world’s largest casino aggregator, we recognize that knowledge is power and want to equip our partners with the best information available.

Q: Where do you think the remaining challenges in engaging customers in iGaming are today?

At this point, the big remaining challenges come down to regulatory constraints and increasing competition. Brands luckily have many more types of media and technology and their disposal when engaging and retaining players than in previous, be it game play mechanics and portfolio selection or various bonuses, but the more that new markets become regulated operators need to get much more creative in how to retain and grow the same level of players as before.

Apart from this, there are of course additional barriers to effective player engagement that can vary per region. This can be things such as technical and product infrastructure challenges in Africa that affect game content and buy feature availability, or lack of vendor diversity in certain LATAM markets that can alter gameplay mechanics and content popularity as well as the need for continued player education for online casino. Of course, player engagement involves more than just content, gamification, and personalization strategies; in reality, a 360* wholistic approach is needed to develop a unique offering for players that increases loyalty and retention across different player segments and how a brand wants to relate to them.

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