Acquisition and retention

No matter how many operators fall by the wayside, the list of poker sites for the consumer to choose from continues to grow. But within this environment there's a problem faced by all sites, big and small, established and new: how do you acquire and retain customers?

Clearly there are some sites with a distinct advantage in this area, whereas other sites, even some who have been around for a period of time, struggle to find new players and retain them. What are the factors that attract players and also keep them coming back? It's not as easy to answer as might first be perceived.

The issue is particularly challenging for the newcomers to the online poker scene. How do they target an audience and go about getting their 'share' of the market.

One obvious answer is to target the growth markets, and it is well documented that the European and Eastern European markets are now the places where poker is taking off the fastest. With the WSOPE and other European tournaments rapidly gaining ground, even the poker pros are commenting that Europe is the up-and-coming region.

Before we discuss this, however, let's review the common strategies for obtaining players...

1 - Affiliates

These come in all shapes and sizes and inevitably poker providers find that some affiliates work better than others. Often even the affiliates themselves are at a loss to explain why they get a much higher conversion rate for some sites than others, even when the sites have comparable offers and are on the same network. Affiliates work hard to get their players and keep them happy and it is often only one or two affiliates who drive the majority of the traffic on a site. This obviously leads to its own problems when a site becomes almost beholden to an affiliate, and must do anything to keep the affiliate happy or risk its entire business.

2 - Mainstream Marketing

Although effective, this can lead to enormous budgetary spend and puts start-up or smaller companies at a massive disadvantage. When the vast majority of the general public has only heard of three or four brands their obvious choice when deciding to play poker is likely to be the familiar. Full Tilt, PokerStars and 888 have become the most widely recognised brands, with PartyPoker having lost a huge amount of ground since its US departure. Absolute Poker is also bordering on being famous and to a degree infamous due to recent events.

3 - Rakeback

This is still one of the most controversial subjects in the business and a topic that requires a separate article to discuss the pros and cons. Most proponents of rakeback state that it improves player retention, and as long as managed properly is an asset to a site. Opponents state that the highest rakers are getting such a significant proportion of their rake returned to them that it leaves little 'spare' cash to entice new players and provide good promotions aimed at low- to mid-range poker players.

4 - Pro sponsorship

Some sites actively go after anyone who is deemed to be a 'pro' with a view to attracting players who want to play where their favourite star plays. This can lend credibility to sites and get them into a position where their SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is boosted by grabbing headlines and getting more column space in online articles and printed works. The downside is the cost of employing the pros. Not only the signing fee but also the cost of entering these players into major events can add up to a staggering amount. Full Tilt is certainly cornering the market in this particular arena, with a stable of pros that is rapidly growing beyond all bounds.

Attracting action

So how can any newcomer hope to succeed when at first glance the market is oversaturated with headline brands? Is it possible to lure players away with better offers or are players loyal to their 'home' poker site?

There have been lots of attempts to enter the market with new sites and a significant proportion of these have failed. Sites like Duplicate Poker started full of promise and a twist on the traditional games, but even with significant marketing spend were unable to get enough players to survive. These days it is almost impossible to enter the market as a new 'standalone' site as there invariably isn't enough liquidity on the site to encourage players to stay. Unless there are games to play at the stakes a player requires, he/she will just go elsewhere to find a game.

This effectively means that new sites are almost forced to join a network and even some of these have such low liquidity that growth is extremely slow - few new players are willing to join a site with very low traffic. There have been a significant number of new sites joining the small Everleaf Network but even these have failed to provide any kind of growth. Some of these have even attempted to cross the boundaries between poker and porn in order to attract a new type of customer. Red Cherry Poker (formerly Swank Poker) is certainly unique in its approach, offering some truly unusual choices in its reward program.

There are of course some dubious methods of player acquisition. Spam is an ever increasing issue in the industry, and there are always going to be unscrupulous employees willing to sell their company's database to the highest bidder (or bidders) to make some quick cash. Nearly every company runs the risk of having its data sold but surprisingly few take assertive action to prevent this. At any point in time there is normally a thread or two on the major forums offering affiliates databases to market to. Sites are offered the same thing on an almost daily basis but fortunately most are scrupulous enough to decline these deals (plus most people are so used to deleting all spam that the return rate is incredibly low).

Growth options

So what is the best strategy for sites (and affiliates) looking to grow their market-share and presence?

As previously mentioned there are rapidly emerging markets all over Eastern Europe, but this provides its own set of challenges. Users in these markets are often sceptical about the security of payment solutions or may not even have access to them. Users often have trouble finding a site in a language they understand, and even more difficulty finding a site that has customer support in their language (Babelfishing a standard English response into another language isn't acceptable). If you're going to enter a market you must be well prepared and have the resources available to support it or your newly acquired players will quickly become jaded with your product and go elsewhere.

Making better offers than the competition is an old way of increasing traffic and luring players away from their traditional site, and some new sites are attempting this route. One approach is to be more transparent, not only by showing players exactly what they are getting from a sign-up offer, but also showing that the competition's offers are not quite as good as they appear. The 'first deposit bonus' is a classic example of this, with the vast majority of sites offering somewhere around 100% up to a maximum of $500. When running a comparison of these offers (assuming you can work your way around the complex calculations involved in bonus points, raked hands or whatever other deliberately confusing method is employed), you will find that at the opposite ends of the spectrum some sites require players to rake over $5,000 in order to clear this bonus while others require just $600 in order to release the same amount.

In summary, there's no easy or catch-all solution to the player acquisition problem. Rather, there's a decision to be made by poker providers about what they are going to go after and how they are going to achieve their goals. Once this decision is reached it is imperative for the site to concentrate its resources on achieving this and not try for a quick and easy fix in order to grow player numbers when that money could be better spent elsewhere on more traditional avenues. A half-hearted attempt at a new venture will only lead to failure.