OtherLevels, a leading provider of real-time, multi-channel experience platforms for live sports and iGaming, has released a new case study exposing a significant gap between customer betting behaviour and personalised marketing efforts among leading US sportsbooks.
The findings highlight a missed opportunity for operators to leverage existing customer data for more effective engagement.
OtherLevels’ research team conducted a four-month study in a single US state, examining how effectively operators incorporated customer betting patterns – including favourite teams, player props, and wager types – into their personalised activation messages.
The study involved placing 734 wagers of equal value with four leading sportsbooks, across professional football, American football, basketball, ice hockey, and baseball, and the analysis of 401 received messages. The results were stark:
- Only 3.74% of messages promoted a team previously backed by the researchers, despite 471 moneyline wagers being placed on 12 different teams.
- A mere 3.40% of prop-focused messages mentioned a player previously wagered on.
- Only 0.75% of messages mentioned any of the top five most-wagered-on players, even though this bet market accounted for 165 bets.
- Only 1.5% of messages included any mention of the top five most-wagered-on teams.
- A negligible 0.49% of messages even included the first names of the research team customers.
Brendan O’Kane, CEO at OtherLevels, mentioned:
This expanded study, conducted with four leading sportsbooks in one US state, clearly shows that there is the opportunity to significantly lift customer activation communication strategies on a personal level. These sportsbooks have data revealing clear betting preferences for teams and players, but this is not yet translating into timely, relevant, and contextualised messaging.
We know there is a massive opportunity for operators who truly harness their data, converting insights into personalised content that delivers real engaging customer experiences.
The study also revealed that operators consistently failed to adapt their messaging copy or subject matter to the researchers’ repeatedly demonstrated interests. The high volume of generic prop messaging, often promoting star players regardless of betting history, suggests a predetermined focus rather than a data-driven approach.
Brendan O’Kane, CEO at OtherLevels, added:
The messaging prioritising player prop betting is understandable, but often featured pre-selected players from major sports leagues.
While this approach leverages name recognition, we achieve far superior results by tailoring promoted players to a customer’s specific interests.
OtherLevels has already demonstrated the immense value of truly personalised bet prompt and activation communications. Over a 12-month period, the company measured the impact of 100% automated, hyper-personalised activations for one operator. These communications were built around learned customer preferences and inferred similarities across sports, teams, players, props, and markets, and yielded outstanding results:
- 16% lift for NBA messaging
- 8% lift for NFL messaging
- 30% lift for NFL on-site engagement
This success was achieved using the OtherLevels Experience platform, which creates compelling, personalised, relevant, and contextual content, then packages it for optimal delivery across various activation channels.
