Changing lanes: Argyll Entertainment on the power of media partnerships

It’s becoming increasingly apparent the UK online gambling market can be absolutely brutal, due largely to its combination of fierce competition and rigorous regulation. In fact, last month’s EGR Intel cover feature focused on the increasing number of operators giving up on the market and looking elsewhere for easier pickings. Argyll Entertainment could have been forgiven for being one of those firms in August last year, when it decided to drop its BetOnBrazil brand after a less-than-auspicious first year of operation.

However, rather than call it a day, Argyll pivoted towards two new brands on a new platform, SportNation and RedzoneSports, both of which were backed by affiliate sites of the same name and filled with relevant content. One year on, Argyll has picked up the Innovative Start-up of the Year award at the recent EGR Marketing and Innovation Awards, and the business was identified by EGR Intel in the aforementioned cover feature as one of the few firms making real headway in the UK.

Below, Argyll CEO Stuart Tilly tells us why content is so important to the two brands, and how a focus on retention rather than acquisition has paid major dividends.

EGR Intel: Do you see the decision to move away from BetOnBrazil as a turning point?

Stuart Tilly (ST): Yeah. We had a year with BetOnBrazil with Amelco as our supplier and that was a real learning curve. We had a lot of ideas about penetrating the UK market in an innovative way and I’d say we learnt a lot about what worked and what didn’t. When we moved over to SportNation and RedZoneSports, we had a good list of things that worked well. We also moved onto SBTech, which is obviously a much larger operation, so we had a lot more product features to roll out with.

EGR Intel: What were some of those key lessons you learned?

ST: It was a learning curve for us all. It was really Amelco’s first foray into the pure white label market. We also learnt a lot about what customers want from rewards and bonuses and features, and breadth of product offering. One of the real changes we made was moving from being very acquisition-focused, which you do have to be as a new brand, to focusing more on retention. With SportNation, we gave customers a lot more once they hit the site. That’s one of the key reasons we’re doing so well in the UK. Rather than just hitting people with bonuses when they join, then leaving them to it, we’re rewarding customers throughout their lifetime.

EGR Intel: And the big two pillars of your retention strategy are the rewards programme and the content partner that sits alongside both sites, correct?

ST: Those are our big two. Our ultimate strategy is to create a layer of entertainment and rewards around the gambling product. A good analogy is Vegas; you go to gamble but you can play golf, get great food, catch a show, so we want to deliver an online version of that. Rewards are part of that, and content is too. The video content adds credibility, it informs our customers, and we want to build on that with gamification around rewards and content. We’re building on top of the SBTech platform with our own betting widgets, similar to the type of features you’re getting on Sky Bet or William Hill with things like Request-A-Bet or Acca Insurance.

EGR Intel: Does that mean you’re dialling down acquisition efforts?

ST: In terms of the way we market and work with partners, we’re trying to do things differently. We’ve got a sponsorship for the new season, which we hope is something no-one’s ever done before. It will be a docudrama-style initiative, so watch this space.

EGR Intel: You’re not just going to stick your name on a football shirt?

ST: It’s absolutely pointless in this current market. It does nothing for the brand, the club or the supporters. Our view is it has got to be a partnership from top to bottom. It is going to be a football sponsorship but it’s not sticking our name on the shirt and offering their database a £100 bonus.

Content like docudramas is where I think the future lies in terms of engaging with the millennial audience. You look at things like Love Island or any docu-style drama; it’s very engaging for a young audience and I think that’s the focus if you’re trying to engage that demographic.

EGR Intel: A lot of operators pay lip service to gamification, but very few seem to have made real strides. What are you planning here?

ST: I’m not a firm believer in just creating gamification and games for the sake of it. I think you have to gamify an existing feature to engage people already using it. I don’t really see gamification as a way to acquire new customers. Initially, it’s going to be driven by our rewards platform. We’ve seen the uptake on there since we launched, and we are now launching much smaller redemption items like free bets and free spins which are very popular because, ultimately, customers just want some instant gratification.

So, initially, our gamification would be to give customers ways to win and gamble with rewards points or increase their balance in some way. Whether that’s entry into prize draws, or a game to double your points balance, or by free points from referring customers. The rewards platform is our key gamification piece, and that is all done in-house. Outside of that, we are building new games – we have an in-play fantasy football game that’s currently a standalone product, but we intend to roll that onto SportNation for the coming season. That’s an opportunity to earn points on other games across our platform, so it’s similar to a Nectar card.

EGR Intel: Presumably your customer base is quite sticky then, given this focus on retention?

ST: I can’t give firm numbers away, but I’d say we are at market rates or just below for customers not using the rewards platform, and way, way above market for those using the platform. So, our key strategy with a new user is to get them on the rewards platform because then we have a much higher chance of keeping them. You only have to manipulate your retention rates by a small percentage in the UK to really see an impact on the bottom line.

EGR Intel: How did you come to this dual-site approach where you have SportNation.com alongside SportNation.bet?

ST: It goes back to our original strategy of creating a content layer to sit alongside the gaming portal, and we didn’t want to just create an affiliate. We wanted the content to be relevant to the gambling site, so it was an easy journey from one to the other. The content takes time; you’ve got to build an audience for it to stand alone but we do see people engaging with the content sites beyond just new and existing customers.

Plus, it allows us to advertise in a different way because there are restrictions on what you can do on a gambling site. The content site is purposely non-gambling so that we can appeal to a wider audience, and if you don’t want to gamble you don’t have to. I’d say in the future, the people that will succeed are those that leverage the relationship between a super affiliate and an operator in a seamless way. We’re seeing that on a smaller level at the moment and we have plans to do more in that area. We have more to announce there in the next few weeks.

EGR Intel: It sounds a bit like the Sky Bet model with feeder sites like Sporting Life and Super 6?

ST: That is the traditional way and it’s been successful for Sky Bet. They’re the shining beacon of how you can do it, but I think there are opportunities for publishers and operators to do something as successful, and actually more successful. Part of our philosophy going forward is to work with existing publishers or create new ones to help us own the customer journey from entering a news site through to putting a bet on. We’re very close to announcing something here.

EGR Intel: Any hints?

ST: It would be sports media. Something that keeps people coming back on a daily basis to check out the next new story or video. There are a large number of publishers with a huge amount of traffic going to their site on a regular basis that they can’t really monetise. That’s where the opportunity lies.

EGR Intel: Sun Bets is arguably the cautionary tale of the limits of that media partnership model. Would you agree?

ST: It’s absolutely a cautionary tale on how not to do it. Where they went wrong was thinking their brand would be enough to get people to gamble. The UK audience is a lot more sophisticated than that and you have to give them a lot more. Brand doesn’t equal revenue.

EGR Intel: How did you end up with SportNation and RedZoneSports as your two brands because the two don’t seem to have a huge amount in common?

ST: We always aim to create sites that engage an existing audience, rather than having one brand that suits everyone. We want niche pockets of highly engaged customers that come to your site because they have an interest in your offering. That was always the concept and the original idea with BetonBrazil, and that’s the opportunity with RedZone. We wanted to capture an existing and growing fanbase and give them something more engaging than they were getting elsewhere.

On NFL, our flagship offering, we offer the tightest margins, exclusive content, innovative bet types, and the chance to come to Superbowl parties. Again, it boils down to loyalty and retention. UK customers are so disloyal and willing to move around for bonuses that we wanted to give something they could actively engage in. I would expect us to do more of these niche sites.

EGR Intel: Another UK start-up sportsbook doing well is Black Type, which went up on Oddschecker the day it launched and relies on the comparison site for much of its traffic. You’ve basically gone in the opposite direction and aren’t listed on the grid. What was the thinking behind that?

ST: We have worked with Oddschecker and done a few takeovers, which was very much about credibility and brand awareness rather than sustainable acquisition. Our experience hasn’t been as fruitful as some of the other acquisition and retention strategies we’ve used. A focus for us going forward is more brand awareness. We are the size where we can compete with the bigger names in the industry and so we will get more involved with the likes of Oddschecker, SEO, sponsorships, or TV and radio ads.

EGR Intel: Are you staying focused on the UK for the time being?

ST: We intend to expand outside the UK. We have a licence pending in Ireland and that’s a natural progression from the UK. Our strategy has always been a PoC-based offering, so we don’t necessarily plan on going anywhere unless we can get a PoC licence. In terms of new brands, hopefully in the coming weeks we can announce a partnership with a sports media publisher. It’s not so much a niche offering but more of a branded offering. We’ll be basically targeting their existing audience with a streamlined site that feels as if it’s part of the existing media portal.

EGR Intel: Are the next 12 months going to be as successful as the last 12?

ST: We’ve done well to get where we are. In the year we’ve traded proper, we’re punching well above our weight in terms of size versus revenue. We have a good future ahead of us in the UK. We recognise it’s a very competitive market and you need to look further afield going forward. We’ve managed to prove that our concepts have made headway in the most competitive market in the word and if we can do it right here then we can do it right anywhere.