Are players exercising their GDPR right to be forgotten?

Just like that, time has passed, and we recently marked the one-year-anniversary of GDPR. The effects of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are clear and no longer frightening. In gaming, an industry that thrives on players’ engagement and customer experience, GDPR has made quite an impact, particularly in increasing even more the value of first party data and forcing marketers and operators to hone their personalisation skills.

Under GDPR, many players became ‘Unknown’ and ‘Unreachable’ since the new policy required operators receive authorisation to communicate. The ‘post-GDPR players’ were those who were approached by their operators in an intelligent fashion, letting them know what GDPR means and what value they will gain by agreeing to stay in touch. Campaign messages which introduced the privacy policy and asked to opt-in for further communication made the difference between retaining 10% of players to retaining 70% of players. Brands which introduced the issue and took steps leading up to it retained more customers.

While 10% of the population as a whole made requests to be forgotten, according to a TrustArc survey, 35% chose to unsubscribe from emails and 23% opted to not give consent to the use of cookies, numbers which may display distrust. However, the same survey shows that 36% do trust companies that comply with GDPR, and 57% say they are more likely to buy from a website that is GDPR compliant. This means that the relationship between operators and players is more important than ever, and the value received by players from this relationship is key to players’ brand loyalty.

Armed with the benchmark statistics, we dug into the data. Our research at Optimove revealed that less than 1% of our client brands’ players exercised their right to be forgotten and asked for their data to be erased. Of those players, 55% have never made a deposit, and 33% haven’t been active within the last 90 days. Eighty percent of those who asked to be forgotten have made deposits of €0-20 only. We also observed that women asked to exercise the right to be forgotten more than men and made up 68% of the ‘forgotten’ population. Age was also a factor, as players aged 39 and younger made up 67% of those who asked to be forgotten.

Smart engagement

It will take far more than a year to assess the true impact of GDPR. What we do know for certain is that having to be more careful about gaining consent and data, GDPR heightened operators’ needs to provide value. Since each player values different things, personalisation is critical, so indirectly GDPR enhanced the importance of a tailored customer experience and sharpened the need for smart engagement.

For operators this means serving the right content to each player based on their game and bet history, and their behaviour. It also means that brands should be testing and optimising their campaigns on a regular basis, and not settling for a ‘one-message-fits-all’ approach. As always, the timing and channel(s) of the messages should be customised per player, and to do it right, granular, dynamic segmentation is a must.

Now more than ever, operators need to gain actionable insight from their data. While personalisation is the key to success, abusing personal data (or even seeming to do so) can result in distrust and alienation. But if players perceive value in their interaction with their brands, they will stick around for the long term.

Asaf Cohen, VP revenue, Optimove

Asaf Cohen is the VP revenue at Optimove, specialising in the gaming industry. Previously, he served as the commercial director for the egaming growth at Playtech, heading its London-based account management division. Cohen has also held senior product management and business development roles in various start-ups, as well as blue-chip listed corporations in the telecom, ecommerce and media industries.