Any company that dedicates massive amounts of resources and money into creating a viable web presence has to know that the work doesn’t stop when the coding is complete. Once a site is operational, just like any business, it’s important to develop initiatives that will attract customers and make them want to keep coming back. Marketing and advertising are not luxury expenses for a business – they’re just as important as paying employees or paying bills on time. When it comes to maintaining a website to draw in visitors, many iGaming operators may be falling behind. A recent study conducted by OptimizeXL shows that, out of 2,200 operators examined, the majority seriously lack when it comes to things like conversion rate optimization (CRO) and AB testing.
CRO and AB testing are uniquely intertwined in that, when used together, they can help companies and web developers see what is happening with traffic flows on sites. AB testing, in an oversimplified description, uses two versions (A and B) of a webpage that are presented to users to see how each performs. According to OptimizeXL’s Artur Pluta, who prepared the findings with analysis assistance from Australia’s BuiltWith business intelligence firm, only 13.2% of iGaming operators use AB tools on their sites. This means that only a small handful of the 2,283 sites tested understand the power of testing for conversion rate growth.
Breaking down the operators, using Alexa rankings as a benchmark, those that are in the top 10,000 in the ranking are more inclined to conduct AB testing, while operators ranked lower than one million don’t bother with it. In addition, only 43% of those operators in the first group practice CRO, which indicates that the companies have made the effort to reach the top of the ladder, but haven’t allocated resources to make the final push.
Explains Pluta, “The truth is – if you’re in the top and you’re not investing in CRO you’re lagging behind most of your biggest competitors. If you’re a contender from lower parts of the ranking trying to get into the top spot, investing in CRO is clearly a lesson you should learn from [businesses] that are ahead of you. One way or another, if you want to get to the top or stay there, based on our data, casino & sports betting [CRO] seems to be a highly contributing factor.”
There are plenty of easy-to-use tools out there that will allow iGaming operators to enhance their virtual presence, drive more traffic and convert more hits. They all have their merits and need to be weighed by the operator’s goals. However, I know that, if I were to spend millions of dollars building an online platform, I would go the extra step to ensure I’m maximizing its potential at all times.
