Intertops

Gaming Company finds less is more when it comes to deliverability

The Company
Intertops.com accepted the world’s first ever online sports bet and is still one of the globe’s largest sites for sports betting, casino, poker and games. The website offers more than 4,000 daily wagers for fans of every type of sport and boasts satisfied customers in over 180 countries.

The Challenge
In the online gaming industry, simply delivering an email marketing message can be tricky. With spam-trigger words such as “cash,” “free,” “play” and “prize” frequently included in legitimate communications, relationships between online gaming sites and ISPs can be stressful.

With a database containing hundreds of thousands of email addresses, Intertops’ email marketing program could have been one other marketers would envy. But with some of its contact information more than 10 years old and ISPs incorrectly filtering some messages as spam, a significant proportion of Intertops’ emails were never reaching inboxes. Further complicating matters was an internal email marketing system that was incorrectly reporting a bounce rate of just 1 percent—a number Intertops knew was too good to be true.

The Solution
Intertops understood that to build a stronger list and improve ISP relations, it would need an email service provider with deliverability expertise. It partnered with Silverpop to clean up its database and implement a successful whitelisting program. Initially, it was difficult for some stakeholders to understand how communicating with fewer people could actually prove more effective. But with bounces beginning to affect Intertops’ reputation and incorrect reports making it difficult to determine what changes were necessary to improve campaigns, Intertops knew action needed to be taken.

After reaching out to its entire list and removing inaccurate and unsubscribed email addresses, the company reduced its list size by more than 75 percent. It now frequently communicates with a smaller number of more active customers, and its deliverability rates have doubled. They now approach 96 percent, which is 20 percent higher than what is commonly considered the average deliverability rate for commercial email.

The Results
With its reports now more accurate, Intertops was able to determine that its customers were most interested in emails that offered bonuses. It now incorporates special offers into newsletters or standalone messages at least every other month. And, as a result, open rates have improved. When Intertops includes a bonus offer, open rates for its German-language emails increase by 38 percent, and open rates for English-language emails increase by 17 percent. 

Tying bonus offers to new product launches has also proven successful. When Intertops launched its new casino, the related campaign began with a welcome email that included both a bonus offer and personalization in the subject line. Intertops then distributed two follow-up emails reminding players of the bonus—the first one week later, and the second 30 days after the initial email. The messages received some of the best open rates in the company’s history—twice as high as average. Conversion rates after the “30 days” email were 10 percent higher than usual.

More accurate reporting and enhanced targeting capabilities have also helped Intertops ensure its messages are more relevant to each individual user. By more carefully monitoring each recipient’s activity level and tailoring messages accordingly, Intertops can offer bonuses that are in line with each player’s typical winnings, rather than offering a VIP player a mere $10 bonus, for example.

Intertops’ experience confirms that when it comes to successful email marketing, relevancy is more important than frequency and list size. But if the emails are never delivered to the inbox, it doesn’t matter how relevant they are. By ensuring that addresses on an email list are accurate, completing a carefully managed whitelisting program, and then successfully delivering carefully targeted and highly relevant messages to this smaller group of engaged customers, companies can improve their metrics and positively affect ROI.

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Download the PDF about how Intertops learned that relevancy is more important than frequency and list size.