Know Your Audience: The Importance of App Push Personalization

Know Your Audience: The Importance of App Push Personalization

Abstract

For sports betting, it is universally agreed that personalized communications, with relevant, contextual - and in many cases live - content, is the critical ingredient in keeping customers active and in-session. When customers are out-of-session, personalized reactivation is critically important.

This project documented the communication strategies used by a leading U.S. sportsbook (Operator A), and their effectiveness in terms of delivering personalized communications that reflected customer’s interests derived from behavioral activity.

Goal

To evaluate the levels of personalization used in App Push sent from Operator A to two customers, each consistently placing similar wagers (to exclude potential control or holdout group impact), over a finite time period.

Methodology

Between December 2024 and January 2025, two customers (User 1 and User 2) placed a total of 228 bets with Operator A. The bets were made frequently and consistently, with sufficient input for a reasonable lifetime value with no danger of churn.

The customers each consistently wagered on the same teams and props each day when available, covering NFL, NBA, NHL, and EPL bets. Each customer’s wagers were of the same repeated cash value and placed in the same state throughout the project.

Expectations

We expected that Operator A would use repeated bet behavior and bet value to personalize our customer experiences with teams, props and markets. Operator A was clearly keen to engage, as they sent 103 App push messages over this period.

Results

The study evaluated the 103 App Push messages from Operator A.

User 1 and User 2 exclusively placed wagers on pro football, pro basketball, pro soccer, and pro hockey.

  • 29% of received communications failed to mention any of the sports wagered by User 1 and User 2.
  • 23% of all communications featured college football or college basketball offers, despite both customers placing zero bets on college football or college basketball.
  • 19% of all customer bets were placed on soccer, yet just 1% of communications featured soccer offers.
  • 7% of communications contained some form of personalization in the written copy, but most of that personalization was attribute personalization (e.g. first name, last name, or customer location references).
  • 93% of communications failed to use personalization in any way.

Betting Behavior

Importantly, Operator A did not use betting behavior to determine the likely interests of Users 1 and 2 and failed to communicate relevant teams, props, markets, parlays, or odds changes relating to the clear betting preferences of Users 1 and 2.

Conclusion

The study shows that there is a significant disconnect between actual and expected personalized communications in terms of Operator A. This is particularly concerning, given that the two customers clearly and persistently signaled their intent and interests across several sports. There is clearly a missed opportunity to engage customers with hyper-relevant content.

Based on OtherLevels’ industry experience and the observed results, the pattern of Operator A’s communications indicated strong seasonal campaigning driven by high-profile sports, but with communications still of a broadly generic nature. We often see this, and it is typically related to the sporting calendar and campaigns built around major sporting events. A consequence is that customer activation and engagement outside of these events is not happening, and (as evidenced in this case), the campaigns being executed lack real personalization.

A second and common issue is that personalization engines output raw personalization recommendations – usually in the form of a JSON object with markets and % confidence levels. This is not content – it is raw data. It needs to be transformed into contextual, relevant, sophisticated content, appropriate for the target channel, and usually synced with the live game calendar for the appropriate sport. There is a “gap” between the personalization efforts and the outbound activation channels, and unless this is bridged, customer activation is missing, and potential automated operating efficiencies are lost.

Comparison

Over 12 months, OtherLevels measured the impact of 100% automated, hyper-personalized communications for one operator, built around learned customer preferences and inferred similarities across sports, teams, players, props, and markets. The results were outstanding:

  • 16% lift for NBA push messaging.
  • 8% lift for NFL push messaging.
  • 30% for NFL on-site.

The operator was using the OtherLevels Experience platform, which is centered on creating compelling personalized, relevant, and contextual content, then packaging it into media appropriate for activation channels.

Next Steps

OtherLevels has extended the Personalization Communications Survey to other major operators, with Phase Two over a 90-day duration, enabling further comparison with seasonal changes and behavior. The results will be published in May.

Further Information

To find out more, please contact us at hello@otherlevels.com or check out the capabilities at: https://www.otherlevels.com/solutions/.

About OtherLevels

OtherLevels enables sportsbook operators to activate out-of-session customers by creating personalised pre-game and in-game real-time experiences. Using live odds, betting behaviour, and match context, OtherLevels connects to the operator’s existing CRM platform for the delivery of real-time content.

OtherLevels is a leading supplier of real-time multi-channel experience platforms for live sport and iGaming. It works in the sports betting, fan engagement, casino, and lottery sectors. OtherLevels is headquartered in Australia and has offices in Europe and the U.S.

Don’t wait for the future. Experience it today with OtherLevels.

For media inquiries, please contact: media@otherlevels.com