SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
SBC Business correspondent Mark McGuinness caught up with hot Irish start-up Elemnent Wave’s CEO Dorothy Creaven. Element Wave recent winners of the EIG 2013 Start-up Launch Pad, specialize in creating cutting-edge software for the mobile market, specifically in the user engagement and customer retention space.
Mark McGuinness discusses mobile analytics, retention, and how Element Wave can help companies operate in the mobile space
SBC: Dorothy it was a pleasure to meet you at the EiG Start-Up Launch pad. For all our readers can you tell us a little about yourself and why you decided to start Element Wave?
Dorothy: Great to meet you too, Mark. So, to introduce myself to your readers, I’m the co-founder and CEO of Element Wave, an Irish technology start-up that specialises in helping to increase revenue for brands or operators who have mobile apps. I started the company with James Harkin (CTO) and from studying the market over the last few years, we have seen that it can be challenging for app publishers to retain their mobile audience. That’s when we came up with the idea for our Element Wave platform to specifically tackle this issue. It is easily integrated into any new or existing mobile app and it allows operators to monitor how players are using their app in real-time, view live analytics, send in-app messages (push notifications) to their mobile player’s at the most opportune times and ultimately measure the effectiveness of these messages.
SBC: Mobile and big data are watch words in the igaming industry at the moment, but why should operators look at mobile analytics and push notifications?
Dorothy: Publishing a mobile app is only part of an operator’s mobile strategy. The work really starts after the app is launched as there is no point in creating a mobile app and not knowing how your players are interacting with it. In order to maximise it’s effectiveness, the operators need to be able to see usage patterns like peak app usage times and levels of player engagement. Push notifications to particular groups of users should be customised based on their preferences and behaviours. For example, the message that you send to a player who uses the app every day would be quite different to the one you would send to a someone who has not engaged with your app in over a month. The key here is that the content of the push message needs to be very relevant. We see extremely high read-rates and app engagement rates for our customers who target their users in this way. Push notifications are a proven way to drive greater levels of interaction with your mobile audience.
SBC: You mentioned in your presentation at EiG that there is an 80% drop off in customers acquired by mobile, why do you think that is the case?
Dorothy: Mobile app users are a fickle bunch and app publishers have about 15 seconds to make a great impression. It’s a crowded market and apps need to stand out from the competition. Apps now have to be very customer centric and deliver a personalised experience in order to keep their mobile audience engaged regularly. The app eco-system has matured – users now demand a very high quality mobile experience and the wealth of contextual information (e.g. location, time of day etc.) available for mobile devices enables brands to deliver this high quality experience. Brands or operators who don’t take advantage of this fall behind and lose their users.
SBC: Mobile second screen, third or indeed multi screening offer a complex ecosystem for brands to communicate with both prospects and customers. Given how complex this environment is can push notifications been harmonized across the device spectrum based on how users are interacting with content on those devices?
Dorothy: With the coming explosion in wearable technology and the recent advances in multi-screen applications, it is important for brands to maintain consistency across multiple channels. Push notifications will be important for the smart watch and Google Glass family of devices and it is a challenge for brands to unify this. Some of our customers who are successfully navigating this domain are the ones who have dedicated MarComms teams to manage all channels from one source. In relation to second screen technology, we have worked with some other Irish companies doing ground-breaking work by customising content in a mobile app according to what the audience is watching on TV in real time. This kind of multichannel vision is what will lead the way for the future.
SBC: You have showcased the business at EiG and had a good response from the industry, resulting in the company winning the Start-Up Launch Pad (congratulations), what’s next for Element Wave?
Dorothy; As we are currently raising investment with the aim of a major expansion in the next 6-12 months, we intend to double our workforce and open offices in both London and the US. We have some cutting-edge, innovative features that will add on to our existing offering – all to be announced in the coming months so stay tuned.
SBC: Lastly who came up with your memorable company tagline ‘Every app needs a little push’?
Dorothy; One night, James (CTO) was out with one of his oldest friends, Glen. They went to see a band called “Tradiohead”, a fusion of traditional Irish music and Radiohead – another one of Glen’s creations. James was saying that we needed a non-technical way to tell the world in one sentence what Element Wave does… and, boom, Glen came up with “every app needs a little push”… and that was pretty much that. He is still waiting for his commission!
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Dorothy Creaven – CEO Element Wave
