Fanduel
Winning the battle for sports fans’ attention
Challenge
With its leading fantasy sports
games and sports betting services, FanDuel has become the go-to online destination for
sports fans. Having first reimagined the concept of fantasy sports by enabling fans to
play one-day fantasy sports contests for real cash prizes, then adding the FanDuel
Sportsbook to its roll of services, the brand is now one of the largest providers of
daily fantasy sports services in North America, serving around six million registered
users.
FanDuel’s success rests on its
range of fantasy sports options and its appeal to players of all abilities. Football,
basketball, baseball, soccer – all these sports and more are covered. And whatever their
level of expertise, FanDuel players always know who they’re up against. So they can be
sure it’s a fair matchup, even if they’re a beginner.
With the FanDuel Sportsbook
acquiring a license to operate in a growing number of US states, the company wanted to
build on its strong position in the market and increase the number of new user
acquisitions. The goal: to first increase brand awareness of its Daily Fantasy Sports
and FanDuel Sportsbook lines of business, and then convert that brand recognition
potential into a raft of new users. The plan: to create and activate a full-funnel
cross-platform paid social strategy focused on boosting brand awareness and maximizing
the return on investment.
What Accenture did
Working with Adaptly, part of
Accenture, FanDuel activated a multi-platform full-funnel marketing strategy. Dedicated
budgets for user acquisition, retention, and reactivation ensured every part of the
funnel could be targeted effectively in a series of new social-focused campaigns
spanning leading platforms (leveraging Adaptly’s strong relationships with Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat).
With an updated direct response
strategy tailored for each stage of the marketing funnel – from broad awareness building
and demographic/interest/lookalike targeting at the upper reaches through to customized
messaging for registered non-players and lapsed players – the team improved campaign
efficiency, maximized reach, and limited audience overlap. This included creating a
highly tuned retargeting plan based on users’ past behavior in FanDuel applications
(such as installation, registration, first-time deposits, and so on).
The multi-platform marketing
strategy was designed to continuously learn and improve. Each campaign included detailed
brand lift measurement analyses, enabling FanDuel to get a clear sense of what was
working, and how, to inform future campaigns. Plus, a more holistic attribution model
provided a deeper understanding of cross-platform performance during key periods in each
campaign.
A surgical approach to budget
pacing was central to helping FanDuel increase campaign efficiency. That meant carefully
aligning multi-platform marketing with the sporting calendar, strategically increasing
spend at key points such as capitalizing on the buzz around the football season kickoff.
People and culture
A strong collaborative spirit was
central to the success of this project. Adopting a genuinely ‘hands-on’ attitude, both
organizations worked closely together, across marketing, creative, and CRM, with the
Accenture team effectively acting as an extension of FanDuel’s own business. This was
critical in ensuring the team’s collective marketing and industry expertise could be
quickly transformed into better business outcomes for FanDuel.
"Adaptly, part of Accenture,
have proven to be outstanding partners for us this football season. They have been
able to accommodate the increasing scale of our business as we've expanded our
FanDuel Sportsbook product into multiple new states, all while maintaining the high
performance standards we set for the year."
- Aaron Dugan, Director –
Online Marketing for FanDuel
Value delivered
FanDuel was able to seamlessly
scale its business across North America. By focusing on high-growth platforms like
Snapchat, the team helped FanDuel iterate its marketing creatively and tap into a host
of new inventory sources. The impact on the business has been significant: campaign
scope was doubled while holding acquisition performance metrics steady, showing a strong
ability to scale.
With more and more people enjoying
sports via social media, the ability to engage with consumers on these conversational
platforms is critical to a company like FanDuel. But the fans benefit just as much,
using FanDuel’s smart social marketing as a lever to connect and converse with other
players by posting their own comments, memes and trash-talk. They’re also better able to
“get in the game”, learning which teams and players are favored as they play daily
fantasy games or place bets. That’s helping FanDuel turn casual fans into true fantasy
sports fanatics.
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