Learn your customer lifetime value first, if you want to improve loyalty

Have you ever wondered who your best customers are? You probably should. As a general rule of thumb, it’s up to 5 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to retain an existing one. What if by determining the lifetime value of your customers, you can secure their loyalty? Using gamification throughout the buyer's journey can help you boost retention and engagement without additional costs.

Understanding the concept of Customer Lifetime Value is the first step toward building a more loyal and profitable customer base.

Here are some topics we’ll go over:

• What is Customer Lifetime Value?
• Will measuring Customer Lifetime Value boost loyalty?
• How to calculate Customer Lifetime Value?
• The true pain of losing a fan
• Why is fan loyalty so important?
• How to use gamification to elevate fan loyalty?
• Why gamification creates superfans

What is Customer Lifetime Value?

Let's start with the obvious question here: what is Customer Lifetime Value? Customer Lifetime Value (or CLV for short) is a metric that represents the total amount of money a customer is expected to spend in their lifetime as a customer. Thus projecting their loyalty and behavior over a lifetime.

But who needs another metric to track? The reason it’s so valuable to measure Customer Lifetime Value is because of its direct link to revenue over time. Why is that important? Well, the old rule of thumb states it is 5 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one. Therefore every increase in retention has a major influence on revenue streams.

And if you think about it that makes sense. Because when you take Customer Lifetime Value and retention into account you are adding future value. In fact, a 5% increase in customer retention can increase profit by 25 to 95%. Retained customers also buy more often and spend more overall. To top it all off loyal customers are 4 times more likely to refer more customers to your brand.

This image illustrates how focusing on customer retention acts like a magnet, attracting greater profitability over time.

One principle that encompasses this well is the Pareto principle. This economic principle, better known as the 80/20 rule, states that 80% of the profits come from 20% of your customers. These are your best customers as they usually have a lower service cost and higher spendings.

The chart clearly visualizes the Pareto principle, showing that a small percentage of loyal customers contributes to a large portion of overall profits.

Will measuring Customer Lifetime Value boost loyalty?

Determining the Customer Lifetime Value can give sporting organizations a better understanding on how to allocate their marketing efforts.

Using data is a proven way to increase customer loyalty. By understanding the full customer journey and evaluating their experience along the way you discover endless opportunities. Once you see where customers churn, you can improve the experience and therefore fan loyalty.

Building an experience around customer data does not only help you win more long-term business. By fostering powerful emotional moments you can grow spendings and referrals. Actually, customers that have an emotional relationship with your brand have a Customer Lifetime Value 306% higher than average.

How to calculate Customer Lifetime Value?

To calculate your Customer Lifetime Value, you need to understand two important things about your customer first.

Start with determining the average customer value. You can discover this by multiplying the average revenue per purchase with the average number of purchases. Let’s say that you’re a football team for instance. Think about how much an average fan buys something like match tickets, drinks, merchandise in one year. Also, find how frequently that happens.

This formula breaks down the calculation for the average customer value, a key component of the overall CLV metric.

Avg customer value = avg purchase value X avg purchase frequency in one year

Next, you have to multiply the average customer value with your average customer lifespan. The higher your retention rate is, the higher your Customer Lifetime Value will be. Hence the importance of good customer retention and loyalty.

For example, an average sports fan might spend €1,200 per year on season tickets, merchandise purchases, food & beverages, and events. If that fan stays with you for 10 years that adds up to €12,000.

The final formula for Customer Lifetime Value multiplies the average customer value by their lifespan with the brand, highlighting the importance of retention.

It can also be very beneficial to calculate this for individual cases so you can learn more about your most profitable customers!

The pain of losing fan loyalty

Losing a fan, especially a loyal one, always hurts. Not only does it affect future revenue, but you also lose profitability due to already spent acquisition costs and service costs which are usually higher in the beginning. Not to mention missing out on future referrals or the risk of obtaining a poor brand image if the customer churned because of a bad experience.

That being said companies across the US are losing a staggering 62 billion per year due to poor customer service. One bad experience can have a far greater effect than 10 good experiences. Influential factors in fan loyalty are brand association and community feeling. It’s important for clubs to keep up relationships to harvest sports fan equity.

Especially in today's economy keeping fans engaged is more important than ever. For instance, the NFL teams estimate a loss of around $100 million in local revenue. It’s also noted in Deloitte’s Football Money League 2020 report that ‘Generation Z’ fans (age 16-24) have a higher loyalty towards individual players than a club. They also tend to divide their watching time to the best match set-ups instead of following a favored team.

EY Global - "Aging sports fans and changing consumer habits have sports franchises facing an uphill battle to grow revenue even as costs continue to rise."

Why fan loyalty is so important

There is no one more loyal than a sports fan! These are often fans for life. They spend countless time, money, and energy on their teams. Superfans drive revenue in many different ways. First off, building fan loyalty helps you gain a competitive advantage in the market. Apple, for example, has a reputation for charging higher prices. However, their experience is so great they have fans who are more than willing to pay the price.

Research by consulting company PWC - "The impact of superfans has never been more powerful. The explosion in digital communications and social media drives an upsurge in the number, influence, and revenue potential of the superfans. As a result, superfans represent an increasingly valuable source of incremental revenue. This can be tapped by offering them a premium experience, such as a pre-release or exclusive content in return for a higher subscription or ongoing advocacy on social media."

How to use gamification to elevate fan loyalty

81% of consumers say loyalty programs made them more likely to continue doing business with brands. However, most loyalty efforts in today’s business world are built on external rewards systems. While this strategy has its benefits such as triggering the initial interest and desire for an activity, it has proven insufficient in the long term.

Research has shown that people need intrinsic motivation to stay engaged and remain brand loyalty. Luckily gamification ensures sustainable engagement by making the experience more intrinsically motivating.

People are driven by emotions they receive through progress and achievements. Recommendations to improve loyalty include focusing on tactics that build member relationships and identification with the team. Let’s take a look at some examples from the sports world!

Gamification creates superfans

First off there is the PSG Advent calendar. The French football club distributed throughout the entire month of December 2019. Fans were invited every day to discover a new box on the calendar with the chance of winning gifts and discounts. As a result, they gained over 180,000 participants.

Real Madrid is working on digital engagement as well. Fans want to be engaged constantly. That’s why creating a digital fan engagement platform can extend live experiences with content like pre-match analytics, highlights, and personalized notifications or recommendations. The club’s efforts helped digital revenues grow by 30%.

Digital platforms are essential for extending the fan experience beyond live events, offering opportunities for continuous engagement and gamification.

Finally, the gamification software company StriveCloud worked on a case with the esports platform Kayzr as well. The platform used to reward gamers with coins which they could later use to buy prizes. However, to scale up Kayzr needed a better way to reward users without the risk of losing massive engagement.

Up for a challenge, the StriveCloud team redesigned the experience to create Kayzr 4.0. A renewed version with built-in elements of surprise and empowerment and competition. One of the features they installed was a lottery system. So, while the traditional coin value lowered, players could now win tickets to participate in the lottery and bet on certain prizes!

The Kayzr lottery system is a perfect example of using gamification to create excitement and reward users in a scalable way.

To secure fan loyalty the system was upgraded with new daily and weekly challenges. By completing these players can level up and get rewards. Part of the reward is the progress in their experience meters. Which is another feature that stimulates social participation. The gamification helped Kayzr grow daily active usage with 60%. Additionally, the platform gained over 350% more users and got one year of 24/7 eyeball time in just one day!

Wrap up

In conclusion: understanding Customer Lifetime Value may be the first step to creating superfans. Once you find the true value of your fans and understand their journey, you can design a significantly better experience than motivates good fan behaviors.

Reward programs & gamification are shown to be beneficial both in generating fan loyalty and in driving business goals. However, it takes careful strategy and testing to ensure success. Finding the right motivations can help you scale your user base without increasing loyalty spending just as Kayzr did.

Gamification for apps: The best way to scale up engagement and loyalty

This visual introduces the core idea of using gamification within apps to enhance user engagement and build lasting loyalty.

Sports organizations and players are using new technologies to reach a global audience, especially the hyper digitized youth. To keep audiences engaged, sports clubs and leagues need to build an interconnected fan engagement platform that offers immersive experiences. However, it’s hard to grow userbases and even more so to keep users active on a platform. Gamification for apps might be the way to go.

But can sports organizations keep their fanbase active or will they lose out on engagement? Let's find out!

• The problem with fan apps & dropout rates
• A fan engagement puzzle - Is gamification for apps the final piece?
• How in-app gamification builds fan engagement
• Gamification for apps helped Kayzr gain 24/7 engagement
• Kayzr’s recipe for scalable esports fan engagement

The problem with fan apps & dropout rates

Sports fan engagement is becoming increasingly more important. In a globalized world, fanbases reach far beyond the local community. With sometimes over hundreds of millions of fans, the attention of so many people offers a significant commercial opportunity.

Almost any sports club or league has an app to complement their website. Unfortunately, they experience how hard it is to keep fans active on their apps. The mission is to keep dropout rates low, and daily usage high! It’s one thing to acquire new users, but a whole other challenge to keep them active on the platform. Fans only use a handful of the apps they have. As a matter of fact, in 2019 25% of fans abandon the app after using it just once. After the first 3 days, it drops by 77%.

This graph clearly illustrates the steep decline in user retention for mobile apps, highlighting the engagement problem many platforms face.

Adam Field, Head of Global Fan Engagement @ Chelsea FC - "It’s a major challenge to communicate at scale but still have an impact on individuals. It’s something that clubs can’t afford to ignore in the digital age when both organizations and players are so exposed through social media."

App development however often requires a high initial investment, therefore it’s important for sports organizations to think about if they actually need an app and if so, how it will engage fans. Continuous investment in engagement is still needed to prevent significant drop-offs or create re-engagement campaigns.

Even ESPN, one of the main sources for sports news & commentary sees their app usage drop exponentially. Younger generations are on the lookout for more personalized experiences. Over 85% of them are willing to share extra data in return for tailored content offers and discounts.

A fan engagement puzzle - Is gamification for apps the final piece?

Fortunately, gamification for apps supercharges fan engagement and app usage. Not only does it help you retain fans, but it also leads to viral user acquisition and improves the monetization of fans. But what is gamification for apps exactly?

If you have a smartphone, chances are you’ve already experienced in-app gamification without realizing it. For instance, Facebook developed a legendary digital experience designed to make you hooked. They have personalized notifications to lure you in & then show you the content you like best so you keep coming back.

Gamification for apps awakens curiosity and fosters competition. To gamify doesn’t mean to create a game. Although the mechanisms that make video games so enjoyable are used to support business goals.

Gamification for apps thrives when users are intrinsically motivated. That’s when they enjoy the experience in itself. This type of motivation stems from personal passions, the desire of having fun, or feeling of self-worth. It can be compared to the dedication a fanatic has for his or her team.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have extrinsic motivation. These are the external triggers that push the fan journey forward. These are found in prizes, money, and social status.

The diagram contrasts intrinsic motivations like passion with extrinsic ones like prizes, a core concept in designing effective gamification strategies.

Companies that leverage gamification enjoy higher usage rates as well as lower dropoff and more lower-cost retention. In fact, organizations that leverage gamification into their fan engagement strategies immediately see a 22% rise in brand loyalty, and can lead to a customer being up to three times more valuable.

Finally, gamification for apps allows you to increasingly gather data on users based on behavior and feedback. You can use this data to improve the experience by personalizing it and reinforcing the behaviors they are already doing.

Does in-app gamification build fan engagement?

Real Madrid is one of the biggest football clubs with over 500 million fans from all around the world. They also happen to be among the innovators when it comes to fan engagement. Along with Microsoft, the club designed a platform that could capture all fan interactions. Be it a mobile check-in at the stadium, a status update about the club, or merchandise purchase.

Rafael de los Santos, New Media Director @ Real Madrid - "Advances in technology have helped us reimagine fan engagement and create new business models that we never thought possible. And that enables us to establish a relationship that is more personal and direct with our 500 million fans around the globe."

With all that data Real Madrid can predict, track, and analyze fan behaviors across various physical and digital touchpoints. That way it can deliver a personalized experience for every single fan and reward desired behaviors.

Moreover, their omnichannel approach grew fan profiles by about 400% in the past two years, now reaching multiple millions.

Gamification for apps helped Kayzr gain 24/7 esports fan engagement

Kayzr is the largest esports community platform in Benelux. Gamers can compete in tournaments to win Kayzr coins, which they can then use to buy items in the online shop. Kayzr teamed up with StriveCloud to grow its user base without losing esports fan engagement or increasing spending on retention. After reinventing the platform Kayzr version 4.0 launched and gained over 350% more users after just a couple of weeks!

One of the main challenges Kayzr had before coming to StriveCloud was the high user retention cost. Every player that participated in a tournament got a standard amount of virtual coins to spend in the online shop. Besides the tournament system only allowed for tournaments at set times, always with the presence of a moderator. However, in the new league system players would get fewer virtual coins to buy things from the shop.

Pieter Verheye, Community Manager @ Kayzr - "People are coming for the rewards, but if you take them away engagement suffers. With StriveCloud’s help, we created a new reward system focused on moments of surprise and user empowerment, and engagement is higher than ever."

To minimize the dropout rates as much as possible, the StriveCloud team created a lottery system to spark users’ curiosity and secure scalable engagement. Users receive lottery tickets for actions like leveling up, ranking, or for winning badges. They can even bet on certain rewards on tradable collectibles in the online shop. The anticipation in itself shows to be an impactful dynamic.

Kayzr's lottery system is an excellent example of using unpredictability and surprise rewards to drive sustained user engagement.

The reward system got an update to focus more on intrinsic motivation by adding elements of unpredictability and empowerment. In addition to the usual coins, every profile now got an “experience meter”. These showcase the levels publicly calling on the desire to progress.

The experience meter provides a clear visual of user progression, creating a powerful incentive for continued play and engagement with the platform.

Kayzr’s low-cost hacks for users retention & esports fan engagement

Next to the league and lottery system, Kayzr added a few other mechanisms to ensure daily engagement on the platform. For instance, to give all participants a fair chance of winning in the new league system, StriveCloud added “game fuel”. With that fuel, users could play to rank. Once they run out of fuel they can still continue playing, but their scores won’t be added to the leaderboard.

Additionally, the challenge system got reinvented with daily and weekly challenges that help users level up and gain rewards such as badges or lottery tickets. Not only does it motivate users to keep playing, but the challenges are also set to help users discover all the features on the platform. For instance, the on-boarding instantly system rewards users along the way of exploring the platform and trying out new features.

Lastly, to ensure the peak times on Kayzr 4.0 “Hotzones” were added. Hotzones are fixed time frames during which all rewards are doubled for competing.

The results were astonishing. Kayzr grew its user base by 350% and received 1 year of 24/7 eyeball time in just one day! Additionally, they gained over 60% more daily active users, with an average of 1,5 hours of playing time per week. This way they succeeded in their goal of growing their user base while reducing the costs of keeping users active on the platform.

Wrap up

Sports clubs need to adapt to today’s digital world. They do so with digital fan engagement platforms, however, the high initial investment and equally high dropout rates are a big hurdle for most. On average 25% of all people abandon an app after using it just once.

So how can you grow a user base while cutting costs on retention and loyalty? The answer seems to be gamification for apps! It leverages data & rewards to trigger emotional drives so that a user gets and stays motivated to carry out an activity.

Esports platform Kayzr for instance successfully gamified its product, growing its user base by 350% and gaining 60% more daily active users. Gamification helped them grow esports fan engagement with 1 year of 24/7 eyeball time in just one day as well as an average of 1,5 hours spent on their platform every week.

Want to find out more about Kayzr’s success story?

Read the full case study

App gamification: the most successful hack to user engagement demystified

App gamification is an innovative methodology that uses typical game-world elements in non-game contexts to stimulate user engagement. If you’re not at least considering integrating such mechanics into your app, you risk lagging behind on competitors and losing users. Why, you ask? And what app gamification elements are out there?

In this post, we’ll cover:

• Why you should invest in app gamification to boost user engagement
• It’s imperative you know a thing or two about app gamification and how it works
• Gamification elements for mobile apps

When it comes to getting people to do the things you want, engagement is critical. You have to capture their attention and motivate them. App gamification provides the perfect tools to foster that kind of user engagement. By integrating game-like mechanisms and, in doing so, appealing to people’s competitive nature, you can nudge them towards the actions you want them to take.

Why you should invest in app gamification to boost user engagement

These days, it is incredibly hard to keep users hooked on your service or product. Some of them might not understand it, others forget to use it over time. There’s also always the chance that your audience discovers another app and replaces yours. Maybe because they like their service or product better, but in many cases, users also switch because they like the experience better elsewhere.

Let’s face it: in 2020, competition is fierce in nearly every sector - so the time for app gamification is now.

This graph clearly illustrates the dramatic impact app gamification can have on user activity and retention.

So how do you convince users to stick with your brand, product, or service? By playing on both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. In short, it’s about giving rewards for a certain task or behavior and evoking positive emotions at the same time.

Want to know more about how game mechanisms trigger motivation? Read this post

It’s imperative you know a thing or two about app gamification and how it works

Unfortunately, not all companies succeed in making app gamification work for them. Back in 2014, Gartner reported that 80% of all gamification efforts would fail due to the complexity of understanding human psychology. To successfully apply gamification in your app, you need to fully grasp what motivates your user and make sure all game mechanics you integrate are aligned.

Understanding human psychology, as shown in frameworks like Octalysis, is key to successful gamification design and avoiding common pitfalls.

Gamification elements for mobile apps

So what app gamification possibilities are out there for you to explore? Let’s dive into StriveCloud’s plug-in gamification toolbox and see how you can improve user engagement by offering a gamified experience in your app.

Points collection

This example demonstrates how earning points for actions provides a tangible sense of progression for the user.

Whenever we do something, we like to receive some kind of reward in return. That’s no different when we’re using a mobile app. Point users towards high priority activities and have them perform them by promising points in return or allow them to purchase real or virtual goods.

Challenges

Presenting users with clear goals and rewards taps into their natural drive to achieve and encourages repeat engagement.

Challenges are a powerful game mechanic to motivate users into action. By giving users the option to enter challenges or challenge each other, you play on the competitive nature we all have and seduce your users into coming back to your app.

Leaderboards

This leaderboard shows how competition drives user retention and provides social proof of activity within the app.

Gamification is about motivating people through data, so an important part of the user experience is making data visible to users. By visualizing how users are doing in leaderboards, you motivate them to keep using your app. Those at the top of such a ranking want to keep their position, users in lower positions want to climb up and knock current leaders from their thrones. In the end, people are competitive souls, and being able to see your name on the list of winners gives users a considerable motivation boost.

Progress bars

A visual progress bar provides immediate feedback and motivates users to complete the next step in their journey.

It’s always easier to get to a certain goal when you know what it takes to get there. A progress bar is a nice visualization for the user of his journey towards achieving that goal. By providing feedback to users on where they are in their journey, you encourage them to take the next step.

There are different ways for you to show progress:

1. Task progress: You can have each small task have its own goal and use a progress bar to indicate the stage of the task.
2. Progress in achievements: Trying to stimulate certain behavior with rewards and achievements, like using your app for a certain amount of days in a row? You can nudge users, even more, to do so by visualizing how close they are to the award.
3. Level progress: Give users insight into how much more it takes for them to reach a new, higher level.

Virtual badges

Awarding virtual badges for milestones creates a sense of achievement and status for users, making their progress feel valued.

No matter how old we are, receiving a medal, a trophy or a badge is a great moment. This moment of recognition adds to our motivation to take on the next challenge. If done right, badges are a powerful gamification tool.

Lotteries

A lottery system introduces an element of chance and excitement, encouraging users to perform actions to earn tickets.

A great way to hook users on your app is by integrating a lottery system. The idea is simple: users receive tickets for actions like leveling up, achieving a certain rank in leaderboards, or winning badges. Each ticket equals a chance to enter the lottery and to win nice prizes.

The visualization of a lottery ticket makes the potential reward feel more tangible and compelling to the user.

Referral programs

This illustrates how a referral program can be gamified, turning user acquisition into an engaging activity for your existing audience.

The more, the merrier, right? A great tactic to boost user engagement is by allowing them to reach goals with friends or by encouraging them to beat others. But as you know, it’s not easy attracting new users today. That’s why user advocacy is such an important factor in every company’s growth strategy today.

Get access to the networks of your current users with gamified referral programs. Let them invite friends and get rewarded in return. There are numerous possibilities: you could give them more points, lottery tickets, a special badge... Without having to put in a lot of effort yourself, you grow your user base.

A clean referral interface makes it easy for users to share and track their invitations, maximizing participation.

Social feeds

An in-app social feed creates a community space where users can see each other's progress and achievements.

Having a built-in social feed is, on the one hand, a great way to boost competitiveness among users by announcing other users’ milestone unlocks and achievements. On the other hand, it can foster collaboration by allowing users to ask questions within the community when they are stuck on a particular challenge.

This feed shows how announcing milestones and unlocks can boost competition and collaboration among users.

Want to see a real-life example of a company integrating these elements? Read Kayzr’s story

All coming together: user engagement and app gamification go hand in hand

Users that continue to be engaged and keep using your app are kind of like the holy grail for lots of businesses today. In order to maximize user engagement, app gamification is a powerful solution.

It’s no longer an option you can ignore. Many businesses are looking into how they can keep users hooked and are finding out about gamifying the user experience. Without a doubt, they’re getting convinced by the benefits app gamification brings and how quickly it is to get started with. If you wait too long, your competitors will start stealing your users.

This call to action provides a clear next step for readers interested in implementing these engagement strategies.

5 Gamification Software Facts and Statistics for Business Owners

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This article explores key facts and statistics about gamification software, providing valuable insights for business owners.

All work and no play can get exhausting. Not to mention, it might even lead to burnout within your business. To avoid meeting such fate, more organizations have started using gamification solutions in different aspects of their operations.

Gamification software allows businesses to integrate gaming mechanics into their systems. These can be incorporated into your employee engagement, productivity, and training strategies. Likewise, you can even use it to improve your marketing campaigns, enhance customer experience, and boost your business’ overall sales.

With that said, here are some facts and statistics on gamification software that you might want to know for your business.

Market size

The future for gamification software is bright and hopeful as more companies are beginning to see its benefits. According to research by Orbisresearch, the global gamification market will grow at a rate of 30% between 2019-2025. At the end of that forecast period, it will reach $32 billion by 2025.

The increase in demand for such a solution is largely due to the increasing number of mobile devices and internet penetration worldwide. Another factor is the integration of social network platforms. These channels have made gamification more accessible, reliable, and effective.

Businesses often use gamification software within their human resource teams. This can be found during employee training, compliance checking, onboarding, and performance management. Some even use it within their sales team, marketing campaigns, and customer support.

The major features

Selecting the best gamification software for your business may be challenging especially since there are various options available out there. Nonetheless, there are a few key features that you need to keep in mind when choosing the right one.

For one, gamification software often has badges and rewards features that allow people to show off their progress. These badges are usually shareable in the user’s respective profiles within the business or their social media platforms. Likewise, the rewards can be materialistic or physical.

Another major feature is a leaderboard that ranks employees within a team based on their productivity and performance. Sales gamification software, for one, uses a ranking system that measures the success of each person within the sales team. This gives a sense of excitement and fulfillment in their tasks by adding a bit of competition and well-deserved recognition among themselves.

Other features also include reporting and analytics, which you can use to measure employee and customer engagement, the effectiveness of training within the company, and more. Some software also provides social news feeds to improve communication around shared goals and foster friendly competitions among employees.

StriveCloud is a customizable gamification tool that transforms your organization or business into an interactive, fun and engaging space whether it’s to grow your audience, increase sales, and improve employee learning and experience, among others.

Boost employee productivity by 90%

Gamification solutions serve as the carrot in the carrot and stick approach in managing your employees. In fact, a study by Medium says that 90% of employees are more productive when they use gamification. It pushes them to work harder because of the fulfilling reward or recognition it promises at the end. Likewise, it adds a bit of excitement to their otherwise mundane tasks in the long run.

Studies show that there are two ways to motivate a person. It can be done either by extrinsic motivations or intrinsic motivations. Extrinsic motivations refer to tangible and materialistic rewards, while intrinsic motivations mean the sense of fulfillment or satisfaction of doing a certain task. Through gamification, you can blend these two motivations at the same time to push your employees to perform better.

Businesses often use gamification software for employee engagement. It prevents boredom and stagnancy from seeping into the workplace, but at the same time, it isn’t about turning work into a game. It uses psychology to motivate them to set higher goals for themselves.

Improve customer satisfaction

Nowadays, marketers use gamification features to capture their target audience’s attention. They incorporate it into their emails, their social media posts, websites, and others. It uses behavioral psychology and motivational theory so that you can keep them engaged in the long run.

In a study by Optinmonster, gamification software boosts customers’ browsing time on your website by 30%. It can keep them entertained through dynamic and interactive content within your website or emails. Gamification also offers special rewards that keep them engaged. These rewards can be physical rewards, vouchers, discounts, and others. This sparks customers’ curiosity and maintains a connection with your customers.

Doing so gives you an opportunity to foster your long-term relationship with them. Some gamification solutions can also provide loyalty programs. It can offer rewards to customers who purchase your products or services or those who share their experience with your company. Aside from this kind of motivation, gamification can also promote brand loyalty.

Enhance the learning experience by 60%

Various studies claim that play is the most efficient and effective way to learn. Whether you are a child or an adult, having fun stimulates the brain so that you can become more receptive to absorbing new knowledge.

Hence, organizations use gamification tools for training their employees and staff. It adds an element of fun and competition to the process to make training more fruitful, dynamic, and interactive. Likewise, it puts their newfound knowledge to practical use to test the training’s effectiveness. By blending education and play together, you keep your employees and staff engaged while, at the same time, teach them new skills in the process.

Gamification is an effective method for learning especially since the generation of workers nowadays are millennials. These are the kids who grew up with computers and video games. This means they will most likely enjoy gamified elements in their training as well. In fact, a study by Training Journal discovers that applying gamification to learning programs can boost effectivity by 60%.

Make work fun

Using gamification tools can make your employees and customers feel more connected with the company. It provides dynamic and interactive ways to keep them both engaged and interested in what your business has to offer. However, it isn’t just all play with gamification software. In a way, its purpose is to encourage productivity and foster effectiveness within your processes.

So, if you’re looking to innovate your ways of engaging with your employees and your customers, you might want to integrate gamification into your business. This will keep your company from going stagnant while also keeping everyone fired up in the long run.

Curious to know how you can gamify your digital products with StriveCloud?

Contact us for a custom demo.

Book a demo

68 successful gamification examples to unlock user engagement & loyalty

People just love to play games! In 2022, mobile games made up 2/3 of all app store spending. That’s because gaming motivates us by tapping into our innate behavioral psychology, leveraging needs like growth and social interaction. So, what happens when you extract gamification examples like points, levels, and badges and put them into a non-game context? You can boost app engagement and build user loyalty!

This introductory image highlights the core concept that gamification elements can significantly boost user engagement across various applications.

Any app can benefit from gamification. To demonstrate, we’ve listed 68 examples of different apps that increased engagement with gamification. You will discover how the apps applied game elements to motivate user actions, ultimately helping them grow!

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• Gamification examples fintech
• Gamification examples banking
• Gamification examples health & fitness
• Gamification examples telecom
• Gamification examples education
• Gamification examples retail
• Gamification examples ecommerce
• Gamification examples mobility apps
• Gamification examples productivity apps
• Gamification examples social networking apps
• Gamification examples loyalty programs
• Gamification examples travel apps
• Other gamification examples

Gamification examples from fintech

Moven Gamification Example: CRED program slashes customer acquisition costs

Moven is a branchless, paperless, and even plastic-less bank. They’re one of the leading online banks using gamification to improve app engagement. They built the CRED program to collect more user data. The tool is branded as an assistant that helps you make financial decisions.

CRED uses information about users' financial decisions instead of traditional credit scores. Factors like social media intelligence are important in its ratings. Unlike a credit score, CRED is designed to be a sort of financial health score. The score goes up when a customer gets better at saving or managing their money.

Moven is able to acquire customers at a cost of $50 per customer due to word of mouth, which is over 80% lower than the industry average. Furthermore, users are encouraged to use Moven to make all their payments, as the tool gives them unique insights into their spending behavior.

Qapital & Monefy Gamification Examples: change financial habits for the better

Both tools have an expense tracker and allow users to automatically save money. They use gamification for apps to install saving habits.

On Qapital you can create triggers for every time you buy a coffee to save 50 cents. Monefy uses visual feedback to show you how much you’re spending in different categories compared to your balance.

Both apps help you make saving goals more tangible, by visualizing how close you are to achieving them. Sometimes, seeing your money in a different way helps you realize your spending behavior in a different way. Qapital has over 1.8 million users and Monefy has a rating of 4.5 stars in the Google Play store.

Smarty Pig Gamification Example: gamify your finances to save more

Smarty Pig is a finance app that helps users hit their financial goals. You start by setting a savings goal, such as buying a new bike. Every time you add money to your account, it will automatically ‘piggyback’ a part of it to your savings.

The app visualizes how close you are to reaching your goal and makes budgeting feel satisfying, instead of a chore. Also, you can completely personalize your account according to your saving goals. In only two years, the app signed up over 40,000 customers with $250 million in deposits!

Build a fintech app customers love to use! With gamification, you can grow an active and loyal community. Discover how!

Gamification examples from banking

OTP Banka Hrvatska Gamification Example: motivate product education to drive sales

European bank, OTP Banka Hrvatska implemented gamification for apps in order to sell more specific financial products. Up to 90 percent of bank products remain unused.

Users earned points and prizes for completing different challenges linked to product education. Instead of promoting products to increase consumption, the bank chose to educate its customers on products and benefits.

Of the 30 to 40-year-old target group, 87% completed at least one challenge, with an average of 13.3 challenges per participant. The bank got e.16% more sign-ups for mobile banking services, as well as a 13% increase in prepaid Mastercard usage.

Increase customer engagement on your banking app with gamification. Discover how!

Gamification examples from health & fitness

Fitbit Gamification Example: leverages gamification to keep users healthy

Fitbit is a wearable fitness tracker connected to a gamified health app. Its users earn badges for reaching certain milestones in the app such as reaching a specific amount of miles. They will also track your progress towards that goal with a progress circle and other live stats.

This screenshot from Fitbit showcases how badges and progress circles motivate users to achieve their fitness goals.

Additionally, Fitbit creates a sense of social connectedness by allowing you to compete with friends or share your results on social media. The social element seems to be important for the majority of the community as 20 million of the 30 million total active users are actively engaged in the social feed.

Freeletics Gamification Example: leverages community to promote fitness

Freeletics is a workout app with a bunch of virtual training programs and a virtual coach! Nonetheless, it’s gamification for apps that makes it better than a regular fitness app. Freeletics has a social feed where people can follow each other and compare their performances.

On the user profile, you can track how many workouts a user completed, what level they are at, and the badges they have earned along the way. Just like Strava or Runkeeper, the community drives people to support each other or compete. It proves once again how powerful peer pressure can be for increasing user app engagement.

Headspace Gamification Example: creates zen-masters

Headspace is a meditation app with tons of exercises, tutorials, and tips to chill out! To start with, users get rewarded for reaching milestones in the app and can unlock more features such as animations to improve their meditation. In addition, you can join meditation groups or share your results with your buddy list or through Facebook. This way, users get a sense of relatedness to the community.

The Headspace app uses friendly visuals and tangible rewards to make daily meditation a satisfying and engaging habit.

Finally, there are also weekly group challenges such as ‘meditate for 500 minutes’ or ‘try every Single’. Thanks to a fun user experience, Headspace has over 2 million users!

Calm Gamification Example: streaks incentivize daily engagement

Calm is the world’s biggest wellness app. In 2022, they generated $1.5 million more in revenue than Headspace, their main competitor. How are they so far ahead? To be sure, they can thank gamification examples like streaks. Basically, streaks track a user’s consecutive days of app usage. And that’s especially important for meditation apps!

According to research, when meditating, building a daily routine is “necessary”. Given this, Calm helps users by sending streak reminders and rewarding their daily engagement. In short, it’s a win-win!

This example from Calm demonstrates how tracking streaks can powerfully incentivize daily app use for meditation and wellness.

Insight Timer Gamification Example: a personalized user experience increases ownership

Trawl through the reviews of Insight Timer, and you will find many happy customers praising the app’s personalization. Indeed, the popular meditation app offers its community a wide range of personalized features:

• Can pick different bell sounds (beginning and end!)
• Customize the duration of sessions
• Personalize profile pictures
• See personal statistics
• Set daily reminders

Essentially, these features give users autonomy and ownership over their experience. And autonomy is shown to lead to improved well-being and engagement. Naturally, that’s pretty important for a wellness app! Given all this, it’s easy to see how Insight Timer has the highest Day 30 user retention in the industry!

Insight Timer shows how personalizing the user experience, from sounds to profile details, increases a sense of ownership and engagement.

Nike+Fuel Gamification Example: collects more data through gamification

Nike+Fuel drives app engagement through gamification to collect more data about its users. Nike+Fuel is a personalized fitness app that allows users to track their activity. After completing different runs users can improve levels, and earn trophies and badges for their performance. They can also link the app to social media to compare and compete with people from all around the world.

The game didn’t just boost Nike’s customer loyalty, it helped to increase the productivity of their R&D and digital marketing department.

Adidas Runtastic Gamification Example: leaderboards drive users to reach the top

When Adidas acquired Runtastic for $240M, they set about making it the best-running app on the market. What did they do? Firstly, they streamlined the user experience and focused solely on running (previously, the app supported sports like biking and even sailing). Also, Adidas took gamification to another level!

To name just a few gamification examples, the app introduced goal-setting features, challenges, and a leaderboard. In particular, the leaderboard made a huge difference. For one, it introduces social interaction where users are motivated to beat their peers. In addition, a leaderboard provides positive reinforcement and fast feedback. And this keeps users engaged time and again!

Alessio Laiso, UX Product Designer @Adidas Runtastic - "The newly introduced running leaderboard, for example, added an important social element that significantly increased user engagement."

The Adidas Runtastic app's leaderboard is a perfect example of how adding a social, competitive element can significantly drive user motivation.

Jillian Michaels Gamification Example: personalized goal-setting focuses on users

On her fitness app, popular TV personality Jillian Michaels leads 800+ exercises. Sounds great, but without this one gamification example that abundance could backfire! Indeed, there is something called the “Paradox of Choice”. In reality, the more choices you give someone, the less likely they are to choose!

To avoid this effect, the app asks users to set a personal fitness goal during onboarding. Basically, this allows the app to customize what exercises the user sees. In turn, this maximizes the value of the app and makes engaging easier!

This visualization from the Jillian Michaels app illustrates how personalized goal-setting during onboarding can create a more focused and effective user experience.

SWEAT Gamification Example: community features enhance the social experience

In just 2 years, SWEAT became the most profitable fitness app in the world. A huge part of that success comes from its community engagement. For example, screens nudge you to share your trophies and even a “Sweaty Selfie” after a workout! This motivates users because it gives them the chance to show off to their friends. In turn, that fires up a sense of competition (and a healthy dose of FOMO) - and this motivates the friend!

Science supports this approach. A recent study found that competition facilitates interaction. In other words, features that encourage competition bring the community closer together, which further motivates the intention to exercise thanks to ‘increased confidence and connection’. Essentially, it’s a built-in positive feedback loop!

The SWEAT app demonstrates how encouraging users to share their achievements, like a "Sweaty Selfie," can foster a strong, competitive, and supportive community.

Multiball Gamification Example: using games to get schools moving

Based in Germany, Multiball uses sensors and projectors to turn indoor spaces into fun interactive games. Put simply, the company gamifies fitness sessions to make them more engaging. Uniquely, the company puts a particular focus on selling to schools.

Using sensors, Multiball tracks the movement of players to play dozens of games. For example, in one game players have to find countries on a map. To identify the country, they must throw a ball at it! At the end of each game, Multiball awards winners with points and enters your score on a global leaderboard. That just makes you want to play again! To be sure, the addictive nature of gamification is why Multiball now operates in over 50 countries.

Multiball's interactive system turns a simple wall into a game, proving that gamification can make physical activity more engaging for groups and schools.

Stepn Gamification Example: earn crypto while you run

Founded in 2021, Stepn is an unusual cross between a fintech and mHealth app. Basically, users deposit crypto-tokens in the app and use them to buy virtual sneakers. Each pair of sneakers requires you to exercise at a specified speed, for example, a slow walking pace or a fast sprint. If you move too slowly, you don’t get a reward!

However, if you pass the challenge, you earn more crypto for your wallet and keep the sneaker as an NFT token. In a way, this is like a badge to celebrate your achievement. And of course, the more you run, the harder the challenge, and the more valuable the sneaker! To be sure, this Move2Earn model is a huge incentive for users to exercise. At one point, the app boasted 70,000 monthly active users!

The Stepn app expertly combines fitness and finance, using crypto rewards and NFT sneakers to motivate users to meet their exercise goals.

Prehab Gamification Example: locked workouts leverage behavioral psychology to motivate

With Prehab, users can follow over 50 programs to rehabilitate their fitness. Many mHealth apps find it difficult to get users to form a habit. To incentivize habit formation, Prehab uses classic gamification examples like streaks and progress bars to encourage users to complete their weekly fitness programs.

But Prehab also does something unique - they lock off each week’s program until the current week is completed! This uses “constraint”, a gamification mechanic that taps into psychological behaviors like loss avoidance. Essentially, people hate to lose out! In effect, seeing grayed-out weeks in their plan pushes them to finish their workouts. Not to mention, limiting a user’s choices avoids causing the “Paradox of Choice”. In other words, when you make quitting easier than choosing!

Prehab's strategy of locking future workouts leverages the psychological principle of constraint to motivate users to complete their current tasks.

Urban Sports Club Gamification Example: get more leads with gamification for apps

The Urban Sports Club is a flat-rate fitness company. In an effort to attract more leads, they created their own rock-climbing game as an interactive Facebook advertisement. In the game, users had to climb as high as they could to win a 3-month contract. The potential reward and interactive experience were enough motivation to play the game.

This animated GIF shows how Urban Sports Club used a simple, fun game in an ad to generate leads and increase brand engagement.

Most users replayed the game over 3 times, which shows high engagement. Urban Sports Club was able to collect data from all players who participated. The ad increased organic traffic by 39% and had a 45% lower cost per click.

Zombies Run Gamification Example: spicing up your run

The Zombies Run app is a different kind of health app. It will interrupt your music or radio with a news broadcast about a zombie epidemic. You are of the final remaining humans, so if you want to survive you need to run! The app will trigger you to run faster or collect supplies along the way.

Zombies Run used gamification for apps to make running fun! With over 200 different missions and an award-winning story, you will always find motivation for your workout. The app has over 1 million users and is the biggest smartphone fitness game, ever.

Use gamification to create a habit-forming health & fitness app! Discover how.

Gamification examples from telecom

GiffGaff Gamification Example: build a community-based telecom business

Giffgaff is a community-based telecom company that offers flexible monthly plans. To become a member you buy a SIM card from other GifGaff members. Users get points for participating in the community, which they can convert to cash to pay for their mobile phone or to donate to charity.

The program rewards users for helping other members on their forum or recommending friends. This has helped the community grow to over 3 million users good for over 600 million dollars in revenue.

T-Mobile Gamification Example: badges help train employees (and boost customer satisfaction)

T-Mobile is one of the world’s top telco multinationals - and that creates challenges! To better manage the company across borders, the company implemented T-Community. Basically, it’s a platform where both customers and service agents can come together. And to boost employee participation, T-Mobile added several gamification examples.

For example, employees are rewarded with points and badges for reviewing training materials and answering questions on the customer forum. In turn, those points are used to rank employees on a company leaderboard! As a result, the T-Community improved customer satisfaction and provided a range of other benefits:

T-Mobile's use of badges and leaderboards in their internal community platform effectively motivated employees to engage and support customers.

• 15,000 frontline staff participated in the first 2 weeks
• After gamification, employee participation increased 1000%
• Reduced customer phone calls in the Netherlands by 60%, saving €2 million!

Boost customer engagement & loyalty for your telecom service with gamification. Discover more.

Gamification examples from education

Duolingo Gamification Example: makes language learning fun

Duolingo is a language learning app that has mastered gamification for apps. Instead of going through long and boring lectures, Duolingo offers fun, bite-sized lessons that make you want to keep learning!

The app uses an in-app currency called ‘lingots’ which rewards users for completing various activities on the app. Additionally, users can collect badges when attaining achievements such as reaching the next level or milestone. To increase user motivation even further, Duolingo adds a dash of competition with a scoreboard based on experience points.

Today the app has over 300 million active users worldwide, securing its place as the number one language-learning app.

Kahoot Gamification Example: turning classrooms into gameshows

Kahoot is a learning game app where students can compete in virtual quizzes. The teacher or instructor sets up a series of questions. The questions and multiple choice answers are then projected onto a scared screen, and users can select the right answers on their own devices.

Students receive points for every question they answer correctly and extra points for being faster than others. They can either play individually or in teams. After every question, users will see their score go up, as well as their ranking on the leaderboard.

By using app gamification, Kahoot engages students with fun and interactive quizzes, encouraging screens and a sense of competition. It beats the classroom every day!

Kahoot's leaderboard system turns educational quizzes into exciting competitions, boosting student motivation and engagement in the classroom.

PayPerks Gamification Example: education meets rewards

PayPerks is a financial education platform that rewards users for taking financial courses and saving-like behaviors. It’s mostly aimed at lower-income individuals to encourage saving and financial literacy.

PayPerks turned boring financial studies into game-like experiences with fun and easy-to-understand explanations. Their platform incentivizes real-world actions such as card usage, or online behaviors that help the user install the right habits. They have helped millions of consumers get through tens of millions of tutorials and given away hundreds of thousands of dollars in prizes.

Beat the GMAT Gamification Example: badges grow a community

Beat the GMAT is designed to help MBA applicants pass the tough admission test. Those tests aren’t easy - that’s why the app uses gamification to motivate users! Firstly, social features help build a tight community. For example, any prospective MBA student can post in a forum and connect with other students. To build on this, Beat the GMAT introduced badge rewards. Users could earn badges for:

• Answering a user’s question
• Contributing a written article/blog
• Posting a question or response in a forum
• And much more!

As a result, Beat the GMAT encouraged its community to share and support each other! Badges increased forum comments by 8,000 per month and boosted the total time spent in the community by 370%!

Open University Gamification Example: checklists and progress bars create better students

Even universities are taking advantage of gamification! On the Open University’s ‘study planner’, students can find a checklist of unfinished tasks. As well, there is a progress bar that tracks the student’s total effort. For something as demanding as a full degree, these features make a huge difference!

When a checklist displays unfinished items, this harnesses a psychological phenomenon called the “Zeigarnik effect”. Basically, incomplete tasks stick with us more than those we complete! In other words, students are motivated to return and study. Moreover, checklists and progress bars provide positive reinforcement and direct students to their goals. As a result, this reduces negative feelings like anxiety or being overwhelmed! In short, Open University’s gamification examples create better students!

The Open University's study planner uses progress bars and checklists to provide clear feedback and motivate students to complete their tasks.

How can edtech incentivize learning? With a fun user experience powered by gamification! Discover more!

Gamification Examples from retail

Target Gamification Example: collecting the holiday wishes with Wish-list app

To prepare for the holidays, Target created the ‘Holiday Wish’ app. Here kids could experience a 3D animated game where they could send digital wish lists to Santa. Parents would then be able to instantly order or find their kids’ wishes.

The fun holiday experience and convenient set-up helped Target boost traffic during the most important time of the year!

App engagement was high, with 61% of users checking in weekly and another 31% multiple times per day. The app generated over 75,000 downloads and 100,000 wish lists. On average a Wishlist comprised around 30 items with a value of $1,500. Over six weeks 9,200 new Target accounts were created and the app collected a sales potential of $92.3 million!

Under Armour Gamification Example: trivia app lets the NBA fans hold their own playoffs

Under Armour is a global sportswear brand. During the NBA playoffs, they partnered up with basketball player Steph Curry to launch a surprise Trivia game called StephIQ. The game allowed users to answer a series of trivia questions, every time Curry scored his first three-pointer of the game.

Participants who could answer all eight questions correctly could either win and split the prize pool, or enter a special raffle that included prizes like free tickets, signed shoes, and Under Armour gear. The app caused an increase in NBA’s viewership, as well as sales for the brand itself.

Increase retail sales with gamification. Discover how!

Gamification Examples from ecommerce

Woot Gamification Example: use scarcity to drive more sales

Woot is an ecommerce platform that offers daily deals, at a limited quantity and a special price. They reveal a new product every day at midnight. Its exclusivity has driven users to constantly refresh their page between 11.59 PM and 00.01 AM.

Woot plays on curiosity and scarcity to trigger the “fear of missing out” among their users. This way the ecommerce site gets around 10 million monthly visitors that are really engaged. The original idea behind Woot also made up for a lot of free promotions on social media.

eBay Gamification Example: maximizing profits through unpredictability

eBay was one of the first to use app gamification in ecommerce. It uses bidding, feedback scores, and a badge reward system to motivate both buyers and sellers.

Joining a bidding war is like the lottery, the more you enter the more you’re able to win. You’re also prone to spend more due to the sense of competition and the fear of losing your opportunity. Buyers see bidding as competition. Winning a bid is like winning the competition. It doesn’t matter if you overpaid, as long as the endorphins give you that awesome feeling!

Sellers, on the other hand, can earn badges like ‘trusted seller’ and get better percentages as an eBay sellers in return. It’s about risk, engagement, and rewards.

Teleflora Gamification Example: rewards users for being part of the community

Teleflora is an online flower shop. They created a loyalty system that rewards users for participating in their community.

They rewarded users with points for doing things like customer reviews, and comments, answering customer queries, and sharing Teleflora on Facebook. Once users reached a certain level they earned badges and titles like ‘influencer’. There was even a leaderboard displaying the top contributing members.

With a 105% increase in Facebook referrals, Teleflora’s conversion rates jumped 92%!

UNice Gamification Example: the one feature that helped quadruple newsletter sign-up rates

UNice is an online hair store. In an effort to get more sign-ups for their newsletter, they created a spin-the-wheel pop-up to greet new visitors. You simply have to enter your email to get a chance to win coupons, free lashes, or even an iPad! While doing so, you would also be automatically subscribed to their newsletter.

It’s a great way to grab the attention of your users and turn them from passive visitors into active participators. They’re curious to find out their reward, for something as simple as their email. Spin-the-wheels show a 3 to 4 times higher sign-up rate for their newsletter compared to traditional pop-ups.

Interactive pop-ups, like this spin-the-wheel from UNice, can dramatically increase engagement and sign-up rates compared to static forms.

SHEIN Gamification Example: keep shoppers actively engaged

SHEIN is one of the largest online retailers in the world with over 4 million unique monthly visitors. So how do they get app engagement like this?

For starters, they have a discount countdown timer to create a sense of urgency with their users. Furthermore, they have a points-based reward system that gives users points for active participation and ambassadorship.

For instance, when users check in daily or make product reviews. They can also win points for special challenges. 100 points equals 1 dollar, which you can spend in the shop. This way SHEIN rewards the behaviors that help them grow.

SHEIN’s points system effectively rewards users for daily check-ins and reviews, turning routine actions into an engaging, rewarding experience.

It’s simple - when customers enjoy your platform, they buy more! How can gamification help your app? Discover more.

Gamification examples from mobility apps

Waze Gamification Example: rewarding app engagement & participation

Waze is a crowdsourced GPS app, where its users share real-time traffic with each other. Detrimental to its success is the fact that its users help them to accurately map traffic situations around the world. So how do they do it?

Every Wazer has a mood. You start out as a Newbie. If you want to improve your mood you will have to complete the first goal, which is to drive 100 miles. Waze rewards participation with experience points and visualizes it through progress bars and on a leaderboard.

Waze masterfully uses points, levels, and leaderboards to encourage users to actively contribute real-time traffic data, making the app more powerful for everyone.

Users can compare their participation with their friends or people from all around the world. Next to its gamification elements, the calling of having a reliable traffic app also adds to users' motivation. The community of engaged drivers has helped Waze get over 130 million monthly active users.

HumanForest Gamification Example: an in-game currency that motivates (and conveys the brand message)

HumanForest operates e-bikes across London with the brand message of sustainability. So when HumanForest approached StriveCloud to build a custom gamification strategy, we decided to capitalize on this! Here’s what we did: the more people ride HumanForest, the more ‘TreeCoins’ they earn. But TreeCoins are no made-up coins, they’re actually the number of trees each customer has saved by taking an e-bike!

Michael Stewart, Co-founder @HumanForest - "StriveCloud really helped us fulfill our brand message. The TreeCoins explains our mission perfectly. 1 mile = 1 tree, 5 miles = 5 trees & 5 trees = 1 coin. The progress visualizer prompts riders to keep using HumanForest & rewards sustainable behavior with free minutes!"

As a result, the currency makes a customer’s impact feel much more tangible. In turn, this inspires riders to share how many trees they’ve saved. Not only does this elevate their social status, but it also encourages them to spread the word about HumanForest. Since launch, HumanForest has prevented 220 tons of CO2 emissions!

HumanForest's "TreeCoins" currency is a brilliant example of aligning gamification with a brand's core message of sustainability, making rewards meaningful.

Bird Gamification Example: motivates people to ride and charge electric scooters

Bird is an electric scooter charging company. They use gamification for apps to motivate users to hunt down scooters and charge them.

Literally, anyone can become a Bird Charger. The community is self-organized and relies on its users to charge as many scooters as possible. You can ‘find’ and ‘capture’ scooters or ‘birds’ and charge them at home. In return, users earn a monetary reward for every scooter. You earn more for scooters that are harder to find, which makes it an ideal side hustle for a lot of people.

Lime Gamification Example: celebrate every milestone!

In 2022, Lime became the first micromobility operator to report a profitable year. How? Because Lime got customers onto their e-scooters more often. They did this with several gamification elements to create a great app experience. For example, the app celebrates each customer milestone.

Basically, the app offers customers statistics on every one of their rides. On your first ride or your longest ride, the app celebrates with some upbeat copy. But this is more than a bit of fun! In brief, milestones help track progress, as well as provide feedback and positive reinforcement. And Lime must be doing something right – in their 2020 report, Lime revealed that customers are riding longer and farther than before!

Lime's app celebrates user milestones, which provides positive reinforcement and helps riders feel a sense of accomplishment and progress.

EVO Sharing Gamification Example: challenges give EVO Sharing riders a chance to win

EVO Sharing operates bright orange e-scooters across Germany. When EVO Sharing came to us at StriveCloud, they had a clear goal - to increase the number of rides per customer. To achieve this, we implemented gamification examples like challenges.

Jennifer Dittmar @EVO Sharing - "With Strivecloud, we want to create incentives to drive more often with the electric scooters from EVO Sharing. Through the challenges and the achievement of milestones, the customer shall be motivated to use our scooters more often."

When you look at psychological studies, challenges can be extremely motivating!

1. Fulfills the need for competence
2. Prizes act as a purpose/end goal
3. Provides quick and clear feedback
4. Increases the customer’s sense of autonomy
5. Publicizes behavior and allows for social comparison
6. Creates a social ‘event’, something riders have in common and can discuss

EVO Sharing uses in-app challenges to create clear goals and incentives for riders, motivating them to use the service more frequently.

Uber Gamification Example: boosting engagement on Uber Driver app engagement

Uber’s driver app is a prime example of gamification for apps to improve loyalty and encourage good behavior. The app is built to improve the driver experience by implementing game elements into the work.

Drivers can take on quests and win badges for the achievements they complete. Additionally, their earnings are tracked within the app and directly linked to the progress they make in the game. If drivers complete a certain amount of trips in a specific time frame, they might get additional monetary rewards.

This screenshot from the Uber Driver app shows how quests and earning trackers turn driving into a game, encouraging drivers to complete more trips.

Spicing up the drivers’ experience with game-like triggers creates the right behaviors for drivers. Not only does the game make work more fun, but it also keeps their drivers engaged to move forward.

Voi. Gamification Example: tiered loyalty systems make loyalty more valuable

Voi. is one of Europe’s biggest e-scooter operators. Like most operators, they want customers to take more rides. So what do they do? They use a tiered loyalty system. With “Voialty”, users receive bigger discounts the more they ride. To be sure, your customers expect this kind of thing! That’s because of something called the “Lucky Loyalty Effect”. Basically, customers expect their perks and benefits to scale as their loyalty grows.

To motivate riders to work their way up the tiers, there is a clear leveling system. To go from Rookie to Pro, customers need points. And they earn points for completing rides and various other tasks. For instance, if a rider takes a selfie wearing a helmet, they get 5 points, bringing them closer to cheaper rides!

Voi's "Voialty" program uses a tiered system and points to encourage riders to progress from "Rookie" to "Pro," making loyalty feel valuable and rewarding.

Build your path to profitability. Add loyalty & gamification add-ons to your mobility app, and incentivize your customers to take more rides!

Gamification examples from productivity apps

Todoist Gamification Example: how to use gamification to get shit done

Todoist is a productivity app that helps you organize your days, get reminders and manage tasks easily. The app not only helps you keep your planning on track but also motivates you for completing your work!

For instance, users earn karma points for completing a task. However, they also get negative karma for missing deadlines. These two types of rewards play on two different user motivations: achievement and avoidance. Furthermore, users can unlock new levels based on their karma points, and share them with friends on social media.

The app has reached the milestone of 5 million users and will keep boosting its users’ productivity!

Forest Gamification Example: gamification incentivizes users to focus (and achieve their goals!)

The Forest app allows you to focus when you need to the most. Whenever you want to stop your digital distractions you can open Forest, set a timer, and plant a seed. You can’t go outside the app until the timer is completed, if you do give up the seed will die.

The app has a purpose, which is to grow the tree. If you bail on your tasks, you will have to watch the tree die. Again, this works on a sense of accomplishment and avoidance. The more tasks you complete, the more trees you will plant. Finally, you can invite your friends or compete with the global community on a leaderboard to see how your productivity matches up.

Habitica Gamification Example: become the prime habit-forming app

Habitica is a habit-installing app. It helps you create daily routines in a better, faster, and most importantly fun way! Their slogan literally is: Gamify your life!

The app helps you set clear goals and visualizes the progress you’re making toward them. Users are rewarded for continuing their habit with new avatars. Oftentimes, reminding users to actively work on their goals is enough motivation to keep them going. The app has over 4 million members around the world.

Increase user engagement on your productivity app with gamification. Discover more!

Gamification examples from social networking apps

Kayzr Gamification Example: intrinsic rewards are better than monetary prizes

Esports is booming! In the Benelux, Kazyr is the biggest esports platform with more than 100,000 users. And when Kazyr came to StriveCloud, they asked us to gamify their user experience. Firstly, we looked at their existing rewards. This included cash prizes for competition winners. But cash prizes are costly. Besides, they aren’t actually as effective as you’d think. In fact, research shows that the intrinsic rewards created by gamification examples are preferred for some important reasons:

• Intrinsic rewards are self-determined
• They don’t rely on reinforcement/environmental factors
• Self-motivation means stronger and longer-lasting engagement!

That’s why we capped prize rewards and introduced an intrinsic rewards system. In short, that meant challenges, badges, levels, and in-app coins. The results were clear - user growth and a more scalable business model!

Pieter Verheye, Community Manager @Kayzr – "By gamifying the user experience, StriveCloud helped us grow our user base by 350%."

Kayzr's in-app currency and rewards system replaced costly cash prizes with more sustainable intrinsic rewards, driving significant user growth.

Samsung Nation Gamification Example: the world’s first “gamified corporate website”

Way back in 2011, tech giant Samsung released Samsung Nation. The website immediately caught on! It was the first time a big company like Samsung used gamification examples such as badges, sweepstakes, leaderboards, and points to engage customers on their website.

In practice, Samsung Nation let fans of Samsung products leave reviews and chat with other users. Essentially, Samsung was leveraging gamification to build a community long before it became popular! As a result, Samsung.com experienced a 66% increase in visitors and 309% more comments!

Samsung Nation was a pioneering example of using badges and leaderboards to build a corporate community and boost website engagement.

Facebook Gamification Example: a basketball mini-game keeps users coming back

The next time you use Facebook Messenger, try sending your friend a basketball emoji. When you do this, you kickstart a hidden mini-game! Basically, the goal is to shoot as many hoops as possible. It’s really that simple, but that’s what makes it so addictive. What’s more, there’s even a leaderboard to track who’s winning! Because of this added competition, users are motivated to beat both their buddy and their previous score.

While it is a simple gamification example, the mini-game is effective for 3 big reasons:

Facebook Messenger's hidden basketball game is a simple yet effective feature that encourages fun, social interaction and replayability.

• The game is fun and challenging
• Competitive features encourage social interaction
• Social interaction makes people happy and increases reuse intention!

Instagram Gamification Example: likes & comments are a game

Already, social interaction is extremely motivating. But Instagram found a way to make socialization even more engaging for their 2 billion monthly active users! In a way, the app makes earning likes and comments as exciting as a game. Think of them as Instagram points! In effect, likes and comments leverage 3 gamification mechanics:

Instagram cleverly gamifies social interaction by using likes and comments as a form of feedback and reward, motivating users to post more engaging content.

• Provides valuable feedback
• Rewards users for engaging by giving heart emojis
• Challenges users to earn more likes and comments next time

In the end, gaining tons of likes feels like an accomplishment. You can even scroll back through your history and see your progress, just like a game!

Reddit Gamification Example: the “karma” points system that creates a community

Reddit is a social network made up of over 3.1 million user-driven communities called subreddits. In every community, Redditors can earn “karma”. This gives the community a common goal, which brings them closer together. Essentially, users post content like links or text in a subreddit. In turn, other users upvote or downvote these submissions. Upvoted posts go to the top, and downvoted ones to the bottom. In effect, Reddit’s feed is like a crowdsourced leaderboard!

And the more upvotes you get, the more karma you earn. Basically, karma is a form of status point that shows off a user’s importance to the community. Given this, karma creates a competitive environment where users are encouraged to post the best content! So at the end of the day, everyone wins!

Reddit's "karma" system acts as a powerful status point, creating a competitive yet collaborative environment where users strive to contribute the best content.

Snapchat Gamification Example: ensures app engagement with a simple trick

Snapchat is a social messaging tool built around a few gamification principles. First of all, the “snaps” you get from friends have limited availability. The fact that you can’t open a snap after 24 hours means you’ll have to watch it before, or never know what snap you got!

Additionally, Snapchat rewards daily app engagement with streaks. Not checking in daily will break your streak or ‘best friend’ status with the person you snap the most with. Lastly, there are trophies you can collect for achievements on the app. These are usually linked to the use of new features such as ‘sent a video for the first time’ or your app engagement like ‘you have sent 100K snaps’. These game elements encourage the behaviors that drive participation on Snapchat.

The app has over 265 million daily active users worldwide and continues to grow. Their users send as many as 4 billion snaps every day!

Tinder Gamification Example: became the most addictive dating app

Tinder is a dating app with insanely high app engagement due to one simple reason: unpredictability. Tinder works by showing you profiles that you can swipe left or right, depending on whether you’d like to meet this person or not.

The app basically has all the data it needs to match you with the perfect profiles, however, it doesn’t do that.

Tinder shows you random matches to keep you engaged. It’s the unpredictability of the variable reward that gets people in the endless swiping loop similar to a slot machine. Admit, it wouldn’t be as fun if we knew every swipe would be a great match!

LinkedIn Gamification Example: gamified onboarding with 1 simple feature

Setting up a LinkedIn profile is very similar to playing a game for the first time. Their progress bar shows how far your profile is from being completed. You will get clear instructions every step of the way on how to improve your profile.

LinkedIn's profile completion bar is a classic example of using a progress meter to guide users through onboarding and motivate them to reach 100%.

The progress bar also indicates your profile strength. Improving your profile will help you ‘Get found for more opportunities!’ A combination of clear goals and instant visual feedback will boost app engagement and user motivation immensely.

Foursquare Gamification Example: triggers users to check-in

Foursquare is a live map of your friends. It works by having individual users check in their location, everywhere they go. But why would they check in, to begin with?

You can earn badges by checking in on different venues. Some cities even have their own badge. Other badges are coupled to special events or user participation, such as checking in a certain number of times. Finally, you can also become Mayor of a place if you’re the one that has checked in the most.

The app has over 10 different levels for superusers. From level one to three you can edit venue information. The higher the level, the more things you’ll be able to do in the app. It’s the relatedness and competition that helped Foursquare get 55 million monthly active users with up to 9 million daily check-ins and 3 billion global visits every month!

SOUNDS Gamification Example: help users unlock more value

SOUNDS is a music-sharing app with over 8 million users worldwide. If you want to share music, you will have the SOUNDS watermark on every post. You can remove the watermark by inviting more friends to join the app. SOUNDS also employs exclusivity in its features. For instance, you can’t see your own profile views unless you upgrade to the VIP version.

The app uses curiosity and avoidance to drive more downloads and engagement. They reward users to drive behaviors that fuel growth, such as inviting friends. Finally, by making their features less accessible SOUNDS boosts monetization.

Zenly and Houseparty Gamification Examples: make waiting less boring

Zenly is a friend map similar to Foursquare and Houseparty is a video calling tool to do virtual house parties with your friends. What these apps both have in common, is they implement fun messaging while the user has to wait.

Zenly for instance greets its users with funny and human messages when they open the app and even in its notifications. This way their users feel closer and safer to sharing their information on the app. The app has over 1 million users of which 340,000 are engaged at least once per month and 80,000 daily.

Houseparty entertains also uses celebration screens & funny messages while users are waiting on their friends. In 2020 the app was one of the fastest-growing in the Appstore with over 17 million downloads.

Apps like Houseparty use fun, celebratory messages during waiting periods to keep the user experience positive and engaging.

Telfie Gamification Example: employ gamification to train recommendation engine

Telfie is a social entertainment network, like Foursquare for content. You can check in when watching your favorite TV shows and movies, and share them with your friends on Facebook and Twitter. They increase engagement on the app with free tickets and bonuses. Users get rewards after registering when they share what they’re reading or when they interact with the system.

Telfie also uses gamification for apps to train their recommendation engine. This way users get more accurate recommendations for films, books, or music according to their preferences. The user motivation here is to get more value out of the app. After millions of check-ins and deals with brands like Nickelodeon, CNBC, and FOX the app shut down.

Engage users inside your app! Make your social networking app stickier with gamification. Discover how!

Gamification examples from loyalty programs

Accor Hotels Gamification Example: a “stored value” loyalty program that grows revenue

When you stay at one of Accor’s thousands of hotels, you can earn points using the Accor Live Limitless program. In short, the program rewards customers with points on their purchases with the company. Following that, these points can be redeemed to pay for further stays at an Accor hotel! In other words, it’s like having a second wallet. And this leverages the “stored value” effect, which is effective for multiple reasons:

The Accor Live Limitless program shows how "stored value" points that can be redeemed for future stays create a powerful incentive for customer retention.

• Boosts retention (why leave if you already have points?)
• The loyalty program collects customer data, which increases upselling
• Stored value encourages overspending, driving sales and revenue growth!

What’s the result of Accor’s gamified loyalty program? In certain regions, Accor loyalty members spend 30% more and stay twice as long than non-members!

Brewdog Gamification Example: badges reward purchases (and promote the brand message)

Did you know that craft beer company Brewdog is carbon negative? As a part of its “Make Earth Great Again” campaign, the brewery is promoting a sustainable message. Enter Planet Brewdog! Essentially, it is a loyalty program where customers earn badges for “killing carbon”. In other words, by buying their carbon-negative beers, rather than from another brewery who are not as green as Brewdog. Now that’s a feel-good reward!

Besides the prize that comes with a badge, there are other reasons why people love to earn badges! Receiving a badge is positive reinforcement, and having a stack of badges can proudly display your growth.

Brewdog's Planet Brewdog program uses badges to reward customers for making sustainable choices, perfectly aligning the loyalty program with their brand message.

Without a doubt, badges work wonders. Here are the amazing results of Planet Brewdog:

• 100% rise in average order value
• 400% higher purchasing frequency
• 136% increase in email click-through rate!

KFC Gamification Example: loyal customers can game their way to a prize

Leading fast food outlet KFC has moved past traditional points-based loyalty schemes. In fact, they now use gamification! With the KFC Rewards Arcade app, fried chicken fans can play games twice a day to win random items on the KFC menu. Limiting the number of turns each day increases retention and customer lifetime value. Not to mention that randomized items lead to a fun, unpredictable experience.

KFC was clear about the goals of this clever gamification example:

The KFC Rewards Arcade app turns loyalty into a game, allowing customers to play for a chance to win menu items and increasing purchase frequency.

• Allow customers to win instantly and more often
• Associate the brand with fun experiences
• Increase customer purchase frequency
• Increase mobile engagement

Without a doubt, KFC achieved its aims! Gamification resulted in a 53% increase in loyalty program usage, with 1 in 3 customers claiming to use the app more frequently.

Starbucks Gamification Example: gamified rewards program

Starbucks' reward program is built to boost customer loyalty. It is also one of the most successful apps of its kind. The app rewards users with stars for every order they place. Later, they can redeem the stars for free food and drinks.

The Starbucks Rewards app is a benchmark for loyalty programs, using a simple "star" system to reward purchases and drive repeat business.

As users collect more starts, they also improve their levels. At 450 stars you reach the gold level. This means you’ll get extra benefits such as extra shots of espresso, dairy alternatives, whipped cream, and more, on the house! Simply incentivizing users to keep buying from Starbucks engaged over 16 million customers. The loyalty app is responsible for 40% of the total sales in the US!

Gilt Groupe Gamification Example: built a loyalty program on social rewards

The Gilt Groupe is a member-based e-commerce site that sells exclusive clothing and accessories. The site runs time-limited sales which anticipate scarcity and urgency as emotional triggers. They created the Gilt Noir category for their most loyal customers.

These customers represent the top 1% of Gilt shoppers based on the total value of purchases. Members get a scented candle, a member’s card, and early access to preview all product sales. They even get exclusive sales that are only available to them!

Needless to say, users are driven by a desire to be a part of this exclusive community.

Create more loyal customers! Brands who gamify their loyalty program see a 22% rise in loyalty. Discover more!

Gamification examples from travel apps

Goibibo Gamification Example: the gamification of the travel industry

Goibibo is an Indian travel app that used in-app currencies to boost the number of travel bookings. During the Indian Premier League, the app introduced goCashFest. Users could cash here every time the Mumbai Indians played. They gained points for every 4s, 6s, 50, and 100 wickets and wins during the match.

Users could use this cash to make bookings on Goibibo’s travel platform. The goCash initiative still serves as a gamified loyalty program. Users can unlock exclusive benefits such as free meals and seats, and win badges for engaging in their online community.

This image from Goibibo illustrates how a creative badge and reward system can successfully gamify the travel booking experience.

Other gamification examples

Australian Bureau of Statistics Gamification Example: games can also help build awareness

Gamification examples in the public sector are a little different. Still, the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows how gamification can engage! When the ABS wanted to make more citizens understand the significance of the population census, they released a game called “Run That Town”.

Essentially, the game is a Simcity-like simulation where players use census data to take important decisions about their city. Who lives in the area? Do the locals need a new school? In the game, these choices have real consequences. Losers are chased out of town by an angry mob with pitchforks!

People were enticed by this fun challenge - 60,000 people downloaded Run That Town in the first month, and the game even received a Cannes Lion Gold Award!

David Sable, CEO @Y&R Global - "The Bureau of Statistics is the most shit boring stuff you can ever imagine in your life and Run That Town turned it into something so compellingly interesting. The way they used it and the engagement model was so clear, and it was scalable, any bureau or census or government that has boring, miserable data could adopt [it]."

The "Run That Town" game by the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows how gamification can turn complex data into an engaging and educational experience.

Crowdrise Gamification Example: points, badges, and leaderboards incentivize charity donations

Crowdrise was a P2P charity platform where users fundraised for valuable causes. By the time it was ultimately bought out by GoFundMe, the platform raised $5 billion! In particular, Crowdwise achieved this because it created a social experience. To build a community of over 50 million donors, Crowdwise used several gamification examples:

Crowdrise used leaderboards and custom profiles to create a social, competitive atmosphere that successfully motivated users to donate to charitable causes.

• Badges that show off a user’s achievements over time
• Customized profiles boost ownership and feelings of belonging
• Leaderboards display social status and motivate users to donate to win

Essentially, Crowdrise used gamification to amplify the positive feelings and social benefits of charity. Thanks to the fun experience, over 1 million campaigns were funded!

Deloitte Gamification Example: gamified onboarding creates better employees

Top consultancy firm Deloitte welcomes new employees with a unique game experience! During onboarding, new employees play a simulation game acting as office managers. Through different scenarios like handling tough employee conversations, learners explore the benefits of various leadership styles.

But why use gamification instead of a booklet or induction session? Because Deloitte believes that gamification has the power to increase motivation! Just ask Deloitte, here are the insights they gained from the game:

Deloitte's leadership training game demonstrates how gamified simulations can provide a safe and effective environment for employee onboarding and skill development.

• Customized avatars increase the sense of involvement
• Provides instant feedback, fueling the need for more positive reinforcement
• Gamified environments provide a safe place to fail, which facilitates learning
• Games get more difficult as they go, kickstarting the need to achieve. In fact, this effect alone leads to a 20% increase in learner ability!

DOKK1 Library Gamification Example: how gamification can help team-building

DOKK1 is a library and cultural center in Aarhus, Denmark. Every week, they hold “International Breakfast” events for foreign families. Essentially, it’s a way to integrate newcomers and help them build a network in the city. But the library found that the experience was not as effective as they hoped. To fix this, they used gamification!

To encourage collaboration, DOKK1 introduced competition into the weekly meeting. Attendees were put into teams and then competed to win various tasks like quizzes. In the end, winning teams gained a LEGO brick on the “leaderboard”. Not only is this quick visual feedback, but it also motivates other teams to beat their score! As a result of the change, social interaction increased. And you can imagine the families left happier too!

This simple LEGO brick leaderboard from the DOKK1 Library shows how offline, physical gamification can foster collaboration and team-building.

Pepsi Gamification Example: interactive karaoke excites Thai teens

Gamification can bring you closer to your audience! To promote their world-famous soft drink among teenagers in Thailand, Pepsi created a unique marketing campaign. People call the teenage generation “unreachable”, but Pepsi’s campaign proves otherwise!

Firstly, Facebook Messenger users could request their favorite songs through a chatbot. Then, Pepsi used an AR camera to simulate a karaoke experience! After that, users could share videos of them singing with their friends. Not only is this a great example of a fun game, but it is also a personalized and social experience. Thanks to the campaign, Pepsi generated 560 million impressions! Plus, this lifted brand awareness by 5 points among teens, leading to a 20% boost in sales!

Pepsi's AR Karaoke campaign is a fantastic example of using interactive, personalized gamification to capture the attention of a target audience.

US Army Gamification Example: games can teach skills too

Some early gamification examples created controversy when they were released. But then innovations usually generate debate! In 2002, the Armed Forces of the United States released a game called America’s Army. In the free-to-play game, players can learn the tasks and responsibilities of different military roles, such as a medic or mechanic. Essentially, the game was a marketing tool - and it exceeded expectations!

Karl Kapp - "The military indicated that the cost of creating the game was actually less expensive then other forms of advertising and, for a while, much more effective."

In the end, over 20 million played the game! That’s thanks to gamification, which turned what could have been a boring educational course into a fun experience.

The "America's Army" game was a trailblazer, demonstrating how gamification could be used as a recruitment and educational tool on a massive scale.

Dropbox Gamification Example: how handing out free storage space helped Dropbox grow by 3900%

Dropbox is one of the best-known storage apps in the world. They kickstarted their growth with a gamified referral program. You could win free storage space for taking a tour in Dropbox, referring friends, or connecting your social media accounts.

This image illustrates Dropbox's highly successful referral program, where rewarding both the referrer and the new user with free space led to explosive growth.

Both you and your friend got up to 500 MB if they signed up. You could win a total of 16 GB if you maxed out the number of referrals!

They grew by 3900% in just 15 months. To put that in perspective they went from 100,000 registered users to 4 million. Dropbox still uses its rewards program today to drive sales to Dropbox Pro among other goals. They now have 14 million active users!

This call to action encourages readers to explore how these gamification principles can be applied to their own projects.

FAQs

What is gamification?

Gamification is the use of game-like elements to make an experience more fun and engaging. Gamification examples include points and badges. These features tap into behavioral psychology, leveraging needs like growth and belonging to make something intrinsically motivating. In short, enjoyable!

What are some examples of successful gamification?

In mHealth, the fitness app Fitbit is a successful gamification example. In fact, simply by introducing a leaderboard, the app increased daily steps by 15%! Don’t forget Duolingo, whose gamification made learning languages so fun that the app has 300 million users!

When does gamification fail?

Gamification fails when it lacks a coherent strategy. To avoid this, focus on what actions you want users to take. For a successful example, the e-scooter app Voi. wants users to ride more. That’s why they give bigger discounts to frequent riders!

3 valuable fanshop revenue hacks you didn't know about

Sports are not the same without live spectators. Without them you lose the beloved atmosphere for fans, but a lot of revenue as well. The total matchday revenue lost in the Big 5 football Leagues by having to play behind closed doors is estimated to be upwards to $718 million. Many sports leagues across the globe were suspended or even canceled. Analysis suggests that the sports industry will suffer losses of $61.6 billion due to lost revenue.

Christoph Breuer, professor of sports business and management @Sports College Cologne - "Ticket sales are a key source of revenue for the clubs. In addition to that, sponsorship money and income from television rights are threatened because clubs are bound by contracts to play their games."

This graph illustrates the massive losses in stadium revenue for major sports leagues, reinforcing the need for alternative income sources.

Losing revenue has been especially demanding for smaller clubs. Between 100 and 200 clubs in Europe in danger of going bankrupt. In the Bundesliga alone the 36 professional teams in the first and second divisions look at potential losses of €750 million.

Dan Jones, Head of Sports Business Group @Deloitte - "While all will be impacted, those clubs from smaller countries typically with a greater dependence on matchday revenues risk being hit the hardest."

The same goes for other sports. Major League Baseball projects a $4 billion loss due to empty stadium games. The teams in the NFL stand to lose a combined $5.5 billion. Forbes magazine states the loss makes up for around 38% of total NFL revenue. The Dallas Cowboys, for instance, the biggest team in the League, could lose over $950 million in stadium revenue from tickets, food, and merchandise sales.

Fortunately, you can grow new revenue streams outside the in-stadium experience! Here’s all you should know:

• The opportunity to maximize online merchandise sales in your fanshop
• Why gamification drives revenue for E-commerce
• How to use gamification in E-commerce?
• Examples of gamification in E-commerce
• Driving referrals with gamification in E-commerce
• The secret power of a bidding system
• Pushing next-level loyalty with E-commerce gamification

The opportunity to maximize online merchandise in your fanshop

As stadiums are opening up again clubs are facing new challenges. Currently, clubs are allowed a third of their actual stadium capacity granted they follow all the security measures from their government. It might even take another year before they can run at full capacity again.

Peter Houghton, Director of Operation @Football Safety Officers Association - "Even Premier League clubs will not want capacities of 20% or less for too long. There’s the cost of signage, stewarding, temperature checks. Clubs will be asking if it is worth them opening."

E-commerce is the fastest-growing revenue source in the sports industry. With an annual compound growth rate of 7%, some of the biggest Leagues in sports are even hitting the billion-dollar revenue mark. A study by ESPN showed that in the US alone the 4 main sports leagues reached a total of $22,5 billion.

Additionally, unlike the global economy, E-commerce has continued to expand, reaching record sales since the start of the pandemic.

Why gamification drives revenue for E-commerce

Gamification is the use of game principles and elements in a non-game context to stimulate positive customer behavior.

So what is gamification in E-commerce? It’s when you facilitate the buyer journey by setting clear goals and rewards to push the customer experience forward and which encourage behavior that supports your E-commerce goals.

For example; you can reward fans with points every time they make a purchase to increase their purchase frequency, and thus their customer lifetime value. Most of the time, gamification for E-commerce uses points to exchange for rewards such as free gifts, exclusive promotions, and product discounts.

Want to fuel E-commerce revenue with gamification? We composed this free A-Z guide for you to discover the ins and outs of gamification!

How to use gamification in E-commerce?

Gamification in E-commerce only works when it’s done right. Here’s what a good experience looks like:

Put your customer behind the steering wheel

This is basic behavioral psychology. According to the self-determination theory people like to be autonomous. Don’t you like to make your own decisions independently? The ability to control your own journey and goals will make you more motivated to carry out the actions you set out to do.

People tend to evaluate the outcome of an action or process more positively if they are able to influence the action or process themselves. This is a behavioral bias particularly useful in E-commerce. It can be used to optimize the customer experience, encourage engagement, and ultimately increase conversion.

Boost shopping cart conversions by adding game-elements

A great gamified experience is simple and shows you exactly what you need to do. People like to know where they’re going and what they need to do. There needs to be a clear scenario and the buying journey should flow nicely.

Home Décor company Crate and Barrel for example uses a progress bar for their check-out process. It shows buyers at which point of the journey they're at. Our human desire for accomplishment is what fuels us to complete the progress bar.

Crate and Barrel's checkout process demonstrates how a visual progress bar can guide users and reduce cart abandonment by clarifying the steps to completion.

Reward the behaviors that grow your E-commerce store

Rewards don’t necessarily have to be monetary or physical. Children’s retailer Step2 for instance introduced a loyalty program called ‘Buzzboard’ built around the social experience. It rewards its customers for the amount of buzz you create for their brand.

Customers are awarded points for reviews, sharing posts, and creating user-generated content. In return, members were upgraded through status upgrades by earning badges and ranking higher on the leaderboard. Step2 clocked a 135% rise in referred traffic from Facebook supported by a 600% increase in user-generated content like images and videos.

Examples of gamification in E-commerce

The truth is, most E-commerce stores are already using some form of gamification. We’ve all seen the progress bar in the check-out process and giveaway competitions on social media are becoming mainstream for retailers.

However, some go beyond the basics and add loyalty and referral systems such as points and rewards to keep users hyper-engaged. In gamification for E-commerce there are lots of opportunities in point systems to trigger, encourage, and reward certain behaviors that increase revenue.

Driving referrals with gamification in E-commerce

Online flower shop Teleflora for example offers points when customers give reviews, share their content on Facebook, or answer other customer’s questions in the Q&A section. In return, they earn badges and gain a higher ranking in the community. After implementing these gamification elements, they gained a 105% increase in Facebook referrals and got a 92% higher conversion rate.

The secret power of a bidding system

What sets eBay apart from other sites is how they use gamification in their E-commerce experience. Think about it. You don’t just buy a product of eBay, you WIN it. Not only does it play with a human’s innate sense of competition, but it also triggers the fear of loss. Their bidding system works so well its customers don’t even mind spending 10% more than they intended to.

As a leading gamification software provider, StriveCloud applied the same method in creating a lottery system to raise charity funds for the Belgian football club KAA Gent. Fans of the club could bid lottery tickets on certain prizes. The more tickets they bet, the higher their chances of winning.

The KAA Gent fanshop interface provides a clean and accessible entry point for fans to engage with the lottery system.

This lottery system for KAA Gent shows how gamified bidding can generate significant funds and boost fan engagement through competition and chance.

By adding gamification elements like surprise and uncertainty to the experience, StriveCloud helped KAA Gent hit 170% of its fundraising target.

Pushing next-level loyalty with E-commerce gamification

Shein is one of the largest online retail companies in the world. They garnish over 4 million unique monthly visitors and rank as the third most visited site in the UK. In 2019, they were estimated to have $2,9 billion in revenue.

Mairi Fairley, Senior Leadership @OC&C Strategy Consultants - "The company’s traction with generation Z has been particularly pronounced. Today’s under-25s don’t respond to the same pull and push factors like their parents’ or older siblings’ generations. Shein has been smart in targeting this group in several ways, and we can draw a number of lessons from their success"

Shein uses tons of E-commerce gamification techniques to keep their younger audience engaged, active, and buying. It all starts with their points system. You can easily collect coins by completing certain actions such as verifying your email or posting a review on a product. 100 points equal $1 which can be used to buy more items in the online shop, thus keeping the customer shopping.

Shein's point system is a clear example of rewarding user actions like verifying an email, which successfully drives repeat purchases and builds customer loyalty.

Additionally, Shein is a pro at using discounts to their advantage. They regularly give promotions or have flash sales in which they push a limited amount of products at large discounts. This way they leverage scarcity and fear of losing out to drive sales.

Furthermore, Shein makes use of personalized feeds and adds social media aspects to their E-commerce app to create a community around their brand and encourage interaction among users. They also add elements of surprise to the experience by adding regular giveaways with variable rewards.

All coming together

Now that clubs are forced to play matches behind closed doors, they need to find new revenue sources. One method that has shown stability and even growth during this pandemic is E-commerce. So how do you get the most out of it? By gamifying your E-commerce experience!

Why? Well, here is what gamifying your fanshop might mean for you:

Improve conversion rates by 50% and more

Global cart abandonment rates hit almost 74% last year. 20% of people said their main reason for leaving is a long and confusing checkout process. Thus, simple game elements like a progress bar could instantly improve conversions by showing the customer exactly where they’re at in the journey.

Grow your fanshop through referrals

Referral-based discounts are among the most common gamification methods in E-commerce. Since the rise of social media referral campaigns has gained a lot of attention. It’s essentially the new word-of-mouth. It is seen that brands who offer points or rewards for reviews and Facebook shares get insane results with referrals surging up to 135%.

Loyal customers, worth up to 5X your average buyer

81% of consumers say loyalty programs make them more likely to continue doing business with brands. If you’re wondering why that matters, a mere 5% increase in retention can increase profit by 25% to 95%. Highly engaged customers not only spend more, but they are also four times more likely to refer business.

Don’t lose out on revenue! Discover how you can create a highly profitable fanshop!

Book your free demo now!

How the shared mobility industry can benefit from app gamification

While e-scooters are extremely popular and provide a good solution for short-distance commute in cities, the micro-mobility industry is struggling to make ends meet. The main reason is strict regulation leading to little differentiation with competitors. Embracing app gamification could, however, bring shared mobility providers more peace of mind and strengthen their position in the fierce battle to build a loyal user base.

Shared mobility solutions provider Wunder Mobility, is teaming up with StriveCloud to introduce app gamification and its benefits to clients.

In this article you'll find out about:

• The rise of e-scooters
• Significant roadblocks
• How in-app gamification helps profitability
• The partnership between StriveCloud and Wunder Mobility to help providers build a connection with users

In January 2020, location technology specialist, TomTom released the results of the TomTom Traffic Index. The report details the traffic situation in 416 cities in 57 countries. The latest issue states that 239 cities (57%) saw higher congestion levels in 2019 compared to 2018. Despite traffic being an indicator of a strong economy, congestion is a huge obstacle: it costs an economy billions.

Dedicated to beat this standstill, shared mobility players have entered the playing field, giving us more possibilities to get from one place to another. Shared mobility is a term used to describe transportation services that are shared among users.

The rise of e-scooters

A new category of portable, fun, and compact shared transport devices was launched in 2018, the so-called scooters or kick-scooters. They are electrically powered and can reach speed levels of up to 30- 40km/h. Often referred to as micro-mobility, shared e-scooters are made available through an app-based service that locates the device through GPS and unlocks it with the help of a smartphone.

E-scooters certainly are fast-growing transport technology. They are popular because they cater perfectly to the rising demand for quick solutions to bypass congested traffic with little effort. According to the New Urban Mobility Alliance NUMO - an alliance organization of cities, NGOs, companies, mobility service operators, and community advocates - micro-mobility is now available in 626 cities spread over 53 countries. In 2019, 300 million e-scooter trips were made globally with figures expected to increase at a significant pace in years to come.

Harriet Tregoning, Director @NUMO - "We are witnessing a new transportation revolution, and shared mobility is a significant catalyst."

Significant roadblocks

Despite exceptional growth over the past years, the micro-mobility market faces important challenges including regulatory demands, limited infrastructure, and competitiveness.

#1 Strict regulation

The market is under strict regulation by cities. Local governments put out tenders setting operational, safety, and sustainability requirements the shared service providers have to meet. Each provider should, for instance, provide a fixed number of scooters with tech revisions made according to regulations. That doesn't give a lot of room to differentiate from the competition.

#2 Poor hardware health

Despite demands in terms of quality, fierce competition between micro-mobility providers forces players to cramp out enormous volumes of cheap vehicles fast. Unfortunately, this often means quality suffers.

When bikes or scooters break and you don't fix them in a timely manner, users get frustrated having to test several bikes before finding one that works properly. This can ultimately damage the public's perception of your company.

#3 Trouble turning profits

Even though many micro-mobility companies have been able to convince investors and raise millions of dollars (according to consulting firm McKinsey, stakeholders have invested more than $5.7 billion since 2015), numerous are struggling to achieve sustainable profitability. One of the main reasons for the difficult financial situation is the fact that, due to strict regulations, many providers can only compete at the price level.

One example is the Chinese bicycle-sharing company Ofo. In 2017, it was valued at up to $2 billion and had over 62.7 million monthly active users. In early 2018 it received a $2.7 billion investment. Just a few months later, it considered declaring bankruptcy over cash flow issues.

The breakdown of unit economics of e-scooter company Bird below shows an example of how small the profit margin actually is for a given scooter ride.

This chart visualizes the costs associated with a single scooter ride, highlighting the narrow profit margins in the industry.

How in-app gamification helps profitability

Gamification is a proven tactic to solve the challenge of acquisition and retention. Gamifying an experience doesn't mean you have to create a game. It is about taking customer data and creating milestones, levels, challenges, rewards, leaderboards, and all other gamification elements to create a fun and rewarding experience.

App gamification has 3 significant benefits:

1. As a company, you can stop worrying about competing on price and, instead, differentiate through the competition.
2. Gamification allows you to gather more key data about your users. By linking important metrics - such as the number of rides, the distance they drive, and how many minutes this drive takes them - to milestones and challenges, you get users to come back. As a result, you will be able to generate even more data. This information is precious when making decisions to grow your company further or when assessing performance in cities in which you're active. So the bigger your data sample, the more informed decisions you can take.
3. It gives you the chance to cut down on the costs of the redistribution for vehicles. Instead, smart gamification tactics such as achievements and rewards allow you to motivate people to leave scooters in designated areas.

If you want to know more about gamification, read this post!

The partnership between StriveCloud and Wunder Mobility to help providers build a connection with users

Following the interest from several of its clients, Wunder Mobility is now teaming up with StriveCloud to introduce the wonders of app gamification to the shared mobility industry. StriveCloud will offer a plug-in toolkit of several gamification elements, allowing providers of shared mobility services the chance to experiment.

Providers will, for example, be able to give users the possibility to unlock achievements when they reach a certain number of drives or a certain distance traveled. Another option will be to link drop-off locations to rewards, which can be very useful to steer user behavior. A third tactic that will be made available is raffles, a lottery the users can enter with tickets they gather when riding. The exact gamification elements are to be picked during a workshop between StriveCloud’s gamification specialists and the provider’s team.

These mockups illustrate how gamification features like user profiles, achievements, and leaderboards can be integrated into a mobility app's interface.

Curious to see what gamification could look like for your product or service? Book a demo with one of our experts and discover how you can benefit from our technology!

Bottom line: smart shared mobility providers turn to app gamification ASAP

With competition in the shared mobility industry getting fiercer every day, it’s necessary to think about how you can differentiate yourself from other players and keep attracting users. In-app gamification is one of the major opportunities to build that strong and loyal user base your company needs to thrive.

Since the whole sector is currently on the lookout for ways to improve user acquisition and retention, the time is now to start experimenting.

Click here to schedule a free consultation and learn how StriveCloud's gamification can boost your user engagement.

Top 10 reasons why organizing online tournaments on your own gaming platform is good for your brand

The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in events all over the world being canceled. Whether it’s the Premier League, music festivals, exhibits, or trade shows; COVID-19 has the whole world missing out on their favorite pastimes. People are putting lots of work-related activities on hold and as a result, many brands are also losing essential touchpoints with consumers. Needless to say, if you want to maintain a steady stream of income as a business, you’ll have to reevaluate your thinking about current and future advertising and marketing campaigns.

Gaming tournament platforms are an attractive and proven alternative to advertising at live events, allowing you to reconnect with consumers even during a lockdown.

In this article, we’ll cover the top 10 reasons why your brand should invest in organizing its own online tournaments on a gaming tournament platform today:

• It doesn’t take long to set up a gaming tournament platform
• Scaling marketing actions on a platform is easy
• Online gaming platforms have a low entry barrier
• You can take impressions of your ads to new levels
• Online gaming is a great opportunity to grow your audience
• You turn your audience into brand ambassadors
• More touchpoints enable you to boost sales
• You’ll gather loads of useful in-game data
• You can unlock new sponsor opportunities
• The time is now

It doesn’t take long to set up a gaming tournament platform

Proximus is a Belgian telecommunications company and one of the country’s biggest broadcasters of live sports. During the lockdown, they partnered up with the Belgian Pro League and launched the Proximus Pro League e-Cup. On the one hand to keep soccer fans digitally engaged on the one hand, but also to keep promoting the brand.

With StriveCloud as a technology partner, they created an online FIFA tournament in which fans can enroll to represent their favorite team and play against each other. The tournament platform was already up and running in one week, and within the first hours of going live, over 2,000 fans signed up.

Scaling ad reach on a platform is easy

When advertising at offline events your reach is always limited by the capacity of the venue. While the physical event space only has a certain amount of seats, the sky is the limit in the digital realm. The more users you get to sign up, the more potential customers!

Online gaming tournament platforms have a low entry barrier

Esports is probably one of the most accessible competitive leagues in the world. It’s fun and doesn’t require a lot to start: a decent computer and internet connection already does the trick. Besides getting people to sign up and play, online gaming tournaments have also stood their ground in terms of attracting spectators and ensuring esports fan engagement, filling out entire virtual arenas and garnishing millions of views.

Online gaming lets you take impressions to new levels

As a business, you want to have as many touchpoints with consumers as possible. You could spend millions to achieve the highest number of impressions possible, but chances are your budget doesn’t allow for that.

With your very own gaming tournament platform, you can reach your audience up to 24 hours a day and 7 days a week for far less money. Users can play or watch their favorite players compete around the clock, significantly increasing the amount of time they come into contact with your brand. With some smart activation efforts, such as gamification elements, you can keep them coming back.

Every day, thousands of users tune into community streams and enter competitive esports events on Kayzr, the largest esports community platform in Benelux. How did they manage to do that, you ask? The company teamed up with StriveCloud to gamify the user experience and stimulate gamers and esports enthusiasts to return to the platform.

What gamification elements are behind Kayzr’s success?

This video demonstrates the gamification elements used on the Kayzr platform to boost user engagement.

Pieter Verheye, Community Manager @ Kayzr - "People are coming for the rewards. If you take them away, engagement suffers. With StriveCloud’s help, we created a new reward system focused on moments of surprise and user empowerment, and fan engagement is higher than ever."

Gaming tournament platforms are ideal for growing your audience

Over the past years, many brands have been making investments in digital advertising, especially on social media. And this success is raising the budgets needed for an impactful campaign. The number of companies using social media ads has gotten so big, social networks are getting saturated and brands are paying more money to reach their audience or reach their goal of qualified leads.

That’s not the case for online tournament platforms. By adding a gaming platform to your media mix, you’ll be able to reach a more diverse audience, from the highly digitized youth to older generations discovering online gaming, more easily.

Tournaments can turn consumers into brand ambassadors

A vibrant gaming tournament platform with gamification elements allows you to strengthen the loyalty of your audience to your brand.

It’s by playing on people’s competitive streaks and enabling them to win badges and enter daily challenges with leaderboards, that you’ll ensure activity on your platform. By integrating such forms of recognition - moments of ‘delight’ - you’ll get users excited when interacting with you.

And what happens when you feel good about a brand? Yes, you’ll become a fan, an ambassador. One benefit you can get from such a bond is a higher chance of generating revenue, through merchandising for instance. T-shirts, hoodies, and snapbacks are good options if the group becomes big enough to warrant the investment. For online platforms, other options are also available which do not rely on expensive designs and shipping. Platform skins, premium badges, and other visual upgrades serve the same purpose as real-life merchandising but for the online space.

An engaged audience buys more

What’s the benefit of getting to interact with your audience on a daily basis? Right: you get equal chances to target them with ads, promoting your products. Additionally, an analysis by analytics and advice firm Gallup found that fully engaged consumers are on average 23% more profitable.

Engaged users are also more likely to pay for the content you put behind a paywall. The free version is the ideal marketing tool to funnel users to the more lucrative version of your platform. You can tease players with limited trails of the premium version in order to further entice them to upgrade.

Gather loads of useful in-game data

A huge advantage of digital experiences is the ability to collect data. Of course, you can’t straight up ask for a bunch of things. As a matter of fact, you better keep the signup process as low-barrier as possible. Once your audience signed up on the gaming platform though, you can start gathering all kinds of information such as the dates and times spent on games, scores, money spent, and so on.

You can then use these data to finetune marketing actions in your esports realm, for example when best to send notifications to compete in the tournament or when to notify users about special offers.

Unlock new sponsor opportunities

A fun extra for sports organizations: with new fans comes to a fresh appeal, especially for sponsors and rights deals. You can create new products for sponsors and you can leverage the increased advertising possibilities.

This graph illustrates the significant and growing worldwide brand spending on esports sponsorships and advertising, highlighting the market's potential.

The time for online tournaments is now

Today is the time to get into esports and create more opportunities to keep growing your revenue. While the industry has been gaining traction over the past few years, millions of new people just recently got to know it during the lockdown.

Big brands such as Coca-Cola are already jumping at the opportunity to attach their names to the esports community to reach the growing fan base. In February 2020, Coca-Cola published a press release revealing it signed a multi-year entitlement partnership with e-NASCAR, the esports arm of the US car racing association.

Chris Bigda, Director Sports Marketing and Activation — Motorsports @ The Coca-Cola Company - "eNASCAR presents a unique opportunity for Coca-Cola to engage with consumers. Through our new position as a NASCAR Premier Partner, we’re exploring innovative ways to activate across the sport. This series allows us to connect with race fans, identify new talent and ultimately, celebrate champions with refreshing ice-cold Coca-Cola."

Looking for more real-life examples? Find out how our clients are benefiting from StriveCloud’s gaming tournament platform!

TL;DR: this is what you need to remember

If you’re looking for alternatives for traditional advertising at events to create new revenue opportunities, investing in a gaming tournament platform is the way to go.

How so? Esports have proven to be attractive and successful in getting thousands of consumers together by providing a fun digital experience.

What’s in it for you? Other than a replacement for offline marketing, esports tournaments enable you to:

1. Reach new and bigger audiences without exponentially increasing the costs,
2. Gain more data insights to leverage in campaigns,
3. Benefit from the increased likelihood that engaged consumers spend more.

And good news: thanks to the quick set-up and low-barrier entry, you can have an active platform in next to no time.

Want to see for yourself how your brand can benefit from a gaming tournament platform?

Then contact us for a personalized demo

Book demo

The truth about consumer decisions and how to influence them

This header image visualizes the complex, non-linear path consumers take when making a decision in the modern digital landscape.

It’s no secret the internet has changed how consumers make decisions. With all the information available online, 81% of buyers research a product before buying. For large purchases, consumers spend an average of 79 days in what Google refers to as “the messy middle”.

Over the years many have created models representative of the decision-making process. Not surprising, as influencing decisions is essentially the holy grail of marketing. In 1898, Elmo Lewis first introduced the AIDA model which formed the basis for the marketing funnel concept. A model still widely used today.

Google’s insights program “Think with Google” decided to build upon previous findings and see how online research and cognitive bias impacts decision-making. We’ll also go into how you can use these biases to eliminate churn and improve app engagement.

Here’s what we’ll go over!

• Uncovering the messy middle
• How do cognitive biases shape decision-making?
• Here’s how marketers succeed in the messy middle!
• How app gamification closes the gap between trigger and purchase

Uncovering the messy middle

The messy middle is a metaphor for the continuous loop between exploration and evaluation between a trigger of intent and the actual purchase. It refers to how consumers of the 21st century deal with abundant information and virtually unlimited choice.

This diagram from Google illustrates the 'messy middle,' a loop of exploration and evaluation that occurs between a trigger and the final purchase.

You could compare it to walking through an endless shopping street until one of the boutiques draws your attention. The eye-catcher here stands for the trigger, which turns a consumer from a passive state into an active one. This could be something as simple as a notification to set the entire loop in action.

To understand what happens in the “messy middle” it’s indispensable that you understand the two different cognitive states consumers shift between:

#1 Exploration

In the exploration phase, your mind works expansively. Shoppers absorb as much relevant information about the brand, or product to add to their “consideration sets”.

#2 Evaluation

The evaluation phase, however, is opposite to the exploration stadium. Here your mind works reductively. Based on a range of cognitive biases, consumers eliminate options from their consideration sets until they’re left with a final buying decision.

The process begins with a trigger that pushes a consumer from a passive to an active state, initiating their journey through the messy middle.

While advisory company McKinsey’s model for decision-making (the original model Google builds upon), refers to these two stages as one “active evaluation” phase, the two stages are cognitively distinct with different reward systems and thus require distinct approaches. There’s a subtle but important difference between giving a customer information or actively seeking to close the sale.

How do cognitive biases shape decision-making?

Cognitive biases shape shopping behavior and influence our preferences for one brand over the other.

#1 Category heuristics

These are shortcuts or rules of thumb that help us simplify the decision-making process to reduced mental effort. An example would be simply focusing on the amount of data included in a mobile phone contract.

#2 The power of NOW

It’s in our nature to live in the present. Especially in the 21st century, we expect to get our expectations fulfilled immediately. This cognitive bias obviously explains the success of instant downloads or 24-hour delivery.

#3 Social proof

What do people do when they’re uncertain about what to do? They follow the crowd. Social proof is a powerful and well-known principle first coined by psychologist Robert Cialdini in his 6 principles of influence. In the 21st century, this goes beyond just word-of-mouth and also takes the form of online reviews, testimonials, and recommendations.

#4 Authority bias

Similar to our tendency to follow the crowd, people are inclined to trust and follow domain authorities or experts. We see this a lot in toothpaste commercials for example, where expert dentists endorse a specific brand.

#5 Scarcity

Another basic economic principle states that a limited resource is more desirable. Scarcity operates on our fear of missing out. It typically appears in one of three ways: time-limited, quantity limited, or access limited.

If you use Booking.com, you will probably come across a few limited access offers such as “only 3 rooms left”. The travel site employs scarcity to create urgency and fear of missing out.

#6 The effect of “FREE”

Whenever our mind sees or hears the word free, it starts to irrationally jump around as if you’ve just won the lottery. In Dan Ariely’s book “Predictably Irrational” he talks about an experiment in which people were given two options to choose from. The first one was a free $10 Amazon gift card, the other a $20 gift card that could be bought for just $7. Even if the value of the second card was of superior value, more people chose the $10 gift over the other.

These icons represent the six key cognitive biases Google identified that significantly shape consumer shopping behavior and ultimate choices.

These six biases formed the basis for Google’s large-scale experiment involving 310,000 simulations of purchase scenarios. They carried out this research across a variety of consumer industries such as financial services, retail, travel, utilities, and consumer goods.

To test their hypothesis, they applied biases to see how they influenced consumer preference. The results were mind-blowing. When all biases were “supercharged” preference increased with a minimum of 28% for a fictional cereal brand, all the way up to 87% for major purchases like car insurance.

Here’s how marketers succeed in the messy middle!

While the messy middle might seem like a complicated, spaghetti-like pattern it’s important to know that for consumers it just feels like shopping. Your goal shouldn’t be to force people out of the loop but rather to give them a simple, satisfying experience.

Easier said than done, right? Luckily, Google gives away a four-step approach to help you succeed whether you’re a category giant or a challenger brand:

• Ensure brand presence so you are always at top of mind when consumers explore.
• Apply behavioral science principles to make your proposition more compelling.
• Close the gap between trigger and purchase so customers are less exposed to competitors.
• Work cross-functionally to avoid gaps in the customer experience that cause churn.

One method we like to advocate to break through the messy middle is gamification. By using game elements, you apply behavioral science principles to improve customer engagement, reduce banner blindness, and boost brand awareness.

Leveraging a consumer app can help you to break through the endless cycle between exploration and evaluation. Gamification Guru, Gabe Zicherman, states gamification is 75% psychology and 25% technology. Rewarding users with special features can increase customer interactions by up to 40% and will make conversion rates skyrocket.

This banner serves as a clear call to action, inviting readers to see how these psychological principles can be applied directly to their own applications.

How app gamification closes the gap between trigger & purchase

Gamification is the use of game-like elements in a non-game context. It does not mean you should create a game in itself, however you leverage what makes a game experience so fun to optimize app engagement. After all, games are some of the most viral apps in the world.

A great gamified app does three things, really well:

#1 Leverages data to understand which cognitive state a shopper is in

Saying the right things, at the right time, to the right person seems like an impossible task. Fortunately, data makes it possible to personalize experiences at scale. A great gamified platform learns more about the users with every interaction they make. The collected data is used to provide a better experience for every individual while ensuring app engagement.

StriveCloud’s Gamification Software easily plugs into your CRM to find gamification opportunities. Along with the behavioral designers at StriveCloud, you can boost app engagement and retention in no time, without having to hire an expensive product studio.

#2 Sets clear goals and sends triggers to improve app engagement and guide the consumer journey forward

A gamified experience is pushed forward by clear goals and milestones to complete. When completing a certain action, users are rewarded for their achievements and stay engaged longer. Usually, this process is put into action by a trigger, which is something like a notification to start the entire experience.

#3 Motivates and rewards behaviors that support business goals

It’s important to keep users engaged by rewarding them for carrying out actions that support your business goals. To ensure app engagement over the long run, however, rewards alone won’t do.

You’ll need to play on intrinsic motivators such as the human desire to achieve milestones or to progress. Bringing in gamification elements like leaderboards or badges into your app, not only keeps users engaged longer, it also makes your reward program more scalable. As you won’t have to invest endless amounts into rewards to keep users engaged.

Here’s how Starbucks turns app engagement into revenue

Starbucks first created a gamified loyalty program in 2015 to encourage customers to shop more, as well as to shop exclusively with Starbucks. Customers were able to pay through the app and get rewarded with a gold star every time they pay for their coffee.

With over 16 million members, the app has grown by over 25% in the last two years. According to a survey by the technology data company Manifest, the Starbucks loyalty program has the highest app engagement (48%) making up for 40% of sales in their US stores.

Starbucks' mobile app is a prime example of gamification, using a star-based rewards system to drive engagement and repeat purchases.

Starbucks’ app allows customers to collect stars and redeem them for rewards on different levels. You start at the Welcome level below 60 stars, grow into the green level, and eventually achieve gold status.

This animation demonstrates the tiered reward system within the Starbucks app, showing how users can progress through different levels to unlock better rewards.

Their loyalty app is fueled by a strong gamification strategy that supports their business goals.

The app:

1. Incentivizes purchases
2. Encourages loyalty and repeat purchases
3. Makes personalized recommendations

A strong gamification strategy fueled by exclusive customized offers has helped the brand stay top of mind for customers.

Want to find out what other motivators fuel app engagement? Check out our expanded Gamification resource guide!

In a rush? Get up to speed here

Google’s insight institute “Think With Google” investigated the consumer's decision-making process between the trigger of intent and the actual purchase. They refer to this process as “the messy middle”.

The messy middle is a constant loop between exploration and evaluation, until a consumer exits by making a buying decision. To research what influences cognitive biases have in this process Think with Google ran over 310,000 purchase simulations.

They focused on six cognitive biases: category heuristics, social proof, scarcity, authority bias as well as the power of “NOW” and “FREE”. The results were astonishing. With all six biases supercharged, brand preference changed with a minimum of 28% all the way up to 87% for major purposes like car insurance.

To succeed in the messy middle you have to maintain a brand presence, apply behavioral science, and close the gap between trigger and purchase. Gamification makes the customer experience flow by motivating and rewarding the desired target group behaviors.

Tangled up in the messy middle? Book a consultation and we’ll help you push the experience forward!

This final call to action prompts readers who feel overwhelmed by the 'messy middle' to seek expert help in streamlining their customer experience.

Mobile app churn: what is it and how can gamification help prevent it

This visual represents the challenge of mobile app churn, a key issue for brands in a crowded digital marketplace.

If you want to be successful as a brand, getting enough attention from your audience is key. Many businesses are launching apps to get this eyeball time, but lots of them are also failing at keeping consumers engaged. Why? Because they are either not tracking their mobile app churn rate or aren’t trying to solve the issues that cause mobile app churn.

App gamification is a great way to reduce churn and save money and resources on attracting new customers.

In this article, we’ll give answers to the following questions:

• What is churn and why does it matter for mobile apps?
• How do you calculate mobile app churn?
• Why do users churn?
• How can you stop or prevent users from churning?

In September 2020, there were 3.04 million apps available in the Google Play Store. Apple’s App Store, in turn, had about 2.2 million apps available for download. According to a report by app development company App Annie, smartphone users access about 30 apps every month.

It goes without saying that competition between brands to have their apps end up as one of the favorites of users is fierce. And your audience isn’t making things easier, that’s for sure. A mere 24.9% of users revisit an app the day after download, recent stats by mobile app analytics and marketing platform Loyalitics show. You thought that was harsh? Well, sit tight: that number drops to 9.4% after 2 weeks. 3 months after the download, more than 70% of app users will have churned completely.

The graph illustrates the steep drop-off in user retention over time, highlighting the challenge of keeping users engaged after the initial download.

What is churn and why does it matter for mobile apps?

Churn refers to the number of users who stop using your app during a given time period. Why should you care about losing users? Because it suppresses growth. Think of your user base as a leaky bucket. With users dripping out, you’ll have a harder time trying to “refill” it with new ones.

Many companies overlook churn and assume that bringing in more new customers will cancel out its effects. Reality check incoming: a high churn rate is unsustainable and has compounding effects over time.

Even a small churn rate can have a major impact on your revenue over time. And while churn is inevitable—you will lose users, there’s no way around that—it is a key figure to track and keep as low as possible if you want your app and brand to be a success in these digital times.

Here are some key numbers why:

• Acquiring a new customer is 5-25x more expensive than retaining an old one
• Reducing churn by just 5% can boost profitability by 75%
• Improving retention has a 2-4x greater impact on growth than acquisition
• The probability of upselling to an existing user is 60-70%, but only 5-20% for a prospect

In fact, churn can learn you a lot about your brand, product, or service, like problems with product/market fit, onboarding, pricing, or customer expectations.

How do you calculate mobile app churn?

There is more than one way to measure your churn. In the case of app usage, it’s best to look at the percentage of users lost in a given time frame. The formula for calculating month-over-month user churn, for example, is:

This formula shows how to calculate the user churn rate, a critical metric for understanding user retention.

Let’s make it a bit more tangible. Say you’re a shared mobility provider and you have an app people can use to book an e-scooter. At the beginning of the month, you had 1,000 active users. In the end, your stats show you had 800 active users. This means that you lost 200 users, which breaks down to a 20% churn rate.

If you like crunching the numbers, you can take it one step further and look at revenue churn, the revenue lost to app churn during a given time period.

The formula for revenue churn demonstrates the direct financial impact of losing users, connecting churn to bottom-line performance.

Why do users churn from mobile apps?

Many causes can lead to churn, and often it’s a combination that pushes a user to churn. That being said, let’s look at a few of the main reasons.

#1 Your mobile app doesn’t answer the user’s need

For a user to continue using your app, it must do what he expects out of it. So in the case of our e-scooter provider, if the user for example can’t easily locate the available e-scooters near him, he might stop using your app and services altogether.

#2 Mobile users are impatient

According to research performed by Clutch in 2017, 33% of app users get highly frustrated when the onboarding – the process of setting up an app for the first time after downloading it – takes them longer than 2 minutes. And with this frustration, the chances of abandoning skyrocket. In other words: you have a 120 seconds window to onboard your mobile users or lose them. Maybe forever.

#3 Different generations have different expectations in terms of user experience

People of different age groups spend their time on mobile phones and in mobile apps differently. Reaching the number of 2.5 billion in 2019, Generation Z has now become the biggest demographic group. And while they may not have the most spending power (yet), it is imperative for brands to try and engage these users.

How can you stop or prevent users from churning?

When it comes to keeping people engaged, you have to capture their attention and motivate them. That’s exactly what you can achieve with app gamification. Achievements, experience points (XP), levels, leaderboards, and other mechanics from the world of gaming are enabling the very best non-gaming apps to maximize user engagement, revenues, and retention.

By integrating game-like mechanisms and, in doing so, appealing to people’s competitive nature, you can nudge them towards the actions you want them to take, over and over again.

If you’re not at least considering integrating gamification mechanics into your app, you risk losing users to competitors and seeing churn rates go up!

This call-to-action banner emphasizes the use of gamification as a solution to increase user engagement and reduce churn.

Here are just a few examples of apps that are doing their best, with a closer look at some of their top gamification features.

Duolingo

With more than 300 million users worldwide, Duolingo has successfully made language learning fun. Pretty much the entire learning experience is designed as a game. All with the purpose to prevent app churn.

Each time you complete lessons or practice sessions in Duolingo, you earn XP. Earn enough, and you’ll level up in the respective language, which in itself is gratifying but also gives you something to boast about to your Duolingo friends.

What’s more, when you meet your daily XP goal for consecutive days, you start (or extend) a streak. Your streak is prominently displayed whenever you’re in Duolingo, in the form of a fire icon with a number next to it.

Strava

Strava is used by many professional athletes and by more than 40 million amateur sports enthusiasts to track and analyze runs, bike rides, swims, and other popular outdoor activities.

However, the core tracking and analysis features aren’t the main reason why Strava is such a success; there’s a bunch of other apps that do the same thing, and few are doing as well as Strava.

The secret ingredient is motivation. As a user, you can set a weekly or annual mileage goal. Strava’s data visualizations encourage you not to fall behind and are a powerful motivator not to skip tonight’s run.

Another one of Strava’s tactics to keep users engaged is that it developed itself into a social platform. You can, for example, follow friends’ activity and comment or give “kudos”.

Kayzr

The team behind Kayzr, the largest esports community platform in the Benelux, teamed up with StriveCloud to grow its user base without losing esports fan engagement or increasing spending on retention.

To minimize churn rates as much as possible, the StriveCloud team created a lottery system to spark users’ curiosity and secure scalable engagement. Users receive lottery tickets for actions like leveling up, ranking, or for winning badges. They can even bet on certain rewards on tradable collectibles in the online shop. The anticipation in itself shows to be an impactful dynamic.

The Kayzr platform interface demonstrates how a lottery system and collectibles can be integrated to increase user curiosity and sustained engagement.

Next to the league and lottery system, Kayzr added a few other mechanisms to ensure churn was kept to a minimum. For instance, to give all participants a fair chance of winning in the new league system, StriveCloud added “game fuel”. With that fuel, users could play to rank. Once they run out of fuel they can still continue playing, but their scores won’t be added to the leaderboard.

Read the whole story and discover how Kayzr managed to gain over 350% more users in just a couple of weeks!

Wrap-up

• As a company, it’s important to not only track the churn rate for your mobile app but also understand what it is and what the negative is on your company’s revenue stream. It’s a lot more expensive to attract new customers than to bind your existing customer base to your brand.
• Reasons for mobile app churn are multifold but luckily there are also some tactics that help you tackle the engagement challenge. Gamification, for instance, is a proven solution to keep your customers hooked to your app. There are several tactics you can pick from and it’s easy to start experimenting.

This banner encourages brands to explore gamification as a tangible solution for improving customer retention and provides a clear next step.

How to boost app engagement: give your app a central place in a captivating experience

Reaching the number of 2.5 billion, Generation Z became the biggest demographic group in 2019. And while they may not have the most spending power (yet), it is a milestone with an enormous impact on brands. If you want to engage these users and have them turn to your mobile app over and over again, it’s important to make it part of an experience that captivates them. Now more than ever.

In this read you will dive into:

• The big challenges regarding mobile app engagement
• Why mobile app engagement fails
• How to give your app a central place in an immersive experience
• Take on the engagement challenge with your company

As per the data provided by online statistics portal Statista, there are currently some 3.5 billion smartphone users in the world. We use our phones at work while commuting, eating, lying in bed, and even in our cars. You might be reading this from a mobile device right now.

A great deal of us cannot imagine life without a smartphone. We rely on our mobile devices for next to everything; it has profoundly changed the way we work, communicate, and experience our passions. We spend a staggering 90% of our mobile time on apps.

Big challenges regarding mobile app engagement

That being said, brands are fighting to keep us users coming back. Recent stats by mobile app analytics and marketing platform Loyalitics show that a mere 24.9% of users revisit an app the day after download. Even more worrying is that that number drops to 9.4% after 2 weeks. And 3 months in post-download, some 71% of app users will have churned - so abandoned the app - completely.

Why mobile app engagement fails

Many reasons cause churn, and as often is the case, the devil is in the details. Here are 3 of the main reasons why app engagement fails:

1. Lack of delivery on value

For a user to continue using your app, it must be able to execute on the core fundamental value it presents effectively. If an app does not solve a problem or provide significant value to you, then what reason is there to continue using it?

2. Mobile users are impatient

Then there’s the fact that people’s attention spans have gotten shorter. It may be old news, but that doesn’t mean it’s always accounted for in mobile app development. In fact; impatience is one of the main reasons so many users abandon an app after their first use.

According to research performed by Clutch in 2017, 33% of app users get highly frustrated when the onboarding - the process of setting up an app for the first time after downloading it - takes them longer than 2 minutes. And with this frustration, the chances of abandoning skyrocket. In other words: you have a 120 seconds window to onboard your mobile users or lose them. Maybe forever.

3. Other expectations in terms of app experience

And if there’s one group of users that has very little tolerance for friction, it’s Generation Z. Loosely defined as those born between 1994 and 2010, Gen Zers have some unique characteristics. They use apps and their mobile devices differently from other demographic groups. Why should that matter to you? According to research from Bloomberg, Gen Z surpassed Millennials in 2019 as the most populous generation. Today, they comprise roughly 32 percent of the world population.

Considered to be the first generation of digital natives, Gen Zers were born and raised with high-speed internet, smartphones, instant and unlimited access to news and social media. And when they love your app, you get ample chances to benefit from it. Research by App Annie, the leader in mobile market data and analytics, shows they have 55% more sessions per user than older generations.

Transform your app by gamifying the user experience

There’s really only one way to make sure consumers get hooked to your brand, and that’s by providing them with gamified experiences that truly speak to them.

Making an experience more captivating is like trying to find ways to make a recipe taste better. There are many ways to do it, but there are certain combinations and elements that are known to work well together.

In the case of gamified experiences, it’s by combining different tactics that you create this competitiveness and exciting experience.

Take on the engagement challenge

If you are keen on retaining your customers, then a plan must certainly be drawn up to complete, renew and, above all, make the digital experience irresistible.

To achieve this goal enterprises can partner up with several key technology players. We are happy to announce that StriveCloud is one of these keen players that can help you with boosting your app engagement.

Here at StriveCloud we are very eager to play this important role in helping your company shape into a new experience. The aim that we have is to add a layer of gamification to your web and mobile apps with the potential to disrupt the way people interact with your company forever.

Through gamification, the online gaming community Kayzr gets thousands of users to log on to their platform every day.

Read Kayzr’s story and get inspired.

Gamified experiences are the next big thing

If you want app engagement rates up, it’s time to enhance your brand and user experience. Millennials are getting pickier as to what apps they prefer, and with Gen Z entering the market, expectations are rising even more rapidly.

The StriveCloud team is your right partner. We will develop a gamified app that will be at the heart of app engagement and the best part of it? We ensure your company an immersive personalized experience.

Book a demo with one of our gamification specialists and discover how our technology helps you reach your business goals.

The following article is written by an expert in user engagement strategies.

Written byJoris De Koninck

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The best way to boost app engagement like Waze

This article explores how popular apps like Waze successfully retain users through clever engagement strategies.

With over 6.3 billion smartphone and tablet users across the globe, the mobile app industry is thriving like never before. And according to Deloitte’s 2021 Digital Consumer Trends, it won’t be slowing down anytime soon:

Deloitte - "Smartphones are being used daily for social media and messaging (69%), consulting the news (39%), and watching videos (31%)."

This is definitely great news for the app industry. However, more competitors make app engagement and retention tougher! It’s hardly surprising considering there are up to 9 million apps competing for the attention of their target audiences.

It’s no secret that apps spend huge amounts of money to gain users. Nevertheless, the inability to retain users can throw their investment down the drain. With the right tools, however, you can easily turn this situation around!

So let’s take a look at how one of the most popular apps in the world does it! Here’s what you’ll learn:

• App engagement: the number one metric for success
• What is Waze doing differently to supercharge app engagement?
• A closer look at Waze’s gamification features
• Differentiate your app in no time - StriveCloud’s plug-in gamification platform

App engagement: the number one metric for success

Did you know that only 1 in 3 users returns to an app after downloading it? Not only that, but 1 in 4 users also abandon an app after just one use. Talk about a tough crowd!

The graph illustrates the steep drop-off in user retention, highlighting the challenge of keeping users engaged long-term.

Have trouble believing this? Think of the number of times you’ve downloaded an app only to hardly use it before abandoning it forever. Or worse, never to use it again.

Unfortunately, low app engagement is highly prevalent in the industry. As a result, an enormous number of apps struggle to keep their users engaged and eventually fail. However, every now and then some apps manage to systematically grab the attention and participation of their users. One of those examples is the popular navigation app Waze.

Waze emerged in 2008 as “LinQmap.” Surprisingly, the company raised $25 million in financing within just two years and an additional $30 million one year later! In 2013, Google finally bought Waze for $1.1 billion.

The big question here may be summarized in just one word: How? And the answer is no more complicated than the question itself. Waze implemented the power of gamification for apps to drive user engagement with simple features like the badge reward system and user leaderboard.

Let’s see how Waze grew from a startup to an app with 130 million active monthly users across the globe.

What is Waze doing differently to supercharge app engagement?

Waze relies on its users aka drivers to share real-time traffic information with one another. They’re able to share updates about accidents, speed traps, and construction. They can even share gas prices to help others find the cheapest gas station. With such interactive features, you could say that having active and engaged users is detrimental to its success.

Let’s be real for a minute though. In 2020 over 218 billion apps were downloaded. This means the average person has around 40 apps on their phone. However, 89% of a user's time is spent on only 18 of those apps. Which means more than half of those apps remain unused.

Fun fact: Waze actually started off as a game!

Back in 2009, it was very similar to playing Pac-Man. There used to be a map of the routes, but with a trail of pallets on the way. In order to win the pallets, you had to be the first Waze driver to go down a certain road. Believe it or not, people actually did go through the trouble of changing routes just for the sake of extra pallets!

Framing it as a game helped Waze gather data about real-time driving information. It also introduced the idea of gamification for apps and became one of the reasons why product teams started incorporating different gamification tools to supercharge app engagement.

So what do games have to do with improving my app engagement? See in our What is Gamification guide how game elements keep your users hooked!

A closer look at Waze’s gamification strategy

Building onto their legacy as a fun game, and experience, Waze created a full-fledged strategy that helps them stay on top till today. Here’s how Waze uses gamification to its advantage today:

Score system

Waze relies on its users to report real-time driving information, such as any incidents on the road, that may be a hurdle for drivers. These participants receive likes and comments based on what they report. This feedback is then translated into points, which help users reach higher levels.

Badge reward system

Once users reach the last level of the game, they are able to obtain status symbols and unique virtual goods. Needless to say, the users who reach this phase of the game have put in a considerable amount of hard work and effort. Therefore they gain a sense of accomplishment through the badge reward system.

Avatars

Waze also gives its users the option to share how they’re feeling while driving. In an attempt to reward its most loyal app users, Waze even opens access to special avatars for them! These “moods” or avatars may be customized accordingly. They trigger a sense of ownership while also helping users feel more connected to the Waze community.

Leaderboards

Participants are also able to see where they stand in comparison to others. The more they participate, the more points they earn, and the higher they climb on the leaderboard. This social comparison fuels the human desire to compete and thus motivates users to be more active on the app.

Differentiate your app in no time - StriveCloud’s App Gamification Software

If you want to reach a level of app engagement similar to that of Waze, StriveCloud can help you get there! StriveCloud’s App Gamification Software is built for user growth. A gamified app experience has the power to turn a good app into a product users love, and actively engage with.

Gamified apps do not only improve the user experience. They also lead to a significant increase in in-app interactions. By cleverly enriching the user experience with game-like elements, StriveCloud helped companies increase daily active usage by 58% and reduced the churn rate by 23%.

Here’s how it works:

Link your data to create an experience that flows

StriveCloud links into your app and uses the data you track to set up personalized milestones for each user. As users achieve milestones, they get rewards. The reward system helps to reinforce the desired behavior from your audience. Next, delivering the right message, at the right time is critical to re-engage users. For that, StriveCloud uses behavior-triggered notifications or messages that don’t push unwanted actions on users but move the journey forward in a natural way.

Trigger active participation through smart rewards

StriveCloud uses a range of game elements to reward users for their app engagement. Not only can users collect actual rewards like points, or badges. They can also follow their progress through progress bars, or compare their status to those of other users with features such as a leaderboard or leveling system.

Build personalized quests to drive app engagement

Keep the user experience moving forward by using in-app messages, notifications, and emails based on previous user interactions. You can target users according to their level of engagement, or anything else you feel is important. This way you get to trigger and reward your users for behaviors that support your business goals.

Differentiate your app in a heartbeat. We’ll help you set up a gamification plan for free!