@byebyebaby 252898 wrote:
I keep hearing that having slots on your website that visitors can play for free helps convert and keep players on your website?
Back in 2007 I struck a deal with Fortune Lounge to run free casino games and slots here in Australia. They provided a bespoke front end in flash. Anyone who wanted to play, added their email addy and a username. The system sent back a confirmation link. If they used a valid email addy, they receive this link, they click it and where then added to the system.
Albeit Australia was, back then, a virgin market.
Collected emails were marketed for FL casinos and hence the site did very well.
While I ended up retiring the bespoke front end in 2010. With a new WP site forged ahead, I kept using free slot games, embedded into a WP page which also included promotions for MGS casinos. It continued to produced players but no where near to the figures it once did.
August 2013 marked 6 years in operation with this site and a new theme version, along with a complete overhaul of the site’s content blah blah blah. I’ve completely removed the free slot games now. Why?
It was attracting people who either had no intention of ever gambling online or if they did, they were very low rollers. Sure it gave a sticky component to the site but at what cost? I was tracking people hitting that page day in day out and going no where else on-site. It was free entertainment, that’s it.
Go back a few years and those who were around in say 05/06 should remember those promos which came out offering $500 free play. The way these were marketed gave players the impression they were testing new software or games out. Surprisingly those work really well for a while. Why? Because it was new concept. Would they work as well as they did back then, today, I doubt it.
It’s the same with free embedded games.
Every man and his dog uses them and they no longer hold that newness or special attraction they once did. I’ll go out on a limb here and say if you managed a sign-up ratio of 0.05% you’d be doing well. How many from that figure go on to make a deposit, even less.
Food for thought… Why try and copy what everyone else is doing. Think outside the box and come up with an new angle. I can go on Google do a search and most sites all look similar. For all those sites, banner blindness comes to mind. I’m sure only a small % of site visitors; more likely only newbies, get suckered into the Top 5 or Top 10 casino home page listings.