The Rank Group uses Validity’s Everest platform to achieve best-in-class email performance.
The Highlights:
~100%
IPRs for global MBPs
98-99%
IPRs across a range of UK-based MBPs
The challenge:
Fintech levels of customer data.
Deliverability for betting and gambling senders is particularly challenging, especially since subscriber engagement can be volatile depending on whether customers are winning or losing. Prior to engaging with Validity (back in 2019), TRG’s inbox placement rates were problematic at 65-75%.
A large contributing factor is that TRG’s email activity is extremely complex. Over 70 million email sends go out each year, comprising a mix of real-time, automated, and tactical campaigns that use data from multiple sources. These are delivered using a range of disparate email service providers and orchestration tools.
The challenge is compounded by TRG working in a tightly regulated industry, with restrictions on how often they can reach out to their customers. When contact is made, it is critical for the emails to land, especially with many of them forming an essential part of the service TRG provides to their customers.
“We have limited opportunities to reach out to our customers, so when we do contact them, the email has got to land! This is where our partners at Validity come in. Everest has been a game changer for us.”
Sarah Hawkes – Senior MarTech Programme Manager, TRG
The solution:
Everest and Sender Certification.
TRG was an early adopter of Validity’s Everest email success platform, migrating from the previous Return Path platform shortly after launch. TRG’s Mauritius and Tel Aviv teams found the solution completely intuitive and were enthusiastic about buying in. It didn’t take long into their Everest usage for them to embrace:
- List validation
- Email rendering
- Inbox monitoring
- Sender Certification
As a new Everest user, TRG needed to run a major email address verification exercise. From this exercise, they were able to identify and suppress a large tranche of high-risk, invalid addresses.
Everest also supported one of their complex email migration projects. Because new IP addresses don’t initially have a reputation, Sender Certification plays an important role in achieving a trouble-free volume ramp up. TRG’s ability to use Everest to monitor deliverability performance in real time was crucial to achieving a successful transition.
Perhaps most importantly, Everest helps support TRG’s “Keep it Fun” programme, which promotes and supports safer gambling. When behavioural markers identify at-risk players, promotional communications are temporarily replaced with safer gambling content, and top-tier deliverability plays a critical role in helping re-establish stable behaviour patterns.
“We operate a strong ethical policy. For us, a happy, healthy customer spending within their means is worth far more to us than a big spender over-extending themselves, and we express that to them. Our digital business is growing, and from a healthy base. We’re building a sustainable business in a safe way.”
Sarah Hawkes – Senior MarTech Programme Manager, TRG
The results:
Great relationships build great success.
Since engaging with Validity, TRG has seen their email programmes move toward achieving genuine best-in-class performance:
- Near 100% inbox placement rates for global mailbox providers, including Microsoft (99.6%), Yahoo (99.6%), and Gmail (99.9%).
- Top-tier inbox placement rates across a range of UK-based mailbox providers that are important to TRG, including BT Mail (99%), Plusnet (99%), TalkTalk (98%), and Yahoo UK (98%).
- In combination, these mailbox providers represent >95% of TRG’s email footprint.
TRG’s email programmes face the normal deliverability challenges of traditional peak periods like Christmas and Chinese New Year, as well as major sporting events like the start of the Premier League football season, but TRG’s relationship with Validity means these top-tier stats are maintained even during these busiest phases. Central to these results has been the world-class customer service TRG receives. Coralie, their customer success manager, receives consistently glowing feedback, being described as “an expert friend on the end of the line!”
“Our deliverability success correlates with our commercial results. Following through the ROI results of campaigns, we can track a like for uplift after our changes in our deliverability score improvement.”
Sarah Hawkes – Senior MarTech Programme Manager, TRG
The Rank Group (TRG) has been entertaining customers in Britain and around the world since 1937, from their origins in motion pictures to today’s gaming-based entertainment brands. The Group’s story is one of iconic brands and talented people with a mission to entertain.
Gambling is an important sector of the leisure market in terms of employment and its broader economic contribution, both in Great Britain and across the world. TRG’s main brands include Grosvenor Casinos, Mecca Bingo, and Enracha, plus a broad range of digital-only brands that underpin their omni-channel aim to provide a seamless, continuous, and personalised customer experience across any device or venue they wish to visit.