iGamingBusiness n Issue 61 n March/April 2010 n 25

TECHNICAL

More and more companies are starting to pay

attention to the issue of web performance as a key

success factor in their online businesses. Indeed, it

is no less important in the competitive area of online

gaming.

There are three main reasons why online gaming

operators should pay close attention to their web

performance:

1. IT systems and services are becoming increasingly

complex

2. SEO – Google is about to include “website speed”

(load times) in its algorithm

3. A fast website is key to customer acquisition and

retention

The complexity of IT systems and servicesThe fast paced development of web technology has

made it easy for online gaming operators to integrate

content and services from third parties. Most major

operators now act as ‘content aggregators’ and offer

products such as casino, poker and bingo from

selected third parties under their own brand.

As this complex ecosystem of content and

interdependent services expands it becomes the

daunting task of burdened IT managers to monitor

and ensure the quality of delivery from every corner

of their IT platform. In fact, if only one little piece

fails, it can bring the whole website down.

SEO and the importance of website speedAt the end of 2009, Google leaked its plans to include

‘website speed’ in its ranking algorithm. As most

online gaming brands are heavily dependent on

successful SEO practices, this is news to be taken

very, very seriously.

What it means is that if you suffer from bad

web performance for one reason or another, even

temporarily, your ranking might be punished.

We believe this will serve as a wakeup call for

IT managers who have not yet taken a proactive

approach to monitoring and improving their web

performance.

Website conversion and retentionIt is a well known fact that most Internet gamblers

have accounts at multiple sites. When it comes to

your most valuable players, your high rollers, you

can be almost sure that you’re not the only one who’s

quenching their gambling thirst.

It is also a well known fact that Internet users are

impatient by nature and will leave your site if it does

not give them what they want, when they want it.

Results from different studies vary, but in general you

have a couple of seconds before a user will start to

look elsewhere.

So imagine when that dearly acquired customer

arrives, loads your page, the page goes into ‘hourglass

mode’ and just hangs, and the customer goes back

to your competitor that you just persuaded them to

leave?!

Almost no other online business is as fiercely

competitive in terms of customer acquisition as

online gaming, so you simply cannot afford to let

those expensive leads roll off your landing page.

Apply web performance best practices and

marketing managers will meet aggressive ROI targets

time after time.

Implementing web performance best practicesWe have seen many examples of IT managers

dealing with web performance through the very

common ‘putting out fires’ approach.

As with other areas in IT management, the

issue of web performance is best handled with a

systematic long-term approach. Here is a seven

step method towards reaching world-class web

performance.

1. Align web performance goals with business objectivesToo often, IT goals are not aligned with, and do not

support, business objectives. Marketing managers are

aiming for record highs but do you know if your site

can actually handle the load associated with that?

First things first – set business objectives. Secondly

– get business and IT managers together to try to

figure out what that means in terms of peak traffic

and loads.

IT, marketing and product management need

to have the same view on the user demands on the

IT platform. Then you have a good starting point

for a professional approach to web performance

management.

2. Make load testing part of your testing toolkitDespite exhaustive testing of functional and

non-functional software requirements, many web

projects still fail to launch stable performing web

applications. The high hopes at project launch often

dissolve into disappointment, starting a ‘blame game’

between ISP, hosting company, platform provider,

developer and application owner.

One explanation for this is the lack of load, or

maximum capacity, testing. Therefore, you should

make load testing a standard practice in your testing

methodology.

A sound load testing practice meets the following

criteria:

a. Always perform load tests at major releases or

updates.

b. Run realistic tests that imitate real user behaviour

on your site or service. The load should be

generated outside your hosting facility or else the

whole end to end Internet delivery chain will not

be tested.

c. Perform tests on the production servers. Testing

for maximum capacity on the test servers will give

you an indication, but not the real answer, of your

maximum capacity limit (since production and test

environments are usually similar but not identical).

3. Monitor your web performanceOk, so the project is tested and successfully

launched. Sit back and enjoy the ride? Not really. As

web applications grow increasingly complex, content

“Almost no other online business is as fiercely competitive in terms of customer acquisition as online gaming, so you simply cannot afford to let those expensive leads roll off your landing page.”

Why Web Performance is Key to Success in Online GamingSeven steps towards web performance best practice…

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26 n iGamingBusiness n Issue 61 n March/April 2010

John Ekman is CMO at web performance company, Apica. John has been in the online gaming business since 2003, formerly as a VP of Marketing at NetEnt as well as a former Casino Manager at Betsson.

John EkmanCMO, Apica

Response time

No. of users

Lost Business

Peak hours

TECHNICAL

managers, external service providers and many

others have many chances to wreck what you built

up with a simple mouse click.

Therefore, you should constantly monitor your

web performance. Many operators monitor what

goes on at the server side, CPU usage, database

connections and so on. The problem is that all

servers might be working just fine, but your

customers could still be complaining that your site

is slow.

You need to monitor using your customers’

perspective. Use the same realistic user scenarios that

you defined in your load testing and run them every

two, five or ten minutes. Test if a user can open an

account, logon to that account, load a casino game,

open the poker client, retrieve odds, etc.

Then run those tests from computers placed

where your customers are – Sweden, Poland, Turkey –

wherever they happen to be.

When you know that all your key customer

processes run without breaks, every minute,

24/7, then you know you are delivering a quality

experience to your customers.

4. Test on both sides of the firewallYou should have your test agents deployed both

on the Internet, where your users are, and inside

the firewall. By comparing test results from these

two locations you will be able to know if any

performance problems originate from lacking

capacity or faulty configurations on the server side or

if it is mainly attributed to lacking delivery capability

between your hosting provider and your end user.

5. Use test results to improve web performanceWhatever tools, techniques or software you are

using to test your web performance you should make

sure that those tests yield results that are clearly

analyzable and can serve as a starting point for

improving your web performance.

Knowing your maximum capacity limit or your

average page load time is really not much help if

you do not know what is causing that load time or

load limit. Only when you run tests that pinpoint

performance bottlenecks will you be able to start

your efforts to remove them. Your testing software

should allow for the use of drill-down techniques

and visual presentations such as waterfall graphs

and time series graphs. You should be able to sort

load sequence test results by largest or slowest

component, and so on.

6. Manage potential web overloadMany online operators are subject to sharp peak

loads. It’s good news when visitors arrive in great

numbers at major sports events or as a result of a

successful campaign. But if you’re unable to handle

the extra traffic loads the new visitors will destroy

the experience for everyone as response times

deteriorate.

We recommend that you use the so-called

‘shop sale’ technique if you want an extra layer

of performance guarantee. This is a sort of ‘worst

case scenario’ remedy and it is also a cost effective

measure, compared to other investments in

increased capacity which is superfluous outside of

your peak hours.

With this technique, only traffic up to a preset

volume is allowed and all other traffic above this

volume is redirected to an external ‘wait page’.

Compare this to a bouncer that allows eager

shoppers into a physical store, only as previous

customers leave. Without this technique impatient

users will click and refresh their browsers, creating

web overload and eventually the site will crash.

7. Be aggressiveOur final advice is to use superior web performance

not only to keep your customers, but to get new ones

as your competitors fail to deliver a fast website

experience to match yours.

It is a well known phenomenon that web users act

like stampeding herds in peak times. If one popular

site goes down or is slow, fleeing customers will

immediately seek out the next alternative increasing

the load on that site and potentially bringing that

one down too. As a whole web audience is driven

towards one or a few sites that manage to stay up,

those sites could be grabbing a big chunk of their

competitors’ customers.

These are just the first, but crucial, steps towards

world class web performance. They should be

seriously considered by every online gaming

operator as it becomes increasingly important to

convert and retain your customers. n

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