#CWC19 Interview: Rishav Choudhury explains how CashKaro's Predict & Win helps acquire new users

After a successful run during IPL, the CashKaro World Cup Campaign expands on the strategy of CashKaro Predict & Win. Response numbers nearly tripled, they say!

By guessing the numbers of fours, sixes and final scores of teams playing a match at the ICC World Cup 2019, CashKaro World Cup Campaign, titled, CashKaro Predict & Win gave cricket enthusiasts a chance to win money and discounts. With this campaign, the brand expected about 5 lakh entries during the run of the tournament. Turns out, this is a great activity for the brand to acquire new users and Instagram, a best friend.

We talked to Rishav Choudhury, Head of Digital Marketing, CashKaro to understand how the campaign came about and where it's headed.

How is the World Cup campaign different from the IPL one?

This time we added a transactional element to it. The users are asked to predict the score and win cash back. However, the amount is usually slightly less than the minimum amount required to get the cash back and so they are incentivised to make at least one small transaction. This is win-win because they get a discount and we get a repeat user.

In terms of quantifiable responses, how were the two campaigns different?

During the IPL, we got responses in the range of 700 to 1,500 for each game. The disparity depended on the teams playing that day. If the teams were well-known and the match engaging, a lot more people participated. This time around, we are getting about 2,500 to 3,000 responses per game.

In terms of campaign spends, what did you do differently this time?

During IPL, we weren't sure about how the campaign would work, so we weren't really as aggressive in promotions. Considering how we didn't promote it as much, the response was really good. People had discovered it organically. This time we added a transactional element to it and so we used all our marketing channels ⁠— Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as well as emails, messages, and app notifications to existing users.

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Tell us something about the return on investment for such a campaign.

We are spending about Rs 200 to Rs 300 as a cash back on a successful prediction. It is the cost of acquiring a new user. Initially, the expenditure might be a lot but if you add the right value and educate the user, the user will be a repeat user. We are hoping that over time, we will break even the cost this way. The user's lifetime value adds to the return on investment.

Did you get more brands onboard as a means to retain the new users?

We didn't go out of our current partnerships because we already have over 1,500 partners, many of which have a good share of the pie in the e-commerce space. We are hoping that these brands will help us retain the users. Also, since we have brand partners across the spectrum, it gives us leverage with diverse users.

Which social media platform helps you get the most traction and new users?

We have noticed that Instagram does really well for us. These campaigns help us with user engagement as well as brand awareness. Through brand awareness, we are able to engage a lot of people in the top part of our funnel. This helps us acquire new users. Over time, we work on retention and build our brand equity.

In terms of geography, which parts of the country bring in most users?

During IPL, we noticed that a major part of the instrumental traffic came in from the southern parts of the country. We do see good traffic from northern parts of the country too. Most users belong to tier 1 and 2 cities where our concept is easily understood. We are looking to expand in southern India but language barriers are something we are still tackling.

Tell us something about the demographics of your recurring users.

Most of our users are about 18 to 28-year-olds. On the higher end, there are 25 to 38-year-olds. When we had started out, our user base was highly male-dominated but now we have a good number of females too, especially after we got more fashion and jewellery brands on board. Medicine too is one of our strong categories that helps retain users.