We’ve seen how gamification has taken on a life of its own in the social technology space ever since the likes of Foursquare started the rush for badges. And although much of it is hype – Gartner says that gamification is still early in its hype cycle – there are specific examples of how gamification has helped drive success for some technology startups.
Take San Francisco-based sneakpeeq, for example. The social shopping startup had announced that since partnering with Menlo Park-based Badgeville, a gamification and behavior management platform, it has experienced an average 18-percent month-on-month growth in conversions, in addition to a 3,000-percent increase in the number of “buy” clicks.
Originally launched in May 2011, sneakpeeq added Badgeville‘s gamification features in November 2011. Badgeville‘s ‘Behavior Engine’ links rewards to specific products, content and stores within the social shopping site, pairing behaviors to unique metadata already mined by such sites. This has already led to significant gains on conversions, lifetime value and audience engagement.
“Badgeville has enabled us to engage our customers more in ways beyond just looking at a product and buying it,” says sneakpeeq senior engineer Neil Gandhi. “After integrating Badgeville, we’ve gone from five user engagements per minute to 45 user engagements a minute.”
“With that level of engagement, we’ve found that the shopper has a much higher likelihood not only to buy, but to frequently return and engage with other sneakpeeq stores,” Gandhi adds.
In addition to Badgeville‘s ‘Behavior Engine’, sneakpeeq also integrated the platform with Facebook Open Graph, so consumer actions or behaviors get pushed into Facebook newsfeeds.
“By deploying a seamless social rewards experience powered by Badgeville, (sneakpeeq) has been able to supercharge its growth and revenues, all while offering customers a truly unique social shopping experience in a crowded marketplace,” explains Kris Duggan, Badgeville‘s CEO.
[Image credit: Badgeville]
