Experts and leaders in the online industry are taking Berlin by storm this week for the Social Gaming Summit on May 25 and the Virtual Goods Summit on May 26. Visitors at the Social Gaming Summit will learn about strategies for monetization and success in social games. Topics at the Virtual Goods Summit will focus on recent growth and trends in virtual economies, as well as how the virtual goods market continues expanding into new territory like social networks and community sites

deal united CSO Jürgen Weichert will be participating in a panel discussion at the Virtual Goods Summit. The talk, “Measuring the Health of Your Virtual Economy,” will delve into issues that affect virtual economies and provide insight on how to gauge the wellbeing of a particular virtual currency. Moderated by SponsorPay CRO Janis Zech and featuring a selection of experts from across the industry, like GamesAnalytics COO Mark Robinson and Stephanie Kaiser, Product Lead of Monster World, this panel has the makings of a vigorous discussion.

If you’d like to meet up with Jürgen at the Social Gaming Summit or Virtual Goods Summit, call him at +49 (0) 17 05 77 00 02. deal united Sales Manager Melanie Richter and Senior Sales Manager Torsten Bongartz will also be out and about at the events. You can contact Melanie at +49 (0) 162 33 05 958 and Torsten at +49 (0) 17 05 77 00 04. Or just send an email to merchant@dealunited.com.

Like deal united? Now you can “Like” us on Facebook, too! Visit our Facebook page to stay up-do-date on the latest deals and events at deal united.

The 2011 CeBIT trade show is already in full swing in Hannover, Germany. Taking place from March 1 – 5, CeBIT is the largest, most international gathering in the digital industry, combining exhibitions, conferences and keynotes into one can’t-miss event. This year’s keynote theme, “Work and Life with the Cloud,” shines a spotlight on Cloud computing, which experts have pinpointed as the fastest growing sector in the IT market. Visitors will also see exhibitions of over 4,200 companies from 70 countries and hear more than 30 international speakers discuss topics ranging from science to politics and business.

Matthias Niedermeier and Christine Bialowons will be representing deal united at CeBIT from March 3- 4. If you would like to meet them please contact merchant@dealunited.com or call Christine at 0171-216-1770.

Speak to global users in their monetary language

from deal united by Jürgen Weichert

Digital and virtual goods have several huge benefits from a business perspective.

A) They can be replicated with almost no variable cost.
B) They can be distributed all across the globe via the internet.

These points are great because they provide us with a powerful lever for scale. The idea of placing your product in front of a global audience and being able to deliver this product digitally is extremely compelling. I know I’m stating the obvious — this is why we are all in this business.

But (why does there always have to be a “but”?) it also confronts us with new challenges. The challenge is LOCALIZATION. Zynga, the social gaming giant from San Francisco, has launched their new game “CityVille.” It’s the first game that Zynga localized into several languages, including French, German, Italian, Spanish. But the localization goes further than just translation — CityVille’s French version allows the user to build an Eiffel Tower in his city. Even objects and surroundings are customized to the local user.

The same has been done by software publishers for many years.

But here’s the catch: so far, many big players in the gaming, software and digital media space put a lot of effort into translating their products. They even go the extra mile and add local relevant content. But too many stop at the point where a corporation should be paying close attention: monetization.

Payment preferences across the globe

You can’t assume that credit cards will do the trick across the globe, as many countries don’t have a relevant credit card distribution. Germany, for example, has a credit card distribution of about 20 million cards but a population of 83 million — most with plenty of buying power.

With this in mind, there are two options:

1) Wait until global credit card distribution increases
2) Offer local payment options

We recommend the latter. Why? Payment markets change slowly, and it is not wise to leave money on the table.

But how do I prioritize the integration of local payment options? Every country with a major online market has one, two or even three dominant methods of payment besides credit cards. Germany has bank transfers, the Netherlands use IDEAL, France uses Carte Bleue, Danish users like to pay with DanKard, Japan offers a range of convenience store payments and so on.

Of course, nobody can integrate everything at once. So the first thing to do is analyze data and prioritize according to three main criteria:

1) How many users do I have, and what countries are they from?
2) Are these countries tier 1 (U.S., UK, Germany, France, Japan…), tier 2 (Italy, Spain…) or tier 3 countries?
3) How time consuming would it be to conduct business after sorting my data according to the first two criteria?

How can I stay fast and efficient?

Well, of course it makes sense to use payment service providers (PSPs) and eCommerce Service Providers (ESPs). They’ve already done the work and integrated all these payment options. We can only recommend taking a look at the PSPs/ESPs on the market and analyzing whether they cover the regional payment options relevant to your user base. Also take a look at your future plans. There may be regions with expansion potential. The PSP should have links to these regions and be able to offer payment options in these areas. Because no matter what the sales guy says, integration with a PSP is a one-time effort — you shouldn’t have to repeat this often.

Expect neutrality from your PSP

A good PSP/ESP is a consultant for payment strategy. Hence, they must be neutral. Make sure that your PSP/ESP does not run payment as a side business.

In the meantime, it makes sense to complement your payment mix with PAY.BY.SHOPPING. Our payment service is completely localized, carrying relevant local advertisers on a global scale. What’s more, our local advertisers in each country offer your users the relevant payment options for their market.

(I hope you can excuse the shameless plug.)

Questions? Drop us an email at merchant@dealunited.com

Cheers,

Juergen

The  Game Connection Europe networking event will take place in Lyon, France from November 16- 18, 2010.

Attendees will have the opportunity to meet key players from every stage of the production process face-to-face, including professionals in finance, development, publishing, distribution and outsourcing.

This year, deal united Sales Managers Eliane Zeba and Melanie Richter will attend this event and present deal united’s alternative payment method PAY.BY.SHOPPING.

For further information, please contact merchant@dealunited.com

The GamesClubCard is deal united’s new platform for monetizing virtual currency. It works like a virtual bonus card for online games: Players can collect points for their account and reedem them later for virtual currency or timecards in their favorite game.

How GamesClubCard works:

1. Register:
Players can create an account for free at www.gamesclubcard.com.

2. Collect Points:
By shopping at our renowned advertising partners websites (OTTO, Priceminister, Toys”R”Us), players collect points for their account.

3. Recommend Us:
GamesClubCard also encourages players to recommend the service to their friends. For every recommendation email sent from the platform, the player will receive points.

4. Buy Points:
In addition to the collection opportunities, the players can buy points in three packages: 100, 250 oder 500 points.

5. Redeem Points:
Collected points can later be redeemed for virtual currency in a Free2Play online game or timecards for a subscription Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG).

Advantages for Online Games with GamesClubCard:

Successful Monetization: Players create a GamesClubCard account because they are willing to pay for virtual currency.

Extended Range: Most users play several games but are only willing to spend money on a few of them. GamesClubCard is designed to enable monetization in several games since it offers the players not just one game, but a range of them.

Increased Turnover: The virtual currency / timecards offered at GamesClubCard are paid for by participating advertising partners.

No Costs, No Risks: An integration at GamesClubCard is completely free of charge for game publishers – like deal united’s proven marketing solution PAY.BY.SHOPPING (formely Pay4You).

Europe-Wide Orientation: Like the existing deal united services, GamesClubCard will soon be available in 11 countries.

Featured Games:

Now Runes of Magic players can receive game diamonds for free when they shop online at renowned deal united partners like buecher.de, OTTO, myToys or Neckermann. deal united, the reward shopping platform for monetization of virtual and digital goods, is implementing this offer together with our partners and Frogster Interactive Picture AG, publisher of Free2play Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG).

Runes of Magic is a free MMOG, in which gamers can purchase diamonds to open up additional features within the game such as mounts and potions. With deal united, gamers now receive 300 diamonds free (worth 15.- € or 12.50 £) for their online purchases.

More Fun with Diamonds
“This offer is aimed at giving our gamers the opportunity to test out the features in our diamond shop,” explains Björn Koschin, CEO at Frogster. “They receive the diamonds as a reward for shopping with our cooperation partners. This promotion is a fantastic opportunity to combine online shopping with great gaming!“

Online Shops Give Diamonds Away
“Online gamers can now literally dig for diamonds when they shop online,” says Jarg Temme, CEO at deal united. “Our advertising partners — the online shops — fund the campaign. They’re giving diamonds to everyone who finds their shop through the role playing game and makes a purchase.” deal united offers the rewards promotion to gamers from Germany, France, Great Britain and Spain.

Increased Turnover for Gaming Industry and  eCommerce
deal united is bringing games publishers and online shops together with the cross-selling solution Pay4You. Pay4You is aimed at rewarding gamers for their online purchases. The cross-selling concept is designed to boost turnover for products, digital goods, online services and software as part of seasonal events or over a longer period of time.

deal united at GamesCom
deal united is showcasing the concept to interested gamers and publishers at GamesCom from August 18 to 22 in Cologne (Hall 4.2, booth A-013). Interviews are also possible throughout the event on prior arrangement.

Vacation season holds the same value for eCommerce as for offline retail nowadays: it’s a lucrative opportunity for both to generate more sales. But what about software vendors, game publishers and online services? How can they benefit from the summer cash flow? With deal united’s PAY.BY.SHOPPING, they can offer software or virtual currency free of  charge for users who shop at deal united advertising partners’ online stores. When a user makes  purchase at one of the stores, their “free” product is refunded to the merchant by the advertising partner from whom the user purchased.  With the wide product range our partners offer, users can choose frmo a great selection of items for holidays, summer and traveling.

The benefits of PAY.BY.SHOPPING by deal united:

• Incremental Revenue: Use the internet-shoppers willingness to pay during the holiday season
• Monetization: Address users directly with attractive offers and create real turnover!
• Seasonal Event: Benefit from the holiday season, even if your products / sector has nothing to do with it
• No Additional Marketing or Advertising Costs
• International Orientation: deal united is available in many countries and regions throughout Europe and the US.

These companies already cooperate with deal united

For further information check out www.dealunited.com/merchants and register free of charge or contact us at merchant@dealunited.com.

Software Industry Conference 2010 on July 16 in Dallas, Texas: In his session “Incremental revenue – get more out of your European trial”, Matthias Niedermeier, Sales Manager at deal united,  will show software vendors ways to create more revenue with trial versions.

Matthias Niedermeier Sales Manager deal united

Successful monetization is a challenge every software provider faces, especially considering that the average conversion rate for licensed software hovers at about one percent. This means that an enormous sales potential of more than 90 percent is completely lost, mostly because users tend to stick to free software and are reluctant to pay for the full version. To remedy this problem, deal united develops cross-selling campaigns for software vendors that approach exactly this challenge to monetization.

deal united’s marketing concept PAY.BY.SHOPPING combines free software with renowned advertising partners like OTTO or myToys. If users shop at one of our partners’ online stores, they get the full version of the software free of charge. The free product will then be refunded by the advertising partner the user chose to make a purchase at. In his session, Matthias Niedermeier will show you different ways to integrate cross-selling campaigns into trial versions and how software vendors can create incremental revenue with PAY.BY.SHOPPING.

Together with Adriana Iordan of Avangate, Matthias Niedermeier’s session will take place on Friday 16, 2010 from 10:15 a.m. – 11:15 a.m. in Track. If you want to interview or talk with our Sales Manager at the event, please contact merchant@dealunited.com to make an appointment. deal united Senior Sales Manager Torsten Bongartz will also attend the conference and would be glad to answer any questions.

Games Convention Online 2010 in Leipzig, Germany: On July 8, deal united shows game publishers how they can increase conversion rates with cross selling.

How can you make more money with online games? Jarg Temme, deal united CEO, answers this question at this year’s Games Convention Online (GCO) in Leipzig. He’ll show game publishers how to increase conversion with cross-selling in his lecture “Online games and successful conversion.”

Pay4You: Online Shops Give Away Virtual Money

deal united, the reward platform for monetization of virtual goods, develops cross-selling campaigns for game publishers with renowned advertising partners like OTTO and myToys.de. If players shop at one of those partners’ online stores and buy something, they get a certain amount of virtual money free of charge. “Our advertising partners reimburse the game provider for the free product. Every player that comes into the shop via one of the online games and makes a purchase gets free virtual currency as a bonus from the online shops,” explains Jarg Temme, deal united CEO. “Pay4You campaigns are designed to increase player loyalty and game revenue.”

“The fact that most gamers do not want to invest money in games is a challenge every provider faces today, “Temme says. “Gamers are used to free deals, and despite the fact that the game would be more fun, they do not want to spend money on additional features for their characters. Our cooperation with renowned online shops helps to motivate players to pay for those features.”

Gamers find out about deals via in-game messages, pop-unders, banners and buttons. Pay4You is suitable for seasonal events as well as for long term campaigns. “Special promotions for Mother’s Day or right now for the football World Cup are very popular. Game publishers always freely determine how long their campaigns and cooperations with our advertising partners should run,” says Temme.

Arrange Interviews at GCO

The lecture „Online games and successful conversion“ will be held on July 8, 2010 from 2:30 to 3 p.m. in Leipzig’s congress center, room No. 4. The Games Convention Online 2010 takes place from July 8-10 at the exhibition centre. To interview or meet with Jarg Temme at the event, please contact info@dealunited.com to make an appointment.