How IMG Arena enhanced user engagement and streamlined product development with Mixpanel

IMG Arena is a global sports media leader specializing in cutting-edge solutions for live sports data collection, distribution, and fan engagement. Their services span multiple sports, including golf, soccer, tennis, and UFC, providing data to major bookmakers and media partners to enhance the betting experience and deliver engaging content to sports fans worldwide. IMG Arena’s technology is embedded within the live sports arena, with staff on the ground to ensure real-time accuracy and speed for data distribution.

By integrating Mixpanel, IMG Arena has been able to foster a culture of continuous improvement within their product development processes, achieve a deeper understanding of user engagement, and strengthen relationships with media partners through transparent reporting. These insights allow IMG Arena to create better, more engaging experiences for fans and provide bookmakers with data that enhances the in-play betting experience. With plans to expand Mixpanel’s capabilities across more products, IMG Arena is poised to maintain its leadership in sports data technology, helping fans and bettors alike engage with their favorite sports on a new level.

IMG Arena needed a sophisticated analytics solution to understand user engagement across their products and optimize the user journey. Previously using Google Analytics, the team sought deeper, more granular insights, particularly in areas such as user behavior within their betting interfaces and fan engagement products. As Nick Glenday, Product Manager at IMG Arena, put it, “We were collecting analytics but not necessarily doing enough with it. We needed a way to harness the data for both customer reporting and internal product improvements.”

The ability to iterate on product design quickly was crucial, given that betting products must respond swiftly to real-time events and changing user needs. Additionally, IMG Arena wanted to streamline their reporting capabilities for partners. The objective was twofold: better understanding users’ behaviors and fine-tuning products in ways that lead to increased engagement and optimized customer experiences.

IMG Arena integrated Mixpanel across its main products to track user interactions and create a framework for data-driven decision-making. This integration allowed the team to gain actionable insights that were instrumental in refining both user-facing features and internal processes. As Glenday explained, “Mixpanel provided us with the ability to break down and filter events, tag specific actions, and essentially drill down into the data without requiring heavy technical training.”

Mixpanel’s ease of use and flexible reporting structure enabled Glenday and his team to run analyses and build reports independently, even without formal analytics training. With Mixpanel, they could easily spin up reports, adjust filters, and share insights with various teams, including development and design, to quickly implement improvements.

Through Mixpanel, IMG Arena has seen transformative results in understanding user behavior, optimizing product interfaces, and delivering enhanced reporting capabilities to partners. Key performance metrics demonstrate the impact of these insights:

• Increased Product Engagement: By updating features like the favoriting tool, IMG Arena aims to enhance user experience and interaction rates.
• Reduced Interface Clutter: Removing underused features led to a more streamlined interface, allowing users to focus on core functionalities.
• Detailed Partner Reporting: Enhanced reporting for big sports tournament events, offering sponsors a clear view of engagement metrics and ROI.

Optimizing the user journey with data insights

One of the first Mixpanel insights IMG Arena discovered was regarding the favoriting feature within their golf betting product. This feature allowed users to “favorite” a player and track their progress. However, analytics revealed low usage rates. The team realized the app did not customize the user experience based on the favorited player, requiring users to search for that player repeatedly across different sections.

According to Glenday, “What we found is actually there weren’t a lot of people using that tool. Users had to search for their favorite players each time, which was cumbersome, especially in golf with over 150 players in the leaderboard.” By identifying this user pain point, IMG Arena initiated updates to the favoriting tool to follow users through the app, which they anticipate will increase feature engagement and user satisfaction.

Streamlining the user interface by removing underused features

Another impactful insight Mixpanel revealed was around the 3D visualization features. IMG Arena noticed that few users were engaging with certain navigation controls, including zooming and switching between 2D and 3D modes. These controls occupied a significant amount of screen real estate, and their lack of use suggested they added unnecessary complexity to the interface.

“We saw from the analytics that very few people were using the controls, so we decided to remove them,” explained Glenday. “It allowed us to declutter the UI and focus on other features that had a more meaningful impact.” Since making these changes, the team continues to monitor engagement metrics to assess whether removing these elements improves overall usability and time spent on the page.

Supporting partners with robust analytics reporting

Mixpanel also empowered IMG Arena to deliver comprehensive reports for their media partners, particularly for a particular sports tournament – one of the most-watched events globally. As a responsible asset, the sports organisation partner relies on IMG Arena’s data to secure sponsorships and partnerships, so accurate reporting on user engagement metrics is essential.

During this global sports tournament, IMG Arena’s products attracted 4.21 million unique users and 25 million page views across four days, underscoring its importance as a high-value asset. “It’s really important that we provide detailed reports, not just on unique users, but on page impressions, average session time, drop-off rates, and other metrics,” Glenday noted. These insights enable IMG Arena to quantify the product’s reach and engagement, ensuring that the sports organisation partner’s sponsors see the value of their investment.

Enabling iterative, data-driven product development

With Mixpanel in place, IMG Arena can now implement small, data-backed changes that yield measurable improvements. For example, Glenday explained, “Without Mixpanel, we wouldn’t be making these smaller iterative changes because we wouldn’t see the need to. These small tasks add up to a much better product over time.” This continuous improvement model has allowed IMG Arena to stay nimble and responsive to user needs without waiting for larger, disruptive UX overhauls.

Through Mixpanel, the team can also establish success metrics not tied solely to revenue, such as tracking engagement in specific product areas. This approach minimizes risk by allowing the team to test changes on a small scale, evaluate their effectiveness, and adapt quickly if necessary.

Expanding Mixpanel’s usage across new products

With the success seen in its core products, IMG Arena plans to extend Mixpanel’s tracking and analysis capabilities to more of its offerings. This includes the newly launched StreamBet, a real-time betting solution that enables users to place bets without leaving a live stream of events.

“In the betting space, users traditionally had to leave the stream to place a bet, disrupting the experience. StreamBet allows users to stay engaged with what they’re watching and place bets simultaneously,” Glenday explained. The team is eager to analyze user engagement within StreamBet, gather insights on its early performance, and identify areas for potential improvements.

Looking ahead, IMG Arena seeks to build a consistent framework across products for tracking and reporting. This approach will ensure data consistency across products and sports, allowing for more comparable metrics in reports to senior leadership and partners. They also aim to implement a more automated process between Mixpanel and the development team to create a smoother, data-driven product lifecycle.

In Glenday’s words, “We’re getting there. It’s a start, and hopefully, we can create consistency across products, from golf to UFC to tennis, so that we’re always comparing apples to apples. The plan is for Mixpanel to become a fully integrated part of our product development cycle.”