Football Association of Wales

Turning Social Media Followers into a Known Audience

The Football Association of Wales (FA Wales) had built a significant digital presence, with over 2 million social media followers. However, they lacked insight into who these fans were, what they valued, and how to engage them beyond social platforms.

Their goal was to understand their audience better, ensuring they could tailor communication, refine marketing strategies, and build long-term fan relationships.

Email acquisition played a role, particularly in ticket sales, but the broader objective was to gather first-party data that would help FA Wales move beyond surface-level engagement and create more meaningful connections with their supporters.

Gamification was identified as a strategy that would not only increase interaction but also capture valuable audience insights at scale.

The Challenge: Gaining Deeper Fan Insights Beyond Social Media

While FA Wales had a strong social media following, they lacked direct access to their audience. Their engagement metrics (likes, shares, and comments) indicated that people were interacting with their content, but they provided little insight into who these fans were, where they were located, or what aspects of Welsh football they were most interested in. Without detailed data, it was difficult to segment their audience, personalise communication, or create strategies to improve long-term fan retention.

Another challenge was their reliance on social media platforms, where audience visibility was dictated by algorithms. If engagement dropped or platforms changed their rules, FA Wales risked losing direct access to a large portion of their followers. To future-proof their fan engagement strategy, they needed a way to move beyond platform-controlled interactions and build their own database of engaged fans.

After exploring interactive content solutions, they found that their initial provider lacked the flexibility and speed required to scale engagement quickly. They needed a solution that would allow them to capture meaningful audience data while keeping fans actively engaged. Campaignware emerged as the right choice, providing a more agile and scalable way to implement gamification and data collection.

Why Campaignware?

FA Wales chose Campaignware because it provided:

• Fast, easy implementation – Pre-built templates allowed them to launch campaigns quickly.
• Proven success with other sporting organisations – They could learn from best practices used by teams and leagues worldwide.
• Built-in data capture – Every activation helped grow their email database and segment fans.
• Hands-on support – The Campaignware team provided strategic guidance on optimising campaigns and maximising engagement.

“Campaignware does everything we needed but in a way that was more agile and easier to implement.”

Gareth Rogers, Digital Engagement Officer, FA Wales

How FA Wales Used Gamification to Collect First-Party Data

FA Wales adopted a structured approach to engagement, using gamification not just as a tool for interaction, but as a way to collect and analyse valuable audience insights. They focused on two key types of activations: always-on engagement and short-term campaigns.

To create sustained engagement, FA Wales launched a season-long tipping game for the National League, which attracts more than 500 regular players. This campaign ensured ongoing participation over several months, allowing them to track consistent engagement patterns and build a dedicated fan segment for domestic football. 

Because FA Wales did not have access to extensive data on domestic league supporters, this activation helped them identify a previously unknown audience, understand their behaviour, and establish direct lines of communication.

Alongside this, FA Wales ran a series of short-term gamified activations tied to national team matches, such as prediction games, quizzes, and ‘magic moments’ content. These activations proved highly successful, attracting 3,000-4,000 participants per campaign. 

By experimenting with different content formats, FA Wales was able to assess which types of interactions resonated most with their audience. One key insight from this approach was that engagement peaked around major national team events, highlighting where attention and interaction were highest.

As data collection increased, FA Wales saw an opportunity to build a more structured approach to fan profiling. They commissioned a full data audit to assess their audience segments and identify key patterns in engagement. The findings from this audit will guide future marketing, content, and sponsorship strategies, ensuring that FA Wales can tailor communications more effectively, personalise fan experiences, and create a long-term engagement strategy based on meaningful insights.

“Every game we create gets thousands of players—if we did more, we’d get closer to our goals much faster.”

Gareth Rogers, Digital Engagement Officer, FA Wales

The Impact: A Smarter, More Data-Driven Engagement Strategy

While specific metrics on subscribers and revenue cannot be shared, we can highlight the following key outcomes

• FA Wales turned thousands of fan interactions into meaningful first-party data, helping them better understand their audience.
• Gamification proved to be an effective tool for both engagement and insight collection.
• The strong participation numbers validated the potential for scaling up efforts, leading to the hiring of a dedicated digital engagement executive.
• The ongoing data strategy ensures that these insights will now shape marketing, ticketing, and commercial decisions.
• Future focus – With a clearer picture of their audience, FA Wales can create more targeted campaigns, drive ticket sales, and strengthen sponsorship value.

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