Have you ever wondered what makes Tinder so popular? Could it be the endless dating options to choose from? Or is it the swiping dynamics that keep you hooked to the screen?
You might surprised to learn that Tinder uses gamification elements to draw in users and keep them engaged.
Adding a bit of play to business is more than just a trend – it’s a game-changer. Gamification marketing software can help your business transition from a one-way monologue to a friendly, interactive dialogue with potential customers.
These popular gamification tools are super user-friendly and can help you create memorable experiences for your customers, no matter the size of your business.
Using gamification technology, you can create branded wordles, puzzles, advent calendars, wheels of fortune, digital scratchcards and more. By promoting your brand through these exciting games, your customers will associate your brand with joy and fun.
In this article, we will dive deep into all the possibilities gamification software can offer your business and give you our selection of the 7 best gamification software platforms to try.
Let the games begin!
What is gamification software?
Gamification software is a platform or a tool that allows you to take a traditional marketing campaign and transform it into an interactive marketing experience that uses games to engage your customers.
Instead of simply watching an ad or reading about a product, gamification makes it possible for customers to interact directly with your brand through exciting online games. Keep reading for some cool examples and use cases of gamification that you can apply to your business.
Previously, gamification in marketing was complicated. Creating successful gamification campaigns required a whole team of illustrators, developers and video editors.
This is where gamification platforms for business have changed the game.
Gamification software allows you to create unique gaming experiences through an intuitive drag-and-drop interface. Easily customize your campaign and add your own brand CVI, logos, fonts, images and even videos. As a result, everyone will immediately associate a fun game with your brand.
Gamification provides a plethora of opportunities. It’s especially effective in marketing, but can also improve sales campaigns, e-learning and customer loyalty programs. Some companies are even using a gamification training platform to build passionate, innovative teams.
Best gamification tools and apps compared
Competition seems to be tight – but of course, finding the best gamification software also depends on your needs.
Are you a content creator simply looking to increase interactions on social media? Maybe Gleam is enough.
Do you belong to a medium-sized or large company and will have lots of people playing your games? Get a price estimate from Qualifio and Leadfamly and compare them with a quote from Adact gamification agency.
Budget is not an issue? Bring Dot.vu and Scratcher.io into the mix.
If you’re using gamification in an educational setting, maybe Interacty is the best fit.
Check out our comparison of each gamification marketing platform below:
How to choose the best gamification solutions?
Don’t settle for a second-best gamification marketing platform. Do your research to find the best gamification software and you’ll see how easy it can be to gamify your marketing campaign.
But how do you know which is the best gamification platform for business?
You should be looking at 2 main criteria:
Ease of use (workshop-free software)
You don’t want software that requires time-intensive workshops and tutorials before you can even get started. You want a gamification platform you can jump right into and get the results you need.
We recommend trying out a gamification software free trial, so you can evaluate the software and its ease of use.
With the best gamification apps, it will be clear that you can achieve everything almost instantly and that more niche functionalities are available if you dive further into the software.
Reliable customer support
Gamification is probably not something you’ve mastered. And the best gamification software vendors know this.
That’s why not only do they give you access to the software, but also personally assist you in creating a successful game design, choosing the best-performing games for your needs, evaluating your campaigns prior to launch and much more.
Look for a gamification agency that proactively reaches out and gives you pointers and avoid those gamification services that outsource their customer support to countries with lower wages.
Here are six things to consider when looking for the best gamification platform:
- Uniqueness: Does every campaign come out looking almost the same as that of competitors? Does the gamify platform let you use your brand language and make your campaign indistinguishable from the rest?
- Features: How many things can you do with the gamification tool? Can you easily customize your games? Do software features allow you to make your game stand out from the crowd?
- Integrations: Can you send all the data from your sales gamification software to your CRM? Can you embed the campaign into your application? Is the gamification white-labeled? Is it easy to integrate the gamification app into your website?
- Real-Time Updates: If you notice a mistake after the campaign has gone live, can you still fix it without taking it down? Can you update prize probability in real time? These are important factors to consider, as you don’t want mistakes to affect user engagement.
- Rating and reviews: Check people’s comments and reviews of popular gamification tools for business. Weigh the pros and cons of each alternative.
- Support: Does the gamification app development company provide 24/7 assistance? How responsive is the support team?
- Free trial: Before purchasing any software, it’s best to test it out first. The easiest way to see if a gamification platform software suits your needs is to sign up for a free trial.
If all this is too overwhelming for you, just sit back and relax. We’ve done your homework for you.
Below is our take on the seven best gamification sites.
This year’s TOP 7 gamification software options
Coming up, check our pick of seven gamification software especially useful for marketing purposes.
Adact is our top pick for 2024 due to high customizability, extremely user friendly interface and unmatched number of various functionalities to organize every type of interactive initiative you can imagine.
Adact.me is a software that simplifies gamification with an intuitive drag-and-drop dashboard that allows you to create fun games, trivia, raffles, competitions, and quizzes in minutes – without touching a line of code!
The team behind Adact have created custom made Gamification solutions to Volkswagen, Keurig, Coca Cola and many other Fortune 500 companies. They have brought their expertise into one no-code software to enable everyone get a piece of the pie!
The best part is that no campaign looks like your competitors campaign. Fully customize each view and the end results is completely different from any other example.
Ease of use: 5/5
Features: 4.5/5
Pricing: Starting from €1500/year for one campaign – all features included.
Support: 5/5
Free trial: Yes, 14 days.
Users agree that it is a user-friendly, highly customizable tool with lots of game types and great customer service. Plus, campaign formats are innovative and very easy to implement.
User review at Capterra
The customer support team is also one of its highest points. Always reachable via email, phone support, or chat, there is also a forum with FAQs and lots of training resources such as videos, documentation, webinars, and even in-person training.
Top features:
- Analytics and engagement tracking
- Drag-and-drop builder
- +60 game formats
- Customizable branding
- Social media integration
- Use for Marketing, HR, Conferences, Applications, Offline,
Click here to start working on your first game!
2. Qualifio
Ease of use: 4.5/5
Features: 4.5/5
Pricing: There are four price tiers available with different support services, amount of users, and available integrations. Unfortunately, prices are not published on the website.
Support: 5/5
Free trial: 30 days – only for Engage module.
Qualifio is composed of two complementary modules, Engage, for data collection and marketing, and a loyalty module for rewards and brand experiences.
One cool thing it has is the integration with CRM platforms and email marketing providers – but it comes only in the highest pricing plans.
While most users highlight its ease of use and great customer service, they do find some limitations and bugs such as problems with multilingual campaigns and not enough game formats. Also, analytics dashboards are not customizable.
Top features:
- CRM integrations
- +50 game formats
- Analytics dashboard (yet not customizable)
3. Gleam.io
Ease of use: 4/5
Features: 3.5/5
Pricing: You can purchase each app separately (starting at $10/month for Competitions App, and $29/month for Rewards, Galleries, and Captures) or the full package for $97/month.
Support: 3/5
Free trial: No.
Gleam.io is a marketing platform aimed at small businesses and content creators that don´t want to spend too much on their gamification efforts.
It offers four apps that can be acquired separately or as a full package: Competitions, Rewards, Galleries, and Captures.
While it is probably the best option in terms of costs for influencers and sole marketers, it is very limited in features, lacks customer support and analytics, and is not very customizable. In other words, you get what you pay for.
Top features:
- Friendly UI
- Good for giveaways (But basic design options)
- Inexpensive
4. Scratcher.io
Ease of use: 5/5
Features: 4.5/5
Pricing: The Starter plan is €3588/year. There is also the option of a customized pro plan – but you will have to request a quote – or for a single campaign, which starts at €2000 /year.
Support: 4.5/5
Free trial: Yes, 14 days.
Scratcher.io provides an intuitive drag-and-drop editor, more than 20 campaign formats, and lots of customization options. Features such as user roles and permissions, a wide list of integrations, and social sharing capabilities make this an interesting option for large enterprises looking for an all-in-one solution.
As good as it might sound, we couldn´t find any user reviews in popular tech review sites such as Capterra, G2.com, and Trustradius – which is quite unnerving.
Plus, the tool is quite expensive with a flat annual subscription that is almost prohibitive for small companies or entrepreneurs.
Top features:
- Drag-and-drop editor
- +20 campaign formats
- Integrations
5. Dot.vu
Ease of use: 4/5
Features: 4.5/5
Pricing: The Starter plan is €5,995 /year for up to 50,000 yearly visitors and 1 admin user – with ticket support only. The Advanced plan is €9,995 /year for up to 250,000 yearly visitors, 3 admin users, system integrations and live chat support. The Pro plan goes up to €15,995 for 5 admins, 5 million yearly visitors, and priority support. There is also an individual subscription with one template available only but its price is not published on the site.
Support: 4.5/5
Free trial: Yes, 14 days.
Dot.vu is much more than gamification software. The platform allows you to create and embed interactive content on your website, e-commerce, or native mobile app. This includes not only marketing games but also virtual tours, guided selling, and interactive flipbooks.
Additionally, the company offers an agency service with experts that can create interactive content for you.
Unfortunately, it is not a cheap option at all.
Top features:
- Drag-and-drop editor
- Customizable branding
Interactive content formats
6. Playable (former LeadFamly.com)
Ease of use: 4/5
Features: 4.5/5
Pricing: Not available. Send a pricing request. The pricing model is usage-based.
Support: 5/5
Free trial: Yes, 14 days.
Playable (former LeadFamly) is a gamification platform that offers a large selection of game formats. On the downside, the variety of options does not make it very intuitive and there is a steep learning curve. Plus, it is not very customizable – which might make your campaigns look too much like your competitor’s campaigns. Also, users often find bugs.
The real-time dashboards for campaign tracking are probably one of the best features of the tool, along with the more than 70 integrations that include popular CRMs and email marketing providers.
Users also find chat support to be good and there are lots of documentation such as guides, webinars, a FAQ, and blog posts which can help through the learning process.
LeadFamly (now Playable) user review at G2.com
Top features:
- Campaign tracking
- +70 integrations
- Collaboration tools
7. Interacty
Ease of use: 4.5/5
Features: 4.5/5
Pricing: Interacty offers separate pricing models for business and education users. Pricing determines the number of page views your games will get, team members, storage size, number of templates per month and more.
For the business users, individual plans range from $14 to $29/month. Business plans start at $85/month for the PRO plan and go up to $189/month for the TEAMS plan. Contact Interacty for a custom quote on their enterprise gamification platform.
For education users, plans start at $4/month for the BEGINNER plan and go up to $9/month for the ADVANCED plan. Educational institutions must contact Interacty for a custom quote.
Support: 4.5/5
Free trial: Yes. Get the basic plan for free when using free gamification tools for education. Try the PRO+ plan for free for 7 days when using Interacty for business gamification.
Interacty is a platform that offers gamification solutions for education and business. Interacty uses a variety of media types, including video, audio, text and images, to help businesses and educational institutions connect with their audience.
Users find it easy to use Interacty, and the variety of features makes it easy to create fun, engaging games. Some users didn’t like the lack of customization options and limited game templates.
Interacty also functions as a sales gamification tool. Use content blocks to easily build branded games, quizzes and contests that help you connect with your audience, promote your brand and make sales.
Interacty user review at G2.com
Top features:
- Customizable content blocks that make it easy to create games
- Integration with CRM
- Content templates
- Leaderboards that foster competition between students
- Integration with LMS
Sales gamification tools FAQ
What are the top gamification companies for marketing?
The top gamification companies for marketing are:
- Adact.me
- Qualifio
- Gleam
- Scratcher.io
- Dot.vu
- Playable (former LeadFarmly)
- Interacty
What’s the best free gamification platform?
All of the gamification software vendors, except for Gleam.io, offer a free trial. Adact.me offers the best free gamification platform, but for full benefits and unlimited use, you need to buy the paid version.
What’s the best gamification software for employee engagement?
Adact is the best employee gamification platform. With engaging games like Jeopardy, businesses can make their workplace more fun, boosting employee engagement, productivity and teamwork.
What’s the best gamification training software?
Adact is the best gamification training software. With Adact, you can create quizzes, polls and trivia to test your employees’ knowledge and provide them with training courses that allow you to monitor their progress.
Does gamification work in email marketing?
Including gamification in email marketing can significantly increase the success of your campaigns. Using games like quizzes or digital scratchcards in your email campaigns can boost engagement and conversions. Software like Adact even comes with integrations with leading email marketing platforms.
Check out our guide on email lead generation to learn more about the benefits of gamification email marketing.
How does gamification software benefit your business?
Game mechanics have been used by businesses for years. Looking back to the early days of mobile phone carriers offering free ringtones and in-game services, this form of marketing got a lot of traction with smartphone users.
The more time goes by, the more gamification becomes relevant to businesses. Let’s take a look at how you can use gamification software for marketing purposes:
Imagine you access an eCommerce store and the first thing you see is a promotional pop-up. What are the chances you don´t leave the site in the following five seconds?
What if instead you are presented with a wheel of fortune that offers prices such as discounts, benefits, and freebies? Wouldn’t you be tempted to spin the wheel?
And what if you win a discount? Wouldn’t you want to take advantage of it? After all, you have earned it!
Wheel of fortune
Points, levels, challenges, and rewards can nudge people toward certain behaviors by making activities more appealing. While the idea might sound crazy, it works well.
For instance, you can reward every person who completes an email form or signs up on your website with a discount. However, to get this discount, they have to scratch the card or open a box with a present. This small, yet engaging step, can make ordinary activities much more exciting!
Did you know that 95% of customer purchase decisions are based on emotions? If you manage to associate your brand with positive emotions, people will be more likely to remember it.
For example, everybody gets promotional emails in their inbox every day. After a while, you don’t even pay attention to the sender. But what if you got an email that asked you to play a puzzle and nothing more? If it’s a busy day at work, you may be tempted to take a quick break and have some fun. After a while, you’ll start remembering which brand sends you fun games. You will associate it with entertainment and may even research more to see what the brand is about. From the business perspective, this is how you increase brand awareness in an effective way.
Turning the customer experience into a fun adventure can keep your existing customers much more engaged. They will want to come back and play simply because they enjoy it.
This is your chance as a brand to use this energy and invite people to interact further with your business. In the long run, you can increase customer loyalty, satisfaction, and their average spending.
There is nothing more effective than creating a sense of community. Just think of Minecraft. How many times have you heard of people meeting and becoming friends thanks to a game? Can you now imagine the impact gamification can have on your customers?
Include the option for your clients to share the results of a game, or challenge a friend on social media. People love to show their accomplishments and play with others – and this way you can increase customer engagement, develop brand advocates, and expand the reach of your marketing campaigns!
Response rates to long surveys are usually very low – which sounds logical given how boring they are, aren’t they?
Companies like Netflix understand that offering a good product means putting what the customer is more likely to prefer in the first row. But the algorithm “If you have liked X, you might like Y” only works if customers are willing to provide feedback. And this means making the process extremely simple for them.
Now, we don’t all have Netflix´s budget or resources. Luckily, with gamification software you can easily upload a couple of images and create your own battle that looks like this:
Battle
Create your own incentive programs by using gamification within your sales team. This way, you can show them the benefits of the tool and, at the same time, motivate them.
These are just some ideas of how you can take advantage of gamification techniques to motivate your employees:
- create sales contests
- build a rewards program
- develop interactive employee training programs
What is sales gamification software used for?
Sales gamification software can add healthy competition and incentives to sales teams, boost engagement and encourage employee development.
Gamification software is also a great tool for real-time performance management as it allows you to monitor sales numbers instantly. A gamification solution can also be used as training software, adding some fun to the learning process.
How does gamification software help in marketing?
Sales gamification tools are a great way to attract potential customers. By offering customers exciting games to interact with, businesses can gradually pull customers into their marketing funnel and eventually convert leads into sales.
Gamification software also allows businesses to customize games with their brand to promote brand awareness and loyalty. For example, games can give away vouchers and discounts to bring in new customers.
Let’s imagine you have decent traffic to your eCommerce website but low conversion rate. Traditionally, you would add a banner to your website with a discount code or lower the price of some products and promote them as on sale.
What if you could make it more fun and different from others?
Try adding a pop-up with a digital scratchcard and make your visitors feel like they have won the discount. Doesn’t it look much more compelling? And this is just one of the ideas – name yours!
Adding fun elements such as games, trivia, and quizzes to your marketing campaigns can help encourage participation, expand your reach, and increase conversions.
But developing an entire game just for a campaign can be expensive. This is where gamification software comes in handy. Having an easy-to-use cost-effective software solution can help add interactive elements to your campaigns in no time!
What are examples of gamification elements used in marketing?
Some examples of gamification elements used in marketing are:
- prizes and awards
- badges
- scores, ranking, leaderboards
- freebies
- trivia
- wheel of fortune / spin to win
Adact boosts your marketing and sales through gamification
If you’re looking to boost sales and/or increase engagement in your marketing campaigns, gamification software is a must-have.
An easy-to-use tool can turn your marketing team into game developers. The key is to find a cost-effective solution that offers the key features your business needs.
This is a question only you can answer.
If we look at our comparison table, Adact.me seems to check all the boxes. With an intuitive interface, you can create fun games, trivia, quizzes and more in minutes. Equipped with a variety of game formats and highly customizable features, you can create branded campaigns that increase interaction and conversions.Book a demo with Adact.me and learn how to build customizable gamification campaigns that create memorable experiences for your customers!
Book a demo to learn how to build highly-customized gamification campaigns for marketing with Adact.me – or sign up now!
