Gametime is used to engage with fans in-stadium via SMS. With Gametime, your fans can vote on trivia polls and enter sweepstakes via SMS.

Gametime is the leading source of subscriber growth for teams that use it, with opt-in rates as much as 5-10x greater than standard sign-up units.

Leverage Gametime to grow your subscriber list and power the ultimate fan experience at real life events.

Sweepstakes

Sweepstakes are the most common use case for Gametime and deliver the highest participation and opt-in rates. For example, the Pacers run a sweepstakes at the end of each game where all fans who text the keyword BOGO will receive a coupon good for a Buy-One-Get-One-Free sub sandwich valid for the next day only at Penn Station Subs. This promotion has been incredibly successful for the Pacers (up to 60% opt-in rates) and conversions for their sponsor, Penn Station Subs.

Trivia and Voting Polls

Teams can engage with fans by using Gametime to have fans vote on an outcome. For example, the Carolina Panthers conduct a poll at each game asking their fans to choose the song they want to hear at half-time. Fans cast their vote by texting A, B or C, realtime voting results are displayed on the jumbotron and the song that receives the most votes wins.

Please reach out to your CSM or the Support team to learn more about Gametime. 

Creating Polls

Create a Poll

Select Polls in the left sidebar then click Create New.

Add one or more Keywords

Click the Keywords tab, then click Add Keyword and add one or more keywords.

• Keyword - a letter, number, word or phrase. Make sure it is unique. Avoid common keywords like Y, N, Yes, No, Stop, Start. 
• Description - a description of what the keyword corresponds to.
• Alternative Matches - one or more alternate keywords, separated by commas

Set the Auto Replies

Click on the Messaging tab and enter the Auto-Reply that a fan will receive after texting a matching keyword.

• Open Auto-Reply - reply sent when a fan texts a matching keyword and the poll is OPEN.
• Closed Auto-Reply - reply sent when a fan texts a matching keyword and the poll is CLOSED. 
• Multi-vote disabled Auto-Reply - reply sent when a fan texts a matching keyword and Multi-vote is disabled (in Settings tab).

Click Save Settings when done editing auto-replies.

Turn the Poll On

Click the Settings tab, then change the Poll State to OPEN and click Save Settings. When a Poll is OPEN, Gametime will listen for incoming messages and send an auto-reply to any matching keywords or alternative matches.

Note: It takes approximately 2 minutes for Gametime to be ready to receive and respond to incoming messages when set to OPEN.

Monitor the Results

Click the Results tab to monitor the number of incoming votes. 

• The number and percentage of votes per keyword appear in the pie chart
• The total number of participants appears on the top left
• The total number and percentage of conversions appears on the left.
  • Opt-in Requests Sent represents the number of opt-in requests (Reply Y) that were sent to participants who are not subscribed to marketing.
  • New Subscribers represents the number and percentage of users who received the opt-in request and replied Y.
  • Participants who were already subscribed to marketing are not included in the calculations above
• If you run the poll multiple times (e.g. at each game) you can view the poll results history by clicking the box on the lower left.

End the Poll

When you are finished running the Poll, click the Settings tab and change the Poll State to one of the following:

• CLOSED - Gametime will continue to listen for matching keywords, and send the Closed Auto-Reply response.
• OFF - Gametime will no longer be listening for matching keywords and will not send any response.

Click Save Settings when done editing the Poll State.

Landing Page

You can display real-time poll results on the jumbotron by rendering a hosted Gametime Landing Page in a browser. You can upload your own branded background image and set the chart style and colors.

1. Click the Landing page tab. A preview of a custom landing page will appear.
   
   
    
2. Edit the Layout settings:
   
   
   
    
   • Chart type: Choose either a Horizontal bar chart (default), Vertical bar chart, or Pie chart
   • Display labels: Choose whether to display keyword labels 
   • Keyword labels: Display Keyword only (e.g. A, B, C), Description only (e.g. Stayin' Alive), or Keyword and description  (e.g. A) Stayin' Alive)
   • Screen width and height: Default size is 1920 x 1080
   • Background image: The publicly accessible URL of a background image. The image should be the exact same size as the Screen width and height above. It is recommended that you upload and use a background image in your Attentive Brand Kit, as follows:
     1. Upload background image to BrandKit > Asset library
     2. Once uploaded, select Preview file from the menu
     3. Right-click on the Preview and choose Copy Image Address to copy its url
     4. Paste the url into the Polls > Landing Page > Background image field
   • Chart positioning: Specify the top, bottom, left, and right margin (in pixels) that surrounds the chart area. Tip: Click the Show Layout border button to see a red outline surrounding the chart area to help with positioning.  
      
3. Edit the Colors and fonts:
   
   
   
    
   • Font face: The font used for the chart labels. This is read-only. If you want to use a custom font, provide your CSM with the font file.
   • Font size: Experiment with different font sizes to see what fits best depending on the length of your keyword description labels. Make it as big as possible so it is readable at a distance on the scoreboard.  
   • Chart color and opacity: The hex color and opacity percent (0-100) for the bars in the chart.
   • Label color and opacity: The hex color and opacity percent (0-100) for the text keyword labels.
   • Data label color and opacity: The hex color and opacity percent (0-100) for the text percentages displayed on the bars..
   • Background color: The hex color of the background. This can be used in lieu of a background image or to avoid white edges appearing around the background image.
      
4. Click Save changes - when you are happy with the results.

5. Click Open landing page - to open the landing page in a new window at full size. This is the URL that will be used to display the results on the scoreboard.

Subscriber Opt-In Flow

After a fan participates in a poll, a follow up message is automatically sent to participants that are not already subscribed requesting that they opt-in to marketing messages by replying Y.

Here is what a not-yet subscribed fan will experience:

• Transactional Auto-Reply - Fan texts a keyword (e.g. BOGO) and is sent a Transactional Auto-Reply (e.g. “Thanks for voting!”).
• Opt-in Request - If the fan is not subscribed to marketing, they are sent a follow up message asking them to opt-in to receive marketing messages by replying Y.
• Welcome Journey - If the fan replies Y, they are opted-in and routed to a Welcome Journey.

Triggers

Custom Attributes

You can set an optional Custom Attribute for each user that participated in a poll within the Triggers menu. This attribute will be recorded as a "true" boolean value on each user’s profile.

To store a Custom Attribute for poll participants:

1. Check the ‘Store Custom Attribute’ checkbox
2. Enter the Custom Attribute name in the text box

Welcome Journey

Once a participant enters a poll, they receive a "Reply Y" request that initiates a Welcome Journey. Gametime allows you to trigger a Default Welcome Journey or a Custom Welcome Journey, described below.

Default Welcome Journey

Use this option if you want to use the same default welcome journey for all polls. 

If you select the option to trigger the Default Welcome Journey, Gametime will utilize a default sign-up method called 'API SURVEY SERVICE MARKETING en-US' within the Sign-up Units tab of the UI. This sign up method will trigger the default Welcome Journey. You can change the Welcome Journey associated with this default sign-up method by clicking the contextual menu on the right and choosing 'Reassign'.

Custom Welcome Journey

Use this option if you want to use a custom welcome journey for a poll.

You can do this by selecting the Custom Welcome Journey option.

In order to use this option, you must contact Support to create a new API sign up method. To expedite, please submit a mockup of your design along with your request.

Once the new sign up unit method has been created, and the Sign Up Unit Source ID has been retrieved:

1. Select the ‘Custom Welcome Journey’ radio button and enter the Sign-Up Source ID.
2. Create a Custom Welcome Journey.
3. Reassign the new API Sign-Up Source ID to the Custom Welcome Journey in the Sign-up Units tab.

Custom Event Journey

Gametime can be configured to trigger a Custom Event Journey when a user enters a poll. If enabled, the user will receive the standard OPEN Auto-Response (“Thanks for entering…”), and then the Custom Event Journey will be triggered. The Custom Event Journeys are typically used in a Sweepstakes use case where all users who enter receive a prize.

The Custom Event Journeys can be customized using all of the standard Journey controls and logic. For example, the Journey can be configured to add a delay before sending, or to send different messages to Transactional and Marketing subscribers.

To trigger a Custom Event after a user participates in a poll:

1. Create a custom app with Write access to Custom Events.
2. Copy the App ID from the URL of your Custom App, you’ll need this for later

3. Use your API key to send a test request to the Custom Events API to initialize the trigger in the UI. Set the event name by defining the ‘type’ parameter in your payload. If needed, you can use our API Testing Console.
4. After you have triggered the initial Custom Event above, you can begin creating the Custom Event Journey, by going to Journeys > Create > Start from scratch > [Custom Event Type].
5. When creating the Journey, you will have the option to create it as a Transactional Journey or a Marketing Journey.
   1. Notify subscribers about a transaction - Allows anyone who participated in the poll to enter the Journey. 
      NOTE: Transactional messages have strict requirements and cannot include any promotional content material. Reach out to your legal council or CSM for guidance on what these messages can include.
   2. Send a message about something else - Allows users who were existing subscribers to be entered to the Journey. If you are distributing a prize to new and existing subscribers, it is recommended you also add the incentive to the Welcome Journey for new subscribers.

6. After creating and activating your Custom Event Journey, return to the Triggers tab, check the "Trigger a custom event journey" checkbox and provide your previously saved App ID and Custom Event Type.
   

API

You can fetch poll results via API to use with a graphics package like XPression to render realtime results on a scoreboard. 

You'll need to generate an API Key for authentication with the Gametime API.

• Go to Settings > Marketplace > Create app.
• Set permissions to Polls: Read and click Create.
• Copy the API Key. This will be used as the Bearer Token in the Authorization header.

In Gametime Advanced tab, you'll find the Poll identifier and the curl request you can copy and paste to make an API request.

You can send an API Request via curl to fetch the poll results. You'll need to substitute the POLL_IDENTIFIER and API_KEY in the example below with the values described above.

curl --location 'https://api.attentivemobile.com/v1/polls/{POLL_IDENTIFIER}/results' \

--header 'Authorization: Bearer {API_KEY}'

The API response will look like this:

{
    "pollUuid": "7d760e2d-2369-4c5f-95b1-233bba3cbe49",
    "name": "Song Poll",
    "description": "Vote for the song you want to hear during half time!",
    "status": "Open",
    "keywordStats": [
        {
            "keyword": "A",
            "description": "Stayin' Alive",
            "count": 3,
            "percentage": 42.857142857142854,
            "formattedPercentage": "42"
        },
        {
            "keyword": "B",
            "description": "Disco Inferno",
            "count": 2,
            "percentage": 28.57142857142857,
            "formattedPercentage": "29"
        },
        {
            "keyword": "C",
            "description": "Dancing Queen",
            "count": 2,
            "percentage": 28.57142857142857,
            "formattedPercentage": "29"
        }
    ]
}

XPression configuration

To use the Gametime API with Xpression, configure XPression as follows.

In the Setting tab, enter the URL as shown in the curl example above (https://api.attentivemobile.com/v1/polls/{POLL_IDENTIFIER}/results)

In the HTTP Config tab, add a Custom Header named Authorization, and enter a value of Bearer {API_KEY}.

Reports

Gametime will display current and historical per-poll statistics in the Results tab.

Active Poll Results

Click the Results tab to monitor the number of incoming votes for the active poll. This includes:

• Keyword: A pie chart visualizing the total number and percentage of votes per keyword.
• Participants: Total number of participants, categorized by Marketing and Transactional subscribers
• Conversions: The total number and percentage of conversions (Participants who went on to opt-in)
  • Opt-in Requests Sent: The number of "Reply Y" requests sent to participants not yet subscribed to marketing.
  • New Subscribers: The number of participants who accepted marketing communications by replying "Y."

Note: Participants already subscribed to marketing are excluded from these calculations.

Historical Poll Results

To view past poll results, click 'Click Here To View More History.' You can also download these historical results as a CSV file.

Historical Opt-in Reports

You can also craft customized reports with Gametime data. Below is an example of how to create a custom report for Gametime Opt-ins per day.

Go to the Reports tab in the UI, and click the built-in Sign-up Units Performance report and customize it as follows then save it as a Saved Report. 

1. Click the Customize button, and enter the following:
   • Columns tab:
     • Group metrics by: None
     • Metrics: ‘SMS Subscribes’

• Filters tab:
  • By Sign-Up Unit Name: ‘API SURVEY SERVICE MARKETING en-US’

2. Click Update.
3. Set the Date range and Group by time as desired.
   
   
    
4. Click Save and name the custom report. It will then appear in the Saved reports tab.

Other

Audience

The Audience tab is designed for selecting and contacting random sweepstakes winners.

• Audience Size - The number of unique participants that participate in the poll.
• Download - Click to download a CSV listing the phone number of each participant. This should only be used for selecting a random winner and contacting them via phone or SMS. See How do I contact contest winners for more info.
• Manual Send - Use this option to send a Message to All participants of the poll. For example, to inform them that the sweepstakes has ended and a random winner will be notified separately.

Advanced

You can manage polls in the Advanced tab.

• Reset Poll: Use this to clear existing poll data for reuse. All data is saved and accessible in the Poll history under the results tab.
• Archive Poll - Hides the poll from the list. Use the ‘Include Archive’ Toggle to view archived polls. You can also restore this poll later.
• Clone Poll - Duplicates a poll, retaining its keywords, settings, messaging triggers, and landing page.

Troubleshooting

Open Poll 2 minutes beforehand

It takes a little while to spin up the Gametime Service to listen for keywords. Make sure to Open the Poll at least 2 minutes before prompting fans to participate to ensure that all of the incoming messages are processed.

How do I contact contest winners?

You can use Gametime to run a sweepstakes where all fans who participate are entered into a drawing to win a prize. Once the poll has ended (set to CLOSED or OFF) you can do the following to select and contact a random winner:

• Download the list of participants in CSV format from the Audience tab.
• Randomly select a phone number from that list.
• Contact the winner via phone or SMS using the Conversation Inbox.

Note: By default, the Conversation Inbox only allows you to send messages to Marketing subscribers. But Poll participants are not required to subscribe to marketing when entering a contest, so you may not have the ability to contact them in the Conversations Inbox. Please contact Support if you need to contact Gametime sweepstakes participants via the Conversations Inbox who are not subscribed to marketing.

Avoid reserved keywords

When selecting keywords (e.g. A, B, C) to use in Gametime, make sure it does not conflict with any of the following:

• Reserved keywords like YES, Y, STOP, START, HELP and SUPPORT. 
• Keywords that are in use by Conversational Journeys. These are typically 1, 2, 3 but could be anything.
• Keywords that are in use by Text-to-Join Welcome Journeys.
• Keywords that are in use by Text-a-Keyword Journeys.

Multiple Polls using the same Keyword

If multiple active polls are using the same keywords, it will lead to unpredictable results. An Active Poll is one that is either OPEN or CLOSED. If you have a scenario where two or more active Polls are using the same keywords, you’ll see a pink banner on the main Polls page informing you of the problem. However, that banner does not appear when viewing an individual poll, so you may be unaware of it when initially enabling a Poll. To solve this, turn one of the polls OFF, or use unique keywords across all active Polls.

Verify Welcome and Custom Event Journeys are Correctly Assigned

To ensure participants receive the opt-in reply, verify that a valid Sign-up Source ID from the Sign-up Units tab is entered and assigned to an active Welcome Journey.

Similarly, issues with participants receiving messages can stem from an incorrect App ID or Custom Event Type. Confirm that a valid App ID is used and that the Custom Event Type has been created. Since Custom Event Types are linked to specific App IDs, it is crucial to use the same App ID that was originally used to create the Custom Event Journey trigger.

Promotional vs Transactional Custom Event Journeys

The participants who receive messages in Custom Event Journeys vary depending on whether it is set as a Promotional or Transactional type. You can verify the Journey type in the top-left corner during editing. If an incorrect Journey type is selected, archive the existing Journey and create a new one, using the same trigger but with the correct Journey type.