Data-led audience initiatives & advanced content strategy

Introduction

South Africa Rugby and digital partner Wasserman came to InCrowd with the overarching goal to close the commercial gap with other major international Rugby organisations by 2027, of which this project plays an important role. SA Rugby's primary goal was to develop and implement a digital transformation strategy to unlock future commercial opportunities, drive deeper and more direct fan relationships, and ultimately increase sponsorship revenue via digital channels.

InCrowd and SA Rugby closely collaborated to develop a phased approach to this project, ensuring we had full insight of the current data landscape of South Africa Rugby and a strategic, commercial driven plan to take forward.

Delivery

Content Audit

In order to better understand the SA Rugby digital landscape and make recommendations to lay the foundations for growth, we ran a comprehensive audit of content output across all SA Rugby digital channels, looking at planning, frequency, engagement and realised and unrealised commercial opportunity. Post audit report, we also ran a gap analysis, highlighting the areas of improvements and opportunities before suggesting a strategic direction for the positioning of the content to drive engagement and hit SA Rugby’s commercial objectives.

Data Audit

It was recognised that SA Rugby had multiple, disparate sources of first-party data, none of which were consolidated into a central repository. Ahead of formulating a data strategy, we undertook a data audit to evaluate how SA Rugby data was being captured and utilised, and understand data sources, quality, and availability ahead of focusing on data growth.

We also reviewed data utilisation, recognising multiple communication channels to fans but also identifying a disconnect between these channels and under-utilisation of data to deliver a truly connected and personalised fan experience.

Data Strategy

Building on the findings from the data audit, we have developed a data strategy with the aim of integrating audience data into the commercial framework of SA Rugby, with a vision to enhance fan engagement and commercial outcomes.

Key components include establishing guiding principles for data collection and management, as well as providing concrete, tactical advice on how to convert fans from "unknown" to "known" by gathering their information.

The strategy also focused on mapping out user journeys to ensure that once a fan's data is captured, they also become actively engaged with SA Rugby content. To measure success, the plan defined clear, measurable KPIs for both the short and long term results tracking.

Data Warehouse, Data Platform, Single Fan View and Single Sign-On

This process began with Scope Alignment & Project Setup, where the project's goals, timelines, and resources are agreed as well as identification of all relevant data sources. This is followed by the Ingestion & Modelling phase, the technical phase in which fan data from various sources is collected, standardised, and structured into a usable format.

The core of the project is implementing Single Fan View, Fan Data Platform & Audience Builder products from technology partner Cortex, which consolidates this data into a comprehensive profile for each fan and provides tools to enable fast querying of the data and the creation of targeted audience segments for marketing.

Another essential step is the implementation of a Single Sign-On (SSO) solution, positioned in front of Ticketmaster to ensure seamless data flow into the Fan Data Platform (FDP). By integrating this with a Single Fan View, we can continue to consolidate disparate data sources; this initiative is central to our shared goal of centralising fan accounts, providing a unified user experience across all of SA Rugby’s digital platforms.

Integration of email service provider, DotDigital

Dot Digital serves as the market-leading Email Service Provider (ESP) recommended by InCrowd and leveraged by SA Rugby for their email and SMS campaigns. A critical feature of this integration is the seamless, two-way sync between DotDigital and the SA Rugby Fan Data Platform (FDP). This integration is the foundation for advanced audience engagement, enabling automated segmentation using data points from the FDP's Audience Builder tool. By scaling campaign deployments and leveraging features like A/B testing and AI recommendations, SA Rugby can ensure hyper-personalised messaging, resulting in actionable engagement data fed back into the FDP, driving continuous insight and optimisation.

Ongoing measurement and optimisation

As SA Rugby began to implement this strategy, with a new data infrastructure in place, it was crucial to establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to ensure that progress was being tracked and the impact on the organisation measured and understood, allowing us to make recommendations for further optimisation. We developed a solid KPI framework against which we work with SA Rugby to benchmark progress, with monthly and quarterly reporting, ensuring an understanding throughout the organisation of where the focus should be, and on what steps are required to ultimately deliver against their goals and ambitions.

In addition, we have set future goals, particularly around data density of records. Having consolidated data to generate an 208% increase in known opt-ins across the database, we will next work with SA Rugby to build even richer fan profiles and activate audiences across a more connected digital ecosystem.

Website development and launch

Confirmed in September 2025, InCrowd will be working with SA based agency PlanetSport to design, build and deliver a new website and membership platform for SA Rugby to level up their digital ecosystem and continue to support their commercial ambitions. Working collaboratively as one team, we will take lead on an in-depth discovery & definition process, with PlanetSport running point on web, membership and potential future app build. We will also be providing ongoing strategy and implementation support from our Managed Marketing team and Digital Platforms specialists. Watch this space!