The Business
Adler Mannheim is a world-class professional ice hockey team based in Mannheim, Germany. The team competes in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga (DEL), serving roughly 12,500 spectators per game, and its home arena is the SAP Arena in Mannheim. The city is often called “Hockey Town” due to its strong fanbase, and the team has won eight German championship titles. Adler Mannheim is ultimately focused on always scoring its most important goal: making its fans happy.
Additionally, this leading entertainment brand demonstrates its commitment to the future of the sport, both through its youth performance club, Jungadler Mannheim, and through ongoing sustainability and social responsibility practices.
The Challenge
The Adler Mannheim brand has gradually infused SAP throughout its business operations since 1998. “We consider ourselves the tech lab for SAP,” explained Alexander König, Sales and Marketing Director.
Adler already had in place SAP Commerce Cloud for e-commerce merchandise and ticketing integration which had proven to be a critical component to their customer experience strategy. Yet a key element was still missing: Adler needed a way to understand fan engagement at a detailed level to help guide fans to the optimal experience. The marketing team also desired a clear understanding of the lifetime value of its fans in order to better optimize marketing budget and predict revenue.
The goal? Adler’s objective is that communications will no longer be seen as marketing, but as incrementally added value for every fan.
The Solution
Adler Mannheim’s vision is to deliver highly personalized communication with the broader goal of increasing fan lifetime value. So in 2024, Adler Mannheim added SAP Cloud ERP and SAP Engagement Cloud to its suite of SAP solutions.
Adler Mannheim uses SAP Engagement Cloud for insights into data, including ticketing, shopping cart, loyalty, thanks to seamless integrations with SAP Commerce, Cloud ERP, Analytics Cloud, the Fan App, and other sources. With this connected fan data available, Engagement Cloud delivers highly personalized messaging, via automated campaigns throughout the fan lifecycle. This foundational network of data helps ensure the Adler fan experience is tangible and rewarding at every touchpoint across channels, including every moment from communications to offers, purchases, and beyond.
"We were already very advanced in rolling out our SAP products across the company — including the ticketing system, the SAP Commerce Cloud for merchandise, and the Adler Fan App. So it was a natural next step to find a product that, together with these tools, also enables individualized communication. For us that product was SAP Engagement Cloud.”
Making AI-powered predictions for future ticket sales
One of the most important revenue metrics for Adler Mannheim is, of course, ticket sales. The brand’s other revenue streams (concessions, apparel, etc.) are heavily impacted by how many fans attend games. In the past, the marketing team had no method to predict future ticket sales, and at times the team devoted marketing budget to campaigns based on gut feelings about how ticket sales were progressing.
Now, by working toward AI-powered predictive analytics, the marketing team aims to develop a more evidence-based estimate for future ticket sales, particularly toward the end of the sales period. This added layer of predictability and confidence empowers the marketing team to devote budget and resources more strategically, rather than expending effort based on guesswork. When the predicted ticket sales don’t met expectations, the marketing team adds campaigns such as mailings, social media, retargeting, and special offers.
Driving AI-powered Fan App experiences to drive loyalty
Adler built a mobile app together with SAP, and through it the marketing team helps to guide the perfect fan journey over a whole game day. Everything a fan does to engage with Adler can be done with the app, including ticketing, being social with other fans, and using location-based services.
With the addition of SAP Engagement Cloud, the marketing team has begun using ticketing data to make selected communications more relevant for fans attending specific games. Additionally, the app supports mobile payment system, which fans can use without even requiring a credit card. The app also supports sales history and tracks accumulated rewards, rewarding fans for their loyalty.
“From information to buying tickets on site, everything is integrated there [in the app] — even mobile payment,” said Rainer. “So it’s not just merchandise and ticket purchases, but all the way to the bratwurst and the beer.”
“Push notifications in the app are becoming an increasingly important communication tool. As we continue connecting ticketing and engagement data, we will be able to create more relevant emotional connections with fans before and after each game."
Delivering relevant mobile engagement based on ticketing data
Before implementing SAP Engagement Cloud, the Adler marketing team used push mail to drive engagement with fans at the stadium during live games. However, the downside was that these messages were pushed to all fans using the app, causing friction for fans who weren’t in attendance.
Now Adler uses ticketing data transferred from the ERP system to deliver focused marketing communications. If a fan has a valid ticket, Adler knows they are in the arena and can send highly relevant, situation-based communication without relying on location tracking. “We can say ‘every person who is in this area gets a push news, and so that makes it much easier to communicate or to advertise the deal of the day,” said Alexander.
“We want to build the community with the loyalty system, but not only money-wise. It's about money-can't-buy things. We want to establish a real connection, real loyalty. The basis for that is one-to-one communication. I'm completely convinced about that. You have to know the fans as well as possible, as intensely as possible to establish this connection and to earn this loyalty.”
Making the news: Adler enhanced its fan newsletters with AI
The Adler marketing department was running multiple newsletters for fans, such as a general newsletter for Adler, one for season ticket holders, another for the events and VIP department, etc. “We had many, many silos in our environment,” said Rainer Adolf, Leader CRM & Ticketing for SAP Arena and Adler Mannheim. “For us, it was crucial to be able to leverage these synergies in the end and bring everything together.”
With SAP Engagement Cloud, Adler automates and personalizes each newsletter to enhance the fan experience. For instance, season ticket holders will receive special discounts for merchandise. The marketing team uses templates that include AI-driven product recommendations, and the team uses the AI-powered Subject Line generate to rapidly ideate and draft subject lines right in the solution.
As a result, the newsletter has become a direct revenue driver with predictable outcomes based on conversion rates.
“We can see that the more we personalize our newsletters and our communication, the better the feedback is,” said Alexander.
Impact
With the implementation of SAP Engagement Cloud, Adler Mannheim has not only moved away from generalized, “one-size-fits-all” campaigns to create more personalized messaging, but the team has also successfully automated many merchandising communications through e-commerce integrations infused with AI. What used to be tedious labor is now largely automation and data-driven with the power of a connected engagement foundation across SAP Engagement Cloud, SAP Commerce, Cloud ERP, Event Ticketing, and Analytics Cloud
Adler Mannheim has successfully…
- Unified fan data for actionable results: Combines insights from ticketing, merchandise, mobile apps, and CRM into a single view–making their data actionable in new, innovative ways.
- Personalized messaging: Enables targeted outreach via email, app, or SMS—before, during, and after games.
- Automated the customer lifecycle: Delivers relevant content based on fan behavior, such as welcome messages or loyalty rewards.
- Orchestrated omnichannel engagement: Bridges digital and in-arena experiences to drive deeper loyalty and higher ticket sales.
More targeted communications with fans have had a direct positive impact on ticketing and merchandise revenue, and game days have shown higher spending across onsite merchandising and catering.
Going forward, the marketing team plans to continue building anticipation and loyalty at every stage of the fan lifecycle, which will help fulfill Adler Mannheim’s vision of being Germany’s ice hockey capital. Additionally, Adler intends to expand its AI capabilities with SAP AI agents and Joule.