Outside of the U.S., Android is the most widely adopted mobile operating system (OS) by a long shot. According to Airship’s decade-plus analysis of notification opt-in rates and their downstream impact on app engagement and retention, Android’s move has serious ramifications for brands.

In this blog, we go further into those ramifications and then suggest what you should do about them. 

The Challenge for Brands
Last quarter, medium-performing apps on iOS averaged a 51.6% opt-in rate, according to Airship’s platform data. In contrast, Android apps in the 50th percentile saw an average opt-in rate of 80.3%. This substantial difference has been relatively consistent for years, during which time Android opt-ins were by default and users were required to navigate to OS settings to opt-out.

Similar to other permissions, such as location or microphone access, apps on Android 13 must now serve a system prompt to solicit notification permission. Without modification by the brand, this prompt will display when an app is first opened. This will be a challenge for brands because users won’t yet have an idea of the value of the app or its notifications. It’s akin to meeting someone for the first time and immediately asking them out on a date.

What Brands Need to Do Now
In response to Android’s shift from its default opt-out experience to an opt-in model, brands should follow the 6 best practices below to protect and grow the value of their Android app audience.

1. App publishers should immediately implement Airship’s latest SDK 

Given the substantial hit brands are taking with the default opt-out, it’s all the more important that they implement the Airship SDK to maximize engagement with customers.

Once someone has downloaded your app, there are many experiences vital to sustaining their engagement and growing app loyalty. The Airship App Experience Platform (AXP) goes far beyond message-centric approaches, enabling product, digital and marketing teams to create, adapt and publish no-code native app experiences on their own — without ongoing developer support or app updates. New innovations give business users full control to rapidly onboard app audiences, build first-party and zero-party data collection, and accelerate monetization goals.

2. Modify the timing of Android’s system permission prompt

Android 13 gives apps total control of when and where the opt-in system dialog can be displayed, which means that brands can decide when and where they want to trigger it. However, once a user selects “Don’t Allow,” that prompt cannot be triggered again. Apps that are targeted to earlier versions of Android will also need to manage this prompt once users’ devices are on Android 12 or 13. Therefore, it’s vital for brands to think carefully about when and where to ask users for their permission to send notifications.

Users should have an opportunity to familiarize themselves with your app first so they can understand the value that notifications could bring them. You also don’t want to dissuade your users by sending a lot of notifications too quickly. 

Users opted in to notifications prior to Android 13 will have notification permissions pre-granted upon updating to Android 13. Similarly, users tapping “Don’t Allow” on a notification opt-in prompt from apps that are not yet targeting Android 13 will be opted out and can’t be served the system prompt again until the app is updated to target Android 13.

3. Create an onboarding tutorial flow and make Android’s system dialog subservient to it

A thoughtfully curated onboarding flow is a great way to showcase your app to users, while also demonstrating the value of notifications and encouraging users to opt in. AXP Scenes allows you to create a rich and interactive multi-screen onboarding experience, including the ability to request user permission for notifications. Ideally, you should serve the Android system prompt only to users clicking “Yes” within the onboarding flow, making most of the one time you are able to serve it. You can measure, assess and continually adapt AXP Scenes, all without developer support or app updates.

4. Give users granular choices for the types of notifications they will receive

In your onboarding flow, reinforce for users the fact that they will have total control over the types of messages they receive. Describe the various types of potential notifications so they can decide which ones they would value the most. 

AXP Preference Center, a critical component of the Airship App Experience Platform (AXP), can allow your non-technical teams to continually modify the types of choices offered to users to encourage more relevant communications and allow for opting down rather than the full opt-out. We surveyed 9,000 global consumers and found that the top reasons people opt out of notifications are that they are too frequent or the messages were not personally relevant. Furthermore, users are more likely to remain opted in if they have control over the reason, frequency and channels.

5. Continually look for the right moment to request opt-in within the user’s context

Given the out-sized impact notifications have on app user engagement and retention, brands may be tempted to ask new users to opt in right away. A better approach is to ensure that they understand the value of opting in before you make the ask.

For instance, a media company might serve a tailored opt-in request after users have read 3-4 articles on a specific topic, while a retail brand might decide to serve the opt-in request after a user has added items to their wish list or viewed a couple of products within a category. With AXP Scenes, you can create an opt-in explainer with options “Yes,” “No” or “Maybe Later.” This will give you the opportunity to follow up with the “Maybe Later” group at a later time and serve the one-time system prompt to those who say “Yes.”

6. Use all the tools in your arsenal and don’t give up

Getting users to opt in to notifications from your brand is a challenging task, but remember that you can send highly targeted in-app messages and in-app inbox messages to users without requiring opt-ins. It’s the perfect opportunity to remind them of the value of opting into notifications that can reach them proactively outside the app experience, particularly when it’s things like delivery notifications, airline gate changes, subscriptions set to auto renew or a whole host of items the user would want to know right away. Even if they’ve previously selected “Don’t Allow” from Android’s system prompt, you can deep-link them directly to OS settings to enable the opt-in.

Airship supports Android 13 on Day 1 via our updated Android SDK 16.6.0. Now is a good time to get it, not only due to Android’s permission changes, but for the no-code native experiences we now power, that enable app teams to be much more agile and successful.

Contact us to learn how you can create the best onboarding experience for your users. Remember, serving the standard system prompt to “opt-in” your users to notifications is significantly easier for them than being deep-linked to settings later. First impressions matter, so make them count!

The post Brands on Notice with Android 13 Default Opt-out appeared first on Airship.

3 months, 

517,000 new web notification opt-ins

96% retention rate 

McDonald’s France was looking to increase engagement with app customers, while increasing the number of returning customers. It had already introduced web push notifications on its website and launched numerous sporadic campaigns – for example, announcing the new McBaguette – but engagement levels continued to decline. 

Based on performance insights and first-hand knowledge of industry benchmarks, Airship’s client services team worked closely with McDonald’s France to strategize turning engagement levels around. The strategy consisted of the following: 

1. Create a perfectly timed Welcome series: automate a multi-touch web push notification series launched within an hour of opt-in to deliver an optimal click-through rate and ultimately, conversions. 
2. Segment customer journeys: tag individuals to audience segments to increase relevance of communication.
3. Target specific segments: target the least responsive audience segments with re-engagement messages, informing customers about their top product offers of the day.

By implementing the new strategy, McDonald’s France achieved a 10% higher engagement rate than previous non-automated and non-personalized campaigns. During the first three months, McDonald’s reached 517,000 web notification opt-ins, 96% of whom continued as subscribers through the end of the time period.

Read the full case study here

Airship Client Services is the on-the-ground team that works closely every day with brands to:

• Coordinate communications between brands and cross-functional teams at Airship
• Gain a deeper understanding of business objectives and help brands meet them
• Provide guidance and insights on best practices, new product features and implementation options 

Get in touch today. 

Check out our recent blog posts for the latest thinking on creating more value for your brand and customers at every phase of the customer app lifecycle.

The post How Airship Supported McDonald’s France to Drive Communication Opt-Ins and Retention appeared first on Airship.

Apple’s iOS 14.5 update offers more choice when it comes to users’ privacy. But it means big changes for advertisers, brands and their mobile apps. That’s because until now, they relied on Apple’s Identifier for Advertiser (IDFA) to track iOS users’ cross-app activity to better target and re-target digital ad campaigns, and attribute conversion events to ad spend. However, with its latest update, the world’s second most popular OS requires apps to explicitly ask user permission to track their activity across other companies’ apps and websites, allowing people to opt out at the app level or through settings at the device level.

It’s a major shift that reflects changing consumer preferences around data privacy. When Apple announced these changes, experts were unsure just how big of an impact this might have on advertisers. However, after the update rolled out, one analysis found that only 6% of U.S. users have opted-in. Even if this figure creeps up over time, it’s clear that brands must adapt their approach to mobile app acquisition, leaning much more heavily on engagement and retention to learn about and effectively serve their iOS customers. 

Here are four key areas to focus on as you adapt your mobile strategy for iOS 14.5.

Product Teams Must Put on their UA Hats

Previously, app User Acquisition (UA) teams relied on the IDFA to zero in on a highly targeted audience to drive to their mobile apps via ad networks like Facebook. Now, without the benefit of the IDFA, UA teams will bring a higher volume of less targeted users into the app. In response, app product teams will need to do more of the work that UA teams used to do. That means redoubling efforts to build a great User Experience (UX). It also means leveraging technology within the app to understand, segment and target your audience with the right messages and customer journeys to effectively monetize the app.

Optimize Onboarding and In-App Marketing

A great app onboarding experience was already essential to a positive UX. Now it’s even more valuable, serving as a crucial touchpoint for identifying customer preferences and behaviors (zero-party and first-party data) in-app. That customer understanding is fundamental to segmenting the most valuable users into the right journeys—guiding them both inside and outside of the app.

The key is to strike a balance between providing value for customers and collecting data that empowers you to create more precisely targeted and relevant experiences. For example, by:

• Educating users about the app and the benefits of opting-in for push notifications, which drives 3X higher 90-day retention rates on average
• Leveraging the app to opt users in to email for re-engagement
• Making it easy for users to tell you their preferences and information about themselves

Those customer insights allow you to follow on with targeted and personalized email, SMS and push notifications that are more likely to deliver results.

And it’s not just about onboarding. Your product teams should also leverage in-app engagement at each stage of the customer lifecycle to better understand customer needs, segment, and reach them with relevant, personalized and engaging messages.

Prioritize In-App Experimentation 

Robust experimentation and testing within the app is exponentially more important in this new environment. Brands will need to use ongoing testing (A/B, multivariate, and programmatic testing) to help optimize essential touchpoints like onboarding and checkout flows, as well as recommendation algorithms, ensuring a great experience for users that also drives toward your business goals. 

Our Apptimize experimentation platform can help, allowing marketers and product teams to run powerful tests within Airship. With robust segmentation and A/B testing, you can identify and reach the best users to monetize through in-app purchases or even purchases of physical goods through the app.

Keep Users Engaged with Event-Triggered Journeys

Once you’ve identified and segmented those high-value cohorts, you need to keep them coming back to the app and lead them toward your goals. In-app events and milestones like an opt-in or a first purchase provide a perfect launching point for contextual, personalized messages that mean more to customers. In fact, customers are up to 5X more likely to respond to event-triggered messages!  

Airship’s next generation solutions provide the tools you need to keep customers engaged with highly targeted, event-triggered customer journeys. With Airship, you can segment customers based on tags, lists, attributes, and custom events in the app, and trigger intelligent Airship Journeys across your customers’ preferred channels. 

For example, if they don’t complete a specific onboarding screen in the app, you can automatically orchestrate an email and SMS journey that drives them back to the app and toward the next milestone. You can also use features like Airship’s predictive AI to trigger messaging that re-engages customers who are likely to churn. That’s a win for customers, who demand a truly personalized experience. It’s also a win for brands working to adapt to iOS 14.5.

Conclusion

There’s no doubt that Apple’s new OS changes the mobile engagement equation for brands, who must adapt their mobile strategy for iOS 14.5, and their app product teams, who must take on more of the work previously led by UA. However, the good news is that even in a post-IDFA world, you can still build great experiences that provide value for your customers and empower your brand to effectively monetize your app. 

Let’s connect

Is Your Mobile Strategy ready for iOS14.5?

Contact us today!

The post How to Adapt your Mobile Strategy for iOS 14.5 appeared first on Airship.

To help you increase app retention and engagement — and of course, ROI — we’ve pulled together 7 mobile engagement statistics from Airship’s benchmark reports and various studies. Use these stats to enhance your mobile marketing strategy and watch as your app engagement and KPIs improve!

1. If you’re not already sending push notifications, starting now could increase app retention by 190%.

According to our app retention study, brands that aren’t currently sending push notifications can increase their 90-day app retention by 190% by using push messages today! Stay top of mind, increase conversions and drive customers back to your app with timely and relevant messages. Airship’s automation and AI make it easier than ever to keep your mobile app users engaged and prevent churn.

2. Send push notifications to new app users within 90 days — or risk wasting 95 cents of every dollar you spent acquiring them.

If you’re not sending push notifications to your opted-in users you could be wasting 95% of your acquisition spend. Yet in a benchmark study of more than 200 apps, we found that 30% of Android users and 15% of iOS users didn’t receive any push notifications in the 90 days after their first open. Of those users, only 5% continued to use the app in the 90 days after the first open. That’s a huge missed opportunity that brands simply cannot ignore!

3. Work to get the opt-in: users opted in to push notifications are retained at nearly 2x the rate of those who aren’t.

Getting app users opted-in to receive push notifications gives you a leg up on retention, with app retention rates for iOS that are nearly double those of users who have opted out. To see how your opt-in rates against your competitors, check out our 2021 Push Notifications and Mobile Engagement Benchmark Report and don’t miss this blog post with 10 tips for getting the opt-in.

4. Sending high value notifications can increase app retention rates by 3-10x.

Sending some push notifications is better than sending none, according to our analysis. The key is to avoid over-messaging your customers, while also identifying which high value notifications will keep them engaged. Use our Push Notifications and Mobile Engagement 2021 Benchmark Report to see how your message frequency stacks up against the competition. For some inspiration to shape your next high value messages, check out our guide to the types of push notifications that you almost certainly should be sending.

5. Try rich push notifications — your direct open rates could increase by up to 56%!

Rich push notifications leverage the power of pictures, GIFs, videos and audio to engage app users. Airship data reveals that rich notifications with images have a 56% higher direct open rate. And brands like USA Today, NCAA and Dinda all use rich notifications to generate higher performance over their regular push notifications. Download our Rich Notifications Inspiration Guide for ideas on how you can use rich media in your next push notification. 

6. If you’re not delivering a personalized experience, 52% of consumers would consider switching brands. 

Personalized mobile messages are crucial to customer experience in 2021 and push notifications are no exception. Consumers demand personalized and contextual messages because they provide more value. In fact, 77% have chosen, recommended or paid more for a brand that provides a personalized service or experience. And more than half of consumers say they’d switch brands if they didn’t feel they were receiving a personalized experience.

7. Combine push notifications with a Message Center message to increase read rates up to 2x.  

Message Center is your BFF when it comes to engaging your most valuable customers, with unparalleled ability to reach app users. By combining a push notification with a message in Message Center, you’re doubling the chances that users will read it. Get our Message Center Inspiration Guide to explore some of the ways your brand could use Message Center to improve app engagement. 

Want to get started with personalized, contextual mobile messaging for your app users? Or see what types of messaging can increase mobile engagement outside your app? Contact us anytime — we’d love to help!

The post 7 Mobile Engagement Stats that Show How Push Notifications Boost ROI appeared first on Airship.

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, wordy Polonius stated, “brevity is the soul of wit.” Paraphrasing for mobile, the essence of an engaging message lies in its concise wording and delivery. Or, brevity = wit.

So, what is the ideal mobile app push notification length for capturing customer attention while driving engagement and conversions? This post provides guidelines and best practices for mobile marketers. 

Read on for more info, and be sure to download our Push Notifications & Mobile Engagement Benchmark Report for additional insights to help elevate your mobile engagement strategy.

The Ideal Length

Push notifications offer big benefits for brands and consumers, driving app engagement and keeping customers in the loop with information they care about. However, wordy messages without clear value rarely perform well. That’s why it’s imperative to get straight to the point with a succinct message that offers real value to customers. 

While the maximum allowed message length varies on iOS and Android devices, as a general rule we recommend trying to get the most important, actionable part of your message across in the first 40 characters. This ensures it’s optimally displayed across most devices and operating systems, without truncating essential information.

Of course, there are caveats. Some brands and verticals may find that customers respond better to even shorter, or in some cases, somewhat longer messages. When in doubt, try A/B testing your messages to see what works best for your customers.

Benefit + Action in <40 Characters

Creating succinct, impactful notifications that provide useful information sounds like common sense. But it can be challenging to pull off.

Here’s what concise messages around 40 characters look like:

• Retail: “Members only: 20% off shoes. Shop now!”
• News: “BREAKING: DC homicide suspect in custody.”
• Travel: “CHANGE: Flt 39 departing from gate C2.”

As you can see, those 40 characters add up fast! But with a little practice, and wit, you can craft short messages that mean more to customers. 

Another way to drive action in this limited real estate is through action buttons. With Airship, you can add up to two action buttons to App notifications to help users engage. App notifications support one or two buttons, such as a single Watch Now button or a Yes/No pair. 

Furthermore, don’t overlook the impact of media rich push notifications. An Airship analysis found that rich push notifications can increase direct open rates by up to 56%!

How Operating Systems Impact Your Mobile Message

There are several key differences in how iOS and Android operating systems handle push notification length, opt-ins, media and appearance.

Opt-Ins

Our analysis of more than 600 billion push notifications confirmed that average Android opt-in rates remain significantly higher than iOS. That’s because on iOS, people must explicitly opt into receiving app notifications — they’re asked to do so the first time they use an app. Whereas on Android, users by default are not asked to opt-in explicitly, so they’ll be automatically opted-in when you enable app notifications.

Length

Both Android and iOS have guidelines that can truncate notifications so that they fit in each notification delivery style.

• iOS For both iOS lock screen and Notification Center, the iOS byte limit provides space for roughly 4 lines of text.
• Android push notifications are restricted to 1 line of approximately 50 characters max displayed on the lock screen. However, with an expandable message you can include around 8 lines of text.

These guidelines are a great reference for crafting your message. But you should always test, test, test! With so many different device sizes and OS updates, it’s important to test to ensure your content will fit the devices you’re targeting.

Key Elements & Display

• Android mobile app push notifications include icons, app name, timestamp, title, text and action buttons. Notifications appear to users in different locations and formats, such as an icon in the status bar, a more detailed entry in the notification drawer, a notification dot on the app’s icon, and on paired wearables automatically. Users can also turn sound or vibration on/off for notifications or for categories of notifications related to an app directly from the Notification Center.
• iOS mobile app push notifications include the app’s default icon and app name, a title, text, an image, GIF, sound or video, and action buttons. On iOS, people see notifications on the lock screen, at the top of the screen while using the device, and in Notification Center. users manage notification behavior on an app-by-app basis. For example, turning an app’s notifications on or off, allow notifications to be visible in Notification Center and on the lock screen, enable app icon badging, and choose from the banner or alert notification styles.

Taken as a whole, it’s somewhat complicated, which is why we recommend focusing on brevity, clarity and actionable content that delivers value to your customers.

Mobile Messaging Best Practices

To ensure your message is optimally communicated across all of your customers’ devices follow these best practices:

• Make your messages short
• Frontload what’s important
• A/B test your messages
• Test on the devices that the majority of your audience use
• Use rich push notifications 
• Hot tip! Consider using emojis, which are a great way to save space and get users’ attention

Maybe, in our modern day context, brevity = successful mobile messaging instead … which is still under 40 characters. We wonder what Polonius would think of that!

Elevate Your Mobile Push Notification Engagement Strategy with Airship

Download the 2021 benchmark report: Push Notifications & Mobile Engagement for essential benchmarks to help you assess and refine your approach, and answer questions like:

• How do my app’s mobile engagement rates compare to those of my industry peers?
• What’s the delta between medium and top performers?
• How does message response vary by mobile Operating System?

Download today!

The post Brevity = Wit: The Ideal Push Notification Length appeared first on Airship.

Order Confirmation

Personalized SMS and email messages are no-brainers for order confirmations and pickup details. But if you want to build a next level experience, try delivering personalized Mobile Wallet passes via email or SMS. Wallet passes make it easier for customers to keep track of their orders. And they tend to hang onto those passes, giving you another way to stay engaged! You’ll also want to encourage app downloads and opt-ins so that customers can take advantage of BOPIS 2.0 features like arrival detection and live in-app chat.

Pre-Pickup

Next, leverage location to create a more seamless pickup experience for customers and staff with Airship’s integration with Radar. Radar’s trip tracking functionality lets you track an order and a trip to a store for order-ahead and send events to Airship when a customer is on the way, approaching and arriving. With Airship, those events can be used in real-time to trigger personalized messages that provide incredible value to both customers and brands. 

For example, when a customer is close to a store, send an automated push notification with pickup information. Or launch a Live Chat opportunity with an agent who can help answer questions and provide details about the order or pickup process. Plus, these events are surfaced in existing in-store systems or a turnkey Radar dashboard, enabling staff to start prepping the order at the right time, cutting down on wait times and improving CX. 

On-premise

Once a customer arrives, whether they’re collecting a BOPIS order or just browsing, use geofencing to drive on-premise Mobile App and Mobile Wallet engagement. Send a personalized SMS message to encourage them to download your app or sign up for your loyalty program. Target push notifications with special offers, loyalty features and information that drives more app opens. Or use purchase history to upsell or add on products during order fulfillment.

Post-Pickup

The post-pickup period offers a wealth of often underutilized opportunities to engage and upsell. Improve CX through helpful follow up messaging with assembly instructions or prep details. Use in-app, SMS and email driven surveys to understand customer sentiment. Create a lasting connection by updating Mobile Wallet passes with coupons and offers after orders are picked up. And drive continuous engagement by orchestrating personalized post-purchase Airship Journeys to upsell, cross sell and drive repeat purchases. 

With Airship’s customer engagement platform and Radar’s location solutions, you can create seamless end-to-end experiences that customers love, driving store traffic, building long-term relationships and more. To learn more about how Airship can help power a winning BOPIS experience for your brand, contact us today!

LET’S CONNECT

Want to Build Better BOPIS Experiences?

Contact us today!

The post How to Build Better BOPIS Experiences with Airship + Radar appeared first on Airship.

We sat down with Scott Dargis, NBC Sports’ Manager of Mobile Notifications, at our Elevate event. He revealed how NBC Sports has been able to keep people engaged during a wild year. 

Here are three lessons from NBC Sports’ strategy.

Test Your Notifications as Much as Possible

When you send notifications, you want them to feel organic. Importantly, you don’t want users to feel like something’s being pushed on them. To find a healthy balance between the two, NBC Sports A/B tested a wide variety of notifications. 

The result: NBC found that “tease” type notifications—messages that provide users with a nugget of the content within, but not the whole story—performed the best. These cliffhanger-style notifications have helped NBC Sports keep their direct open rates strong.

In testing, the NBC team found that notifications with emojis in the subject line outperformed those without. One or two emojis was the sweet spot for engagement. Icons, graphics, and other rich notification elements encouraged better engagement as well.

NBC Sports also gave their writers more control over the voice and tone of messages, particularly for individual team content. Personalizing team content in this way helps NBC Sports keep their notifications relevant and relatable.

Insight: Experiment with notification approaches and understand that your users want to see something interesting. Personalize whenever you can, and always give users a reason to engage.

Reconsider How Many Notifications You’re Sending

If people feel bombarded with notifications that they don’t find interesting, they’ll tune out. NBC Sports realized this when the pandemic hit. Because live sports were mostly shut down, their volume of notifications decreased — and so did their app uninstalls and opt-outs.

Now, NBC Sports uses a careful, analytics-backed approach to notifications. They segment their users with lists and groupings according to league divisions, common fanbases, and more. This way, NBC is able to send fewer notifications —and the ones that they do send feel more personal.

Insight: Focus on what you’re sending, not how many notifications you’re sending. If you can find a way to send fewer notifications and accomplish the same goals, do that.

Timing Is Important 

NBC Sports learned that when they send their notifications can be nearly as important as what they’re sending. People want to receive notifications at times when they’re interested in interacting with that content. NBC found that, for their app, lunch and dinner times (early afternoon and mid-evening) worked best.

It makes sense: People want to watch sports when they’ve got free time. As sports fans are scrolling through their phone at lunch or after dinner, they’re often looking for something to watch. NBC Sports capitalizes on this by sending timely messages during the periods when their users are most active.

Insight: Look at the analytics and figure out when your users want to receive notifications. Try to send your important notifications during that time frame.

The Bottom Line

2020 forced NBC Sports to reevaluate their strategy. They’ve emerged on the other side with an even more effective framework for sending customers notifications that they truly want to see. If you want to learn more about how Airship’s Push Notification platform can help your business, click the button below to get in touch. 

Let’s connect

Airship’s platform can help with customer retention.

Contact us today!

The post 3 Lessons from NBC Sports’ Mobile Retention Strategy appeared first on Airship.

Belk has primarily used three strategies to reimagine their mobile experience: behavioral targeting, loyalty program personalization, and an in-app message center. Here’s how they executed each.

Behavioral Targeting

Belk realized that sending one-size-fits-all notifications wasn’t working. Customers who shop for men’s clothing don’t want notifications about dresses and people buying fragrances don’t want notifications about boots. So, Belk switched to a behavioral targeting strategy. 

The premise is simple: Serve customers notifications that fit their shopping preferences. If they spend lots of time browsing a beauty page, they might get an in-app notification offering a fragrance promotion. This strategy helps customers feel like their app experience is tailored to them–which, in turn, can boost conversion and average order value (AOV).

Insight: Generic notifications can create a bad experience for the customer. Use straightforward behavioral targeting to boost conversion rate and make your customers feel more at home.

Loyalty Program Personalization

Belk doesn’t stop with straightforward behavioral targeting. They also have a credit card-based loyalty program, which they use to tailor notifications to individual customers. 

Here’s how it works: Belk has three different credit card loyalty tiers. As customers progress up each tier, the incentives improve and points accumulate faster. By doing this, Belk encourages customers to get increasingly involved with their rewards program. This is how Belk approaches loyalty-based notifications:

• Credit card holders and loyalty customers get personalized push notifications. These will remind customers that they have points to redeem and rewards to claim.
• These push notifications are automated. At first, Belk did things manually. But, using Airship’s attributes system, they automated the process.
• These notifications are segmented as much as possible. By hyper-targeting users, Belk was able to increase total opens by 48%.

Insight: Better segmentation, whether in-app or via push notifications, leads to more opens and more sales. Try incentivizing your customers with tiered rewards programs or targeted promos.

In-App Message Center

Belk’s new in-app message center has been invaluable. It reaches customers who haven’t opted into push notifications, and can boost overall engagement and conversions. In-app message centers are flexible, too: Belk is able to show multiple product categories within one message, complete with a “See All” button to encourage customers to explore the app.

Like with the loyalty program, using attributes has been a key to Belk’s success. Notifications with an attribute tag saw a 123% increase in direct response rate. It’s a good example of a strong channel–an in-app message center– coupled with quality targeting methods–Airship’s attributes functionality).

Insight: Get creative with how you reach customers. A message center works for Belk in part because they can reach customers who aren’t opted in with push notifications. And don’t take your message center for granted–optimize with personalization and segmentation to increase response rate.

What’s Next?

Despite seeing some impressive gains, Belk isn’t done optimizing the customer experience. In the future, Belk plans to:

• Improve rewards notifications. Belk will let customers know when promos are expiring, how close they are to reaching their next reward, and more.
• Focus on CRO messaging. Abandoned cart notifications are an area that Belk plans to expand upon in the future.

The Bottom Line

A good, mobile-centric strategy will look different for every brand. Belk’s Katie Kazukynas recommends first focusing on the most impactful changes for your customers. And remember, you don’t need to do everything at once: Belk had generic messaging to start, but it was a springboard for the successful campaigns that followed.

Belk uses Airship’s mobile platform to execute their strategies. If you’d like to chat about how Airship can help your brand, hit the button below.

Let’s connect

We can help with your mobile app strategy.

Contact us today!

The post 3 Strategies Retailer Belk Used to Improve Their Mobile Experience appeared first on Airship.

Let’s look at how three brands are using Airship’s platform to meet those challenges with highly effective cross-channel campaigns.

Redhawk Casino Goes Omnichannel

Red Hawk Casino leverages Airship Orchestration to ensure they’re using the right channel and the best timing for each message. A cross-channel welcome series helps onboard customers and educate them about key features. Dynamic emails keep them informed of the week’s sales and promotions. SMS reminders go out right before an event, promotion, or last minute COVID-19-related schedule change. And Redhawk uses push messages for day-of communications and time-sensitive offers. 

Redhawk Digital Marketing Specialist Matthew Borja explains that “during COVID, having the ability to reach our customers through multiple channels allowed us to build up and grow our brand affinity, when so many brands are struggling to get customer attention. We were able to save over 30% by switching to Airship and using it for multiple channels, helping us reach more customers at lower cost.”

Betbull Keeps Customers Engaged with Airship Journeys

Sports betting brand Betbull uses Airship Journeys to automate and orchestrate messages across SMS and email to keep customers engaged in the Betbull mobile app and informed about promotions and bonus offers. Betbull credits Airship with making it easier to build customer journeys that reach customers on the right channels and generate some of their best engagement to-date.

“It’s taken a huge operational workload off of the team,” said John Ibanez, CRM manager with Betbull. “Airship has been a game changer for us through COVID-19 for our customer retention and engagement efforts. We’ve seen our biggest engagement numbers ever.”

Getplus Prevents Dropoff with Email + App Personalization

Indonesia’s GetPlus helps its members obtain discounts and offers from a variety of retailers when purchasing within the app. GetPlus’ strategy during COVID-19 is all about personalization. They use Airship to trigger seamless, personalized welcome journeys and voucher reminders via email, in-app messaging and push notifications that prevent drop-off after signup and keep customers active in the app.

Plus, Airship helped GetPlus rapidly integrate their existing engagement platforms and start handling all of their customer engagement from one place. According to Co-Founder Adrian Hoon, “With Airship’s support, we were able to quickly onboard and start executing campaigns. It gave us an ability to get going much faster.” 

As these brands have shown, email+app are a dynamic duo in your channel mix that can keep customers engaged and build a lifetime of loyalty and value. To learn more about how Airship can help elevate your customer engagement strategy, get in touch!

LEt’s Connect

Want to elevate your email+app engagement strategy?

Contact us today!

The post How Three Brands Used Email + App to Increase Engagement During COVID-19 appeared first on Airship.

Note: We’ve shared the overall benchmark stats here; for industry-specific benchmarks for retail, travel, media and more, download the full report.

To create the report, we analyzed data from more than 600 billion push notifications sent via Airship to more than 2 billion users in 2020. The result? The definitive mobile app push notification benchmarks to help you assess and elevate your push mobile strategy. The report focuses on three key areas: opt-in rates, direct open rates and monthly push notifications per user. 

Interpreting the Data

The benchmarks were broken down into high (90th), medium (50th) and low percentiles (10th). The 50th percentile number is the median for the vertical. The 10th percentile number means 10% of the apps had a lower value, while the 90th percentile number means 10% of apps had a higher value. 

For example, if you are a media brand with a 60% opt-in rate on iOS, you compare with the top 10% of apps in this study and can feel confident that you have some of the highest opt-in rates in your vertical.

However, if your direct opt-in rates for that same vertical are less than 29%, you’re in the bottom 10% for your vertical and there’s significant room for improvement. 

Opt-In Rates for Push Notifications

Once a customer downloads your mobile app, getting them opted-in for notifications is essential to deepening engagement. That’s because when users opt in and stay opted-in, brands can reach out beyond the confines of their app to engage people right on their device lock screens — the most visible real estate available! 

This benchmark is key to assessing whether your messaging and customer journeys are delivering the optimal opt-ins for your brand and industry. If your opt-in rate is on the low end, here are some tips that can help: Top 10 Tips to Get the Opt-In. 

Direct Open Rates for Push Notifications

Your push notifications are only as good as the engagement they generate. So it’s important to know how your direct open rates compare to those of your competitors. 

Use this benchmark to assess whether your push notifications are delivering best in class conversion and engagement, or whether you’ve got room to improve. Keep an eye on this figure, while also monitoring conversions, active users, opt-outs, indirect opens and uninstalls to get a more granular understanding of how push messages are influencing engagement and retention over time.

For push notification strategies to improve engagement, check out this blog post: Push Notification Strategies for Customer Retention.

Average Monthly Push Notifications Per User

Overall, we know that more frequent push notifications tend to increase app retention rates. However, too many messages can start to look like spam, quickly eroding trust. The key is to find the right balance to keep customers engaged without overwhelming them. 

How many is too many? Use this benchmark to understand where your brand stands within your vertical and across industries. If you need help finding the right balance, we have 11 Proven Push Notification Strategies for Customer Growth.

An effective push notification strategy can create a world of opportunities to be there for your customers in the moments that matter most, keeping them engaged and driving conversions. 

Want to learn more about how you can grow your customer relationships and lifetime value one game-changing push notification at a time? Download the report and get in touch with Airship to learn how we can help!

Next Steps

We can help you create a personalized messaging strategy

Contact us today!

The post How to Benchmark Your Mobile App Engagement Strategy appeared first on Airship.