THE TOP 10 MOBILE MARKETING AUTOMATION BEST PRACTICES Practical Methods For Driving Engagement, Retention and Revenue
TABLE OF CONTENTS 3 4 5 7 9 10 11 12 13 15 17 18 INTRODUCTION 1. ONBOARDING FIRST TIME USER EXPERIENCE FLOW - A/B TESTING 2. PUSH PERMISSION REQUEST A/B TESTING 3. APP RATING SURVEY 4. EXPERIENCE FEEDBACK 5. TIMELY REAL WORLD INTERACTION 6. APP UPDATE REMINDER 7. PROMPT FOR REFERRALS 8. FEATURE REMINDERS 9. PROMOTIONS 10. GUIDANCE WHEN IT MATTERS ABOUT SWRVE
1 INTRODUCTION The promise of mobile marketing automation is simple: the ability to deliver optimized, personalized, relevant experiences to mobile app users. And in so doing build stronger relationships with mobile consumers and deliver return on your investment in building and promoting mobile businesses. That s the theory - but how does it work in practice? The range of techniques and huge variety of marketing challenges mean that it can be difficult to know where to start. But there s no disputing the fact that you will have to. The mobile app is fast becoming the channel of choice for the 21st century consumer, and it is imperative to ensure that the experience you offer is as good as it can be. With that in mind, here we present 10 great places to start. At Swrve we ve worked with some of the world s leading app companies. We ve learned what works, and what doesn t. And we ve helped move the needle on the metrics that matter, and ignored the ones that don t. The ten best practices in this paper provide the ideal way to get started with mobile marketing automation. Enjoy! 3 THE TOP 10 MOBILE MARKETING AUTOMATION BEST PRACTICES
ONBOARDING FIRST TIME USER EXPERIENCE FLOW - A/B TESTING The experience a user has the first time they open your app is key to early retention and long term engagement. As you may know, 20% of app users never return after the first visit. A/B testing allows you to optimize that initial experience - whether that takes the form of a signup/ login process, a formal tutorial, or simply a set of introductory experiences. The result should be a reduction in that 20%! Use a funnel chart to measure how well users progress through each version of your experience, and see what percentage completes the process. Watch for significant drop-off points within the flow - that s where you test alternative experiences. Remember to form a segment for each group of users exposed to a specific variant, which you can then monitor across all KPIs, in particular Conversion (making a first purchase), Retention, Engagement, and Revenue. EXAMPLE: The design team for an app spent considerable time and effort creating what they believed was the perfect tutorial. However, they were open to A/B testing multiple versions of their onboarding tutorial. To their surprise, each of the test versions outperformed the original with respect to tutorial completion, conversion, time spent in the app, early user retention, and revenue. Hypotheses about what users will best respond to and learn from Designs for a number of onboarding experiences based on these theories Resource: create a Tutorial resource in the code and in the dashboard. Design variations of the onboarding/tutorial flow. Deploy all versions with the app, assigning a descriptor to each (e.g. short version ). Events: send an event at every step of the onboarding flow Funnels: create a funnel for each version of the Tutorial 4 THE TOP 10 MOBILE MARKETING AUTOMATION BEST PRACTICES
2 PUSH PERMISSION REQUEST A/B TESTING Push notifications are a key part of the ongoing conversation with your users. They can be especially useful for re-engaging users who haven t visited in a while or reminding dormant users that there is something new and interesting such as a promotion or an app update. Any request for push permissions should be preceded by a relevant, timely (and tested!) in- app message explaining the benefit to the user. This in-app message will explain why the app is asking for push permission and will ask the user if they are willing to accept push notifications. If they respond yes, then the native push permissions dialogue will be shown. This approach has been demonstrated to dramatically improve push opt-in. IN APP MESSAGE CAMPAIGNS FOR PUSH Smart push opt-in screen in Uber In general, we talk about refining your audience to ensure a message is relevant. In this case, the audience is easy to define - anyone who has not agreed to accept push notifications. Relevance is delivered by making sure the message relates directly to the experience the user just had. Find points in your app when the user has just performed an action with a direct correlation to the kind of push notifications you send. For example, if a user has just searched for last minute flights, inform them that you can send push notifications when new deals arise and ask them if they would like to opt in to push. 5 THE TOP 10 MOBILE MARKETING AUTOMATION BEST PRACTICES
PUSH PERMISSION REQUEST A/B TESTING At this point, they can opt in. If they do, then present the system notification to ask permission. If they decline to accept push notifications, at least it leaves you with the opportunity to ask at another point in the future. Apple restricts each app to ask only once. Last, A/B test the content of these messages. Wording matters, and a small change in tone or explanation can yield impressive results. Similarly, layout matters and a change in button position or color can dramatically impact the acceptance rate. You can further refine your theory to A/B test when you first make users eligible for these campaigns based on the number of sessions they have started, or the time spent in the app. EXAMPLE A games company tested the timing of the push request. Extensive and refined testing proved that, for their app, asking a user at Level 2 or 3 - after about 2 minutes of gameplay - was the optimum time to deliver the request. The Level 2 or 3 users responded overwhelmingly more positively to push than those asked on app start. Identify likely happy places in the app experience Create multiple versions of two messages - one to gauge satisfaction, another to request a redirect to the App Store. Events: Send an event at trigger points Deep Links: Instrument a deep link to redirect to the App Store Rating Instrument a deep link to redirect to Feedback section, if appropriate Instrument deep links to fire events - these will capture the initial rating and also be used as a trigger point for the second message 6 THE TOP 10 MOBILE MARKETING AUTOMATION BEST PRACTICES
3 APP RATING SURVEY The rating of your app heavily influences its position in the App Store and users expectations of app quality and utility - and thus acquisition. It must be a primary goal for you to identify your engaged and happy users and solicit a positive review from them. Our best practice recommends that you first identify your happy users, and then politely request their permission to redirect them to the App Store review. Find places in the app where you will not be interrupting the users flow, or distracting them from an important action. Furthermore, you should identify happy places in the app. This is when and where you should initiate this conversation. A two-step rating campaign in Hipmunk 7 THE TOP 10 MOBILE MARKETING AUTOMATION BEST PRACTICES
APP RATING SURVEY This is a two step messaging campaign - first ask a user to rate their experience. Use imagery in line with the integrity of your app design. For example, if you usually ask users to rate a flight or hotel on a five star rating scale, then use the same look and feel for this app rating message. If a negative or indifferent rating is given, you can redirect them to a feedback form Identify likely happy places in the app experience Create multiple versions of two messages - one to gauge satisfaction, another to request a re-direct to the App Store. Events: Send an event at trigger points Deep Links: Instrument a deep link to redirect to the App Store Rating Instrument a deep link to redirect to Feedback section, if appropriate Instrument deep links to fire events - these will capture the initial rating and also be used as a trigger point for the second message EXAMPLE A social discovery app realized that their low app rating was due to the fact that some users weren t part of the target market for the app and felt like it wasn t designed for their needs. As a result, many of them were giving the app a low rating in the App Store. However, the team knew that they had hundreds of thousands of engaged, happy customers. The challenge was getting them to the App Store to leave a review reflecting their experience. By creating a conversation with these users, they found their happy customers very willing to cooperate with this request, driving up their App Store rating from 2.3 to 4.2 within two weeks of the launch of this campaign. 8 THE TOP 10 MOBILE MARKETING AUTOMATION BEST PRACTICES
4 EXPERIENCE FEEDBACK If the goal of your app is to merchandise third party service providers services (e.g. flight, hotel, home cleaning services), your business model should include collecting feedback on your customers experiences with those third party service providers. Affiliate business models like these often depend on peer reviews as their volume and quality is a key competitive differentiator and can be used to filter out under-performing providers. The best way to do this is via push notification and in-app messaging, requesting feedback after the date of the booking (when you ll know they have used the service). Use deep linking to open your app from a push in exactly the right spot to give feedback and thus make the process as simple as possible. Create various copy for the push notification to test which one prompts users to leave a review Have your development team provide you with the list of deep links for push notifications. Using these you can open the app at the appropriate spot when users interact with your push campaign. Deep Links: Instrument deep links to open the app at the defined placestrigger point for the second message 9 THE TOP 10 MOBILE MARKETING AUTOMATION BEST PRACTICES
5 TIMELY REAL WORLD INTERACTION Be a part of the user s experience and show that you are paying attention by opening up the lines of communication at the right time. If you or an affiliate uses ibeacons, track your users real world experiences by triggering events when they come into proximity of one of your registered Beacons. Use this information to interact directly with your users at the time, or to inform future marketing campaigns based on where they have visited. Perhaps you want to facilitate a soft launch of a new product in select stores. Beacon technology allows you to promote this item only to users currently in one of the trial stores. Alternatively, capture real world behavior from within the app. Encourage your users to check in to their flight or hotel via the app and let them know you re right there with them using an in-app message. Welcome them with a timely message. Let them know you re there for them if they need help. Create copy for various messages Identify partner organizations List of ibeacons Events: Send an event when a user checks in ibeacon integration Deep links: Deep link to a coupon code or second message with details of their deal Deep link to online help if appropriate Naturally, there should be a benefit in this kind of campaign for your users. Offer loyalty points or a discount. Consider partnering with other vendors, particularly at affiliate venues such as a concert or sports event to offer discounts or special offers to enhance your user s experience. 10 THE TOP 10 MOBILE MARKETING AUTOMATION BEST PRACTICES
6 APP UPDATE REMINDER Notifying users when you have new content or an update is a relatively simple push notification campaign, and yet it can be very effective. This is particularly true for the kind of lifestyle app that users will not be in every day. Travel apps, for example, are often designed for occasional use, and it helps to remind users of the app s existence periodically so it is top of mind when they might need it. It s also a great way to re-engage lapsed users. Remember, these are users who already understand your business and as such are low-hanging fruit. Think of it as easy, inexpensive user acquisition. Create various copy for this kind of re-engagement campaign, perhaps highlighting different improvements or enhancements. This way you will discover what functionality is most intriguing to your users. Deep Links: Create deep links to open the app at the point where the functionality being advertised is most relevant EXAMPLE: A music app sent an update message to lapsed users who had not been in the app in the last month. The message told them about all of the cool features that were added in the last product update and encouraged the user to try them out. Of the users who responded to the push, 26% of those users became fully re-engaged and were still in the app on a regular basis 6 weeks later. 11 THE TOP 10 MOBILE MARKETING AUTOMATION BEST PRACTICES
7 PROMPT FOR REFERRALS The cost of user acquisition being what it is, coupled with the high value we all place on peer reviews, make referrals the single best way for you to expand your current user base. If your app allows users to invite others directly to your app (which it should) and furthermore rewards users for those referrals, be sure that this is clear to your current customers. Use push notifications and in-app messages to highlight the value of inviting friends to those who already use your app. Consider offering a higher reward over a predefined period. For instance, if you usually award 100 loyalty points per referral, or a certain amount of credit, double it for one weekend only. Be sure to inform your users of the reward amount and the timeline in your communications. Decide upon rewards for socially sharing users. Consider A/B testing your reward schemesto discover which best incentivizes your users. Create various forms of copy, paying close attention to your call to action. Create different messages for those who have never invited a friend (informational) and those who have done it in the past (reward based Events: Send an event when a user invites a friend. This will allow you to identify highly viral users and those who have never shared with friends. Deep links: Instrument a deep link to bring the user to the place in the app where they can invite a friend Instrument deep links to reward your users per the promised amount, be that credit or loyalty points 12 THE TOP 10 MOBILE MARKETING AUTOMATION BEST PRACTICES
8 FEATURE REMINDERS If you have a feature which involves a high-value action - for example uploading photos of a resort or hotel, or checking in on social media when they get to an airport - make sure your users understand where this feature is, and how to use it. When designing your app, you made choices about what functionality to promote. For a sleek, intuitive experience, the bells and whistles are often buried in an off-screen menu. Some users will never find these features on their own, so it is helpful to occasionally alert them of the fact that these useful features exist, especially if those are the ones that lead to the aha moment in your app. Using in-app messages at the right time and place in the app and using native, high-resolution graphics that look and feel like the app itself ensures that users don t feel these are interrupting their normal usage flow. Identify high-value actions you want your users to take Identify under-used features Create various copy for campaigns for each feature Consider a reward system for high value actions - loyalty points, credit, free trial period Events: Send an event when a user clicks on each particular feature. This will enable marketing to target users who have never explored that part of the app Deep links: Instrument deep links to redirect a user to the right place in the app Instrument deep links to reward users per marketing s request 13 THE TOP 10 MOBILE MARKETING AUTOMATION BEST PRACTICES
FEATURE REMINDERS EXAMPLE An app had a Free Trial period for their users. They wanted to be sure that users on a Free Trial experienced all upgrade features while they were still available to them. By identifying users who had never explored each particular feature, they were able to send targeted informational messages. Each message had a deep link bringing users to the relevant place in the app. Four in-app messaging campaigns resulted in 250,000+ clicks deeper into the app. 14 THE TOP 10 MOBILE MARKETING AUTOMATION BEST PRACTICES
9 PROMOTIONS Our data show that users respond to promotions and special offers. However, they work best when the user understands that they are special, rather than the offer. Be clear with your users why they, in particular, are being presented this offer. Always use in-app messaging or push notifications to let users know about the offer. Use behavioral information about your users to target them with these offers. Even if it is simply a first time buyer offer, this is a more effective strategy than blanket discounts. Discounts and promotions should also include language suggesting urgency, One time offer or Today Only!, for example. Test different phrases to see which one promotes the best results. We recommend that offers should be presented to nervous buyers - users who repeatedly cancel out of the checkout flow. Catch users immediately as they cancel out of the flow and offer an incentive to complete their purchase. This is especially important for first-time purchasers and doesn t need to be presented every time a user cancels out of the flow. Identify target groups to extend offers Create different versions of the message for each group Define method by which to extend the offer - one click purchase/discount code, etc. Events: Send events to capture user behavior and spend. This information will be used to target different groups of users Send an event when a user cancels out of any part of the purchase flow Deep Links: Instrument deep links to bring users to the correct place in the app Instrument deep links to apply special offer or discount 15 THE TOP 10 MOBILE MARKETING AUTOMATION BEST PRACTICES
PROMOTIONS EXAMPLE An app promoting a short-term discount on various items used different language to target their users based on previous spending behavior. Phrases like First Time Offer and VIP helped to increase revenue by 33% over the 5 days of the campaign. EXAMPLE: A simple button switch on an in-app message had surprising impact. One organization decided to test the positions on a full screen message. In one version, the Buy Now button was on the left, a button marked No Thanks on the right. The other version switched the order of the buttons. These variants were shown to over 150,000 users. When the Buy Now button was on the left 49% more people made a purchase. 16 THE TOP 10 MOBILE MARKETING AUTOMATION BEST PRACTICES
10 GUIDANCE WHEN IT MATTERS Although a tutorial or onboarding flow is recommended, along with A/B testing that tutorial, you may want to save some of the education until it becomes relevant. You may have discovered that less is more in the very beginning of your relationship with your users. The best tutorials give the user just enough to get started and get to value quickly. However, this means that you are not telling them absolutely everything they need to know to explore what you have to offer. It s an easy problem to solve. Simply create informational messages as your user explores the app for the first time. These are effective as they are timely and relevant to the action they are taking at exactly that time. When they open your fitness app, all they need to know is how to track their run. At a later point, they may be interested in the medals or badges they have attained and how to earn more. Now is the time to explain to the user how to set goals and win more medals. In this way, you can guide them gently through the process of becoming acquainted with and getting the most out of what you have to offer. Identify under-used features Create a variety of messages to launch at appropriate trigger points Events: Send an event when a user visits each section of the app Deep Links: Instruments deep links to bring the user to specific places in the app In-app messages have a look and feel which is native to the app. They become a seamless part of the flow. Test different messaging to discover how best to engage your users and expand their interest and experience within your product. 17 THE TOP 10 MOBILE MARKETING AUTOMATION BEST PRACTICES
11 ABOUT SWRVE Swrve is the world s leader in mobile marketing automation. The Swrve platform delivers everything product and monetization managers need to ensure their mobile apps succeed where it counts, by modeling the consumer lifecycle and building long-lasting, profitable relationships with their users and driving the bottom line as a result. Swrve supports the creation of multi-touch, automated campaigns that incorporate native content editing, push notifications and live in-app messages: all supported by an A/B testing suite and the world s leading mobile analytics package. Swrve is trusted by some of the world s largest and most successful mobile app businesses. We handle billions of events a day and process data in real-time for multi-million DAU titles. Swrve is trusted by some of the world s largest and most successful mobile app businesses. We handle billions of events a day and process data in real-time for multi-million DAU titles. If you d like to join them, drop us a line at sales@swrve.com 18