Explainer

Mobile Engagement Explained

What Is Mobile Engagement?

Mobile engagement is interacting with users through messaging channels on mobile devices, both inside and outside of apps. Companies use mobile engagement to deliver brand experiences, support business goals, communicate business and build valuable long-term relationships with customers.

Mobile App Engagement Channels

Mobile apps have three distinct messaging capabilities: push notifications, in-app messages and message centers.

Delivered to a phone’s lock screen or via an onscreen banner alert, push notifications drive users to the app and are ideal for time-sensitive information. By including segment attributes like location, in-app behavior, message preferences and more, targeted push notifications achieve greater mobile app engagement (approximately a 4-7x higher response rate) than broadcast counterparts. This is especially true of rich push notifications that include media like photos and videos.

In-app messaging delivers simple, text-based notifications. Because these messages are delivered in your app, there isn’t an opt-in process, allowing you to reach the majority of your app audience. For this reason, they are a great complement to push notifications or in-app messaging for new feature updates and other messaging.

An in-app message center reaches all app users and can help drive people back into your app through badge counters on your app icon (iOS only). Think of it as an easy-to-author content publishing platform that allows you to send the latest offers, promotions and rich content to your audience without having to either update the app or stop users in their tracks.

Other Mobile-Native Engagement Channels

In addition to the messaging you can do through your app, there are other ways to reach your customers on mobile that don’t necessarily require an app.

With broad usage and a 98% open rate, SMS is a natural channel for businesses to use for mobile engagement. Typical use cases for SMS mobile engagement include billing, shipping, special offers, promoting upcoming events and confirming appointments.

Mobile wallets —  aka digital wallets — carry the digital equivalent of all the everyday things included in a physical wallet: loyalty cards, coupons, special offers, business cards, tickets, credit cards and more. Accessible to everyone with a smartphone, mobile wallet passes provide business an ongoing mobile engagement channel to reach users.

Mobile-first social channels such as Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are an effective, low cost way to engage with customers and broaden conversations. But the average lifespan of a tweet is estimated at 18 minutes, and ongoing adjustments to platform algorithms like Facebook’s mean a business may only reach 2% of their audience without additional promotional investments.

Mobile email, on the other hand, is highly engaging. The average person spends 6.3 hours a day checking emails. According to Yesmail Interactive, mobile devices account for 64.5% of all email opens. That said, user engagement opportunities with email are limited

The Best Mobile Analytics to Understand Mobile Engagement

The best mobile analytics are those that best meet your needs and goals. Every mobile experience will have different business drivers and user interaction points, as well as different internal stakeholders with varying needs. Make sure to stay focused on the end goal as well. Engagement for its own sake isn’t enough if it’s not creating user actions that meet business goals.

Want to learn more about how Mobile Engagement can help you connect with customers at each stage of the customer lifecycle? Contact us today and let’s talk!