Best practices & insights from digital strategists

2. How often should I send push?
Our most frequently asked question. Learn why one
approach doesn’t fit all brands.
What time of day is best to push?
Use your customers’ existing activity to find the best
times for engagement. The answer might surprise you.
How can I message all app users?
Go beyond push notifications and create an engaging in-
app message center.
Where should mobile messages direct my audience?
Many brands’ messages catch attention, but fail to deliver
the payoff customers desire.
When should I use push, an in-app message, or email?
A layered messaging strategy explores which types of
messages are most appropriate for each channel.
What makes a good message center?
Learn more about the many possibilities to deliver
engaging content at your customers’ convenience.
Messaging Strategy
We use engagement results across industries to explore the
mechanics of what makes mobile messages work best.
How can I entice customers to come back to my app?
Hook them right from the start, then deliver ongoing value
to keep your customers engaged.
How should I get started with beacons?
Test, mine the data, and refine: what our customers are
learning from their beacon pilot projects.
How can beacons improve the in-store experience?
Mobile devices might be the smartest sales associate you
never hired, and a great decision-driver at that.
How can location history make messages more effective?
Learn which customer data offers insights that can increase
relevance and response rates.
Audience & Segmentation Strategy

3. This is one of the questions our customers
ask most frequently in strategy sessions.
The answer depends on your customers’
expectations.
Let’s break it down:
Is this something your customer asked for?
Through a preference center, customers
tell you when they want to hear from you,
how often, and about what. If they ask
for alerts about every sale, breaking news
story, or game in progress ... push away.
Is this expected communication?
Customers will appreciate push messages
to confirm a reservation or product
shipment. They might also expect to hear
from you on a regular (say, weekly) basis.
Push based on their expected cadence
so your message is not perceived as an
interruption.
Is this message helpful to my customer?
How does your app provide utility, benefit
or delight to the customer? When a
push serves your customer, you’ve got
the green light. When the push is self-
serving, such as a promotional message a
customer didn’t request, tread lightly and
push sparingly.
How often should I send push?
MESSAGING STRATEGY

4. What time of day is best to push?
Timing is a massive advantage in mobile—
you can deliver messages at the precise
time when they are most likely to inspire
your audience to act. But that “best time”
varies widely among apps based on
content, audience and desired action.
For example, an app sending a push at
7 a.m. about a sale might be considered
disruptive. But one fashion brand
oriented to mothers with young children
learned that early mornings are one of
the few times its customers can shop
uninterrupted. That’s why this app sends
early-morning deal alerts.
To find out the best send times for your
brand, consider when people are normally
opening your app. Commuting hours,
lunch, and break times might show the
greatest engagement. While engagement
trends tend to vary by day, they also tend
to be consistent on the same day of each
week.
Finally, consider the action you want your
audience to take when you choose your
send time: one of our customers found
that pushes sent in the evenings, when
customers had the most time to shop in
response to the push, yielded the highest
cart values and revenue.
MESSAGING STRATEGY

5. Mobile messaging offers a range of
opportunities to provide valuable
user experiences that extend beyond
your app, store or website. The most
commonly used approach is push
notifications, which light up your
smartphone’s screen.
Increasingly, we see innovative
brands leverage rich pages and in-
app message centers to extend their
mobile notification programs to reach
all app users with persistent, branded
messages. In-app messaging offers a
way to consolidate content that is either
“favorited” by a user or curated by a
marketing team.
Starbucks delivers the ‘Pick of the Week’
as well as promotional information to
delight customers while also impacting
the bottom line. Neiman Marcus’s
‘Message Board’ shares timely offers and
product information to give them instant
access to the best offers.
ABC News allows users to ‘star’ favorite
stories and receive alerts for updated
content within a personalized, in-app
message center. These experiences
are compelling and seamless because
they’ve taken the time to customize the
look and feel of the rich pages and the
message center to the brand itself.
A simple way to get started with a
message center is to repurpose existing
email and content marketing programs.
By messaging all app users, you provide
a stream of current content without
How can I message all app users?
MESSAGING STRATEGY

6. having to build out an entirely new
mobile strategy. On the technical side,
we provide a fully functional sample
message center that can be easily
skinned to match your app’s branding.
We make that publishing process simple
for marketing teams, with built-in rich
page templates that enable marketers to
quickly develop responsive content.
Some brands build sets of templates to
address different marketing objectives
and types of messaging. Customizable
templates can incorporate brand colors,
fonts, spacing, images and iconography.
These templates can then be regularly
used in custom messaging campaigns.
As brands realize the value and ability to
segment and target rich pages to users,
they often move to building original
mobile-first messaging programs that
take full advantage of this intimate,
powerful new marketing channel.
Our rich message center provides a
flexible platform for delivering delightful
user experiences that bring users back to
an application again and again.
cont.

7. A push notification or message delivered
within your app’s message center can take
your customer anywhere within the app
itself or on the mobile web.
We recommend avoiding a common
default of sending your message recipient
to the home screen of your app. Doing so
turns what could have been an effortless
experience into a frustrating one as cust-
omers hunt for the particular item or topic
that gained their interest in the first place.
Use “deep links” to ensure each message
takes your audience to the content you
shared and precisely where they want to
go. Building these links can now be done
without a developer’s assistance using our
web-based interface.
Layer on what you know about your
customers for an even more personalized
experience. For example, a push
notification about a sale could take
the customer directly to their favorite
department or even a page featuring the
clothing size that they prefer.
When you select a deep link destination,
consider whether your message has been
deployed via push or message center. A
push message should link to a destination
where the customer can immediately
take action or consume content in a short
burst—in just a few seconds or a few
clicks.
Message center content is typically
consumed at the customer’s convenience,
so they are likely to be more tolerant of
links to destinations where they are asked
to spend more time browsing or viewing,
or input more of their information.
Where should mobile messages direct my audience?
MESSAGING STRATEGY

8. Your customer receives messages from
many different channels, and they expect
messages will fit each channel’s purpose.
For example, push messages are designed
to drive action, delivered by mobile at the
perfect time and place. Push when you
want your audience to respond right away.
Messages inserted in an app’s message
center have a longer lifespan, and are
designed for delivery at the customer’s
convenience. Send these when you’d like
your audience to engage at their leisure,
such as an invitation to shop their favorite
products on sale.
Send email messages when you want
to deliver archival information, such as
receipts and warranty information, or
account details. You can enable your
message center content to expire after
a specific period of time, but email is
forever.
Messaging via multiple channels including
mobile, email, in-store signage, and direct
mail can reinforce important messages as
well as educate customers about the value
of your app.
When should I use push, an in-app message, or email?
MESSAGING STRATEGY

9. Apps enable communication solely
between you and your customer. They let
you skip third-party advertising platforms,
social media algorithms, and email spam
filters—ensuring your message gets
through.
Your message center should serve as your
app’s repository for offers and content
that extend the value of your mobile app.
Message centers should be incorporated
into your app experience and branding
to provide a seamless user experience.
We suggest these components when
integrating a message center into an app:
New in-app messages should trigger a
badge (a small red circle with a number
indicating new messages) on an app’s icon
on the home screen, as well as within your
app on the message center icon on the
home page.
Use iconography or small, thumbnail
photos to indicate message content
categories. For example, a sports score
app might use various team or sport icons.
A retailer might use a consistent icon for
sales or new product, and an airline might
flag VIP messages.
Messages should include a few lines
of preview text. This helps a customer
decide whether to read a message and
can reduce marketers’ concerns about
sending promotional messages, because
uninterested customers will simply skip
them.
Finally, set an expiration date on in-app
messages. This avoids inbox clutter and
ensures customers won’t get excited
about a 50%-off sale only to find out it’s
over.
What makes a good message center?
MESSAGING STRATEGY

10. We believe the cardinal rule to making
apps an essential part of a customer’s life
is to create utility—in other words, serve
first and sell later.
Everything in your app should be delivered
from the mindset of benefiting the
audience. Here are a few best practices
that help keep your customers coming
back:
We know that the majority of apps are
abandoned after customers open them
just once, perpetuating a download-
try-delete cycle. That’s why the user’s
experience on that first open should be
carefully engineered to promote ongoing
engagement.
When customers first open the app, your
goal should be to demonstrate the app’s
value for their lives. While many apps hit
customers immediately with the standard
iOS opt-in screen, we’ve found customers
who have had a little time to explore the
app are more likely to opt in to push.
Consider it equivalent to a real-world
shopping scenario: are you more likely to
give a retailer your email address if a sales
associate asks for it as soon as you enter
the store, or if the associate asks you after
you’ve had time to browse the store and
approach the register?
Bottom line: Weave a message that
explains why a customer should opt in for
How can I entice customers to come back to my app?
AUDIENCE & SEGMENTATION STRATEGY

11. push into their first experience with your
app for better opt-in rates.
To encourage successive app opens, make
sure your features benefit your audience.
Is requiring a sign-in before each use
improving security, or does it serve as a
roadblock to the customer’s experience?
Integrate an in-app message center to
offer rich content that can be consumed
at customers’ convenience. You can
alert customers to this new material with
badges on your app icon and on the
message center in the app’s home screen.
These are visual indicators that new things
are waiting for them inside the app.
Another way to enhance your app’s utility
is to integrate your brand’s loyalty card
with your app through digital wallet.
This increases use of the loyalty card
and creates another touch-point that
discourages customers from deleting
your app while simplifying their lives at
the same time. Now, they only have to
bring their phone into the store rather than
remembering the stack of plastic loyalty
cards they’ve likely accumulated from
dozens of retailers.
Use customer information such as
purchase history to create improved app
functionality. Details about products that
are ordered and returned, for example,
can enable you to offer a size predictor
for whether an item runs true to size, a bit
large, or a bit small. This reduces returns
and increases customer satisfaction.
Finally, use customer behavior to improve
targeting. Apps are full of information, yet
customers only want what suits them.
Use the fact that they typically add size 6
items to their wishlist to adapt your mobile
messages to alert them to “new size 6
items on sale.”
cont.

12. AUDIENCE & SEGMENTATION STRATEGY
We recommend that companies start
small, piloting beacons at a few stores
or locations while focusing narrowly on
specific objectives that provide value or
service to customers.
In doing so, a beacon pilot project allows
you to gain early insights into its potential
ROI, whether that’s increased sales,
improved customer service or cost-
savings efficiencies. In some cases, the
ROI for a brand is in the new customer
data itself.
These beacon pilot programs also provide
you data on who is visiting your store and
how often, with their response to beacon-
triggered messages enabling you to
fine-tune and scale your strategies prior to
full-scale rollouts.
Be judicious about your messaging. Put
yourself in your customers’ shoes and
consider whether a particular message will
be perceived as valuable. If not, think long
and hard whether to send it. A message
broadcast to everyone, such as 25% off
everything in the store, can be a great
incentive, but you also need to be mindful
of how many beacon-triggered messages
are sent per store visit.
Your customers benefit from segmented
offers tailored to past purchases or
product interests. Additionally, insights
captured from app use and loyalty card
use can benefit your bottom line.
Lastly, to engage your customers through
beacons there are some requirements:
opting in to push notifications, opting in to
share their location and having Bluetooth
turned on.
Businesses who have considered strategies
that position the value of these opt-ins
see the most success and drive greater
conversion rates. Look to in-store signage,
as well as interactive app walkthroughs
and welcome messages sent to new
users to boost opt-in rates and grow your
beacon-addressable audience.
How should I get started with beacons?

13. The key question for brands that
incorporate beacons in their messaging
strategy: What should customers do as a
result of a beacon-triggered message?
Because beacons offer proximity data
within a store or structure, they capitalize
on the customer’s location context,
such as whether the customer is in a
department or near a promotional display.
You can use beacons, therefore, to send
specific messages about a new product or
a sale price precisely when the customer is
near the object to purchase.
We advise our clients to use these
messages sparingly and in combination
with other audience insights. Bombarding
customers with messages (or even a few
irrelevant messages) can create a poor
user experience that causes customers to
delete the app.
Beyond messaging, consider how beacons
can be used to gather customer insights
to enable more precise and relevant
messaging in the future.
Dwell time can reveal a customer’s
interest in specific departments, intent to
purchase, and preferences. You might find
they prefer to shop new items (typically
located at the front of the store) or sale
items (typically in back). This, in turn, can
hone your messaging strategy toward this-
just-in products or bargains.
How can beacons improve the in-store experience?
AUDIENCE & SEGMENTATION STRATEGY

14. Location history, also called a location
profile, indicates a web of destinations
where your customers live, work, and
play—anywhere they take their phones.
This insight can help you cast a wider but
more relevant net for customers who are
near a location at some point, but not
necessarily at the present.
When one of our major retail customers
wanted to invite its members to its largest
annual sale event, it used location profiles
to send messages to everyone who had
been within five miles of the store in the
past month. This user group includes
people who are likely willing to make the
trip to the store for the sale.
Another retailer wanted to use location
history to include customers who had
visited the store within the past three
months, exclude customers who had
visited within the last six weeks, and
increase the value of the promotional offer
based on the customer’s typical distance
from the store.
As a result, the retailer sent the strongest
come-back-again incentives to its
hardest-to-reach customer base with
great success.
How can location history make messages more effective?
AUDIENCE & SEGMENTATION STRATEGY

15. Urban Airship helps the world’s leading
brands build their businesses by engaging
customers through the most immediate
and context-aware channel—mobile.
Because 70% of new mobile app users
abandon apps after as little as a month,
brands must create mobile experiences
inside and outside of their app to build
long-term relationships.
Urban Airship’s industry-leading, scalable,
marketer-driven technology inspires
“mobile moments” that personalize
content, enable frictionless ticketing and
tipping, and help customers discover what
matters to them.
We do this with a simple, guiding principle:
empowering brands to deliver the
experiences customers crave, at precisely
the right time and place.
Ready to learn more?
Call us to consult with our team.
1.800.720.2098
@urbanairship
How can we help you?