It’s time to end the suspense: The mobile Indian customer is driving mobile marketing. Here’s a look at why App Push Notifications are the next big thing.
We are loving the way app push notifications (APNs) are helping boost the performance of our partner brands. If you’re a mobile marketer, you should gain mastery over APNs.
Because, the Indian customer is going mobile, urban or otherwise. In a big way. Digital transactions are growing and adoption of tech-based marketing is the only way to enrich customer experience. To cut a long story short, presenting some very interesting numbers sourced from Smartech dashboards, that show how brands are making the best use of APNs.
- Higher CTR: One thing that every digital marketer is after: Growth in click-through rates (CTR). We have seen that across sectors, if vanilla broadcasts gave a CTR of 8.5% on an average, the same number grew to 32% when behaviour- and profile-based APNs were used. What does this mean?Vanilla broadcasts are your generic batch & blast messages. Behaviour-based APNs are those that are “triggered” after the customer exhibits a particular ‘behaviour’. For instance: cart abandonment on an online travel booking portal. It should trigger a push notification saying “Hey traveller, we’d love to assist you with this booking. Do you need help?”.On an average, across sectors, use of rich and targeted push notifications may give you a CTR of 7%, higher than in several other cases.
Download this Special ebook on 4 Amazing Tips to Improve your App Push Notifications Conversion Rate
- Higher conversion rate: Let’s talk cart abandonment – a challenge for all online businesses.Solution? Engagement, yes, but on what basis? You must find out the reasons for cart abandonment, for why would a user go through the trouble of searching a product and then leave it behind?Push notifications on web and app help you zero in on the probable reasons. You can nudge the user with a variety of prompts: ‘Hey you, your cart’s still waiting for you. Did you forget it?’ OR, ‘Hello! Are you sure you want to checkout? We’re offering a 10% cashback on all purchases – only for today!’As a marketer, the way a customer responds to your messages will tell you exactly what they’re looking for. That’s how you can also gather more data on their purchase intent and later, use it to refine their customer journey.For instance, popular online fashion retailer Koovs saw their search-to-checkout ratio grow to ~12% as their APN conversion rate (transactions through APN) grew at 2.23%.
- Hyper-personalisation through STO: Yes, STO stands for Send-Time Optimisation for emails, where an AI-powered marketing automation platform such as Netcore’s Smartech helps you figure out the time range during which your user/customer is likely to be most responsive to your emails/messages. The same could apply to APNs.Our study of Average Click Rates on APNs shows that across sectors, 10:00 am to 1:00 pm is a good time to activate push notifications as that’s when the typical Indian customer is more responsive. This is unlike their Western counterpart, for whom this time extends all the way to 11:00pm.We can get more precise here: sector-wide numbers indicate Tuesdays are the best day of the week to send APNs.
When you’re marketing to the Indian customer, it helps to keep this in mind, doesn’t it?More info on Send Time Optimisation & Subject Line Optimisation here!
- Android vs iOS: The age-old battle continues. But, a marketer has to treat both the users with the agility that the user demands.You see, ~92% of Android users are automatically opted in for APNs when they download an app. This is called passive consent, and while it may look attractive to you as a marketer, there is a catch.Only 43% of iOS users opt-in for APNs, which they have to do manually. This is called active consent. But, while the number of opt-ins are lower here, active consent ensures better engagement.As a marketer, therefore, it pays to understand how OS affects user behaviour: 46% of App users who gave active consent spent at least 11 sessions more in-app/month as against 25% of app users who were passively opted-in.
- Sector-wise performance: Among the sectors using APNs, highest opt-in rates are witnessed by Ecomm, followed by travel and then by finance. Conclusion? If you’re a marketer in any of these sectors, you simply cannot ignore APNs.Our findings show that for ecomm brands, the average time between APN click and transaction is 15 hours, with an overall conversion rate of 4.1%.
- Churn: This is your enemy we’re talking about. Churn refers to users churning out of the sales funnel, through app uninstalls and such. The basic aim of retention marketing is to arrest this churn and keep it low.Our findings indicate that particular to the BFSI industry, marketers have higher chances of retaining customers who have completed E-KYC (Know Your Customer) verification, as they prove to be more committed to using your services.However, the general churn rate seems to be 40-45% of active users per week and mobile marketers or appketers as is the new term finding expression, must find newer ways to keep it down.So what’s the safest number of APNs you can send for maximum retention? The numbers give interesting insights:
Lowest churn is for 1 APN/week but the next best number is for 21 or more APNs/week. Funny? Not really. The latter points to a highly engaged customer. As a marketer, that’s your Holy Grail.On the other hand, 2-5 APNs/week sees 22.3% churn while if you double or triple that number, churn will jump to 31% and/or more. So that is clearly a no-no.
If you read between the lines, these numbers are calling on you to hyper-personalise your engagement in order to retain your app users.
- Retention Strategy: Especially for mobile marketers across sectors, you can boost your app retention rates by up to 3 to 10 times by ensuring your APNs are hyper-personalised, contextual, and timely.Because, 65% of users return to an app when App push is enabled.The table below throws more light on retention stats you can use, where one thing is clear: Push-enabled users are 4X-5X times more likely to stay with your app. As a mobile marketer you just have to ensure that over time, fatigue doesn’t build up.
- App Engagement: For a mobile marketer, the engagement story doesn’t end at app download – that is where it begins. APNs can send your app engagement soaring.APNs are real-time communication. And, your customer would rather receive that cashback offer while at the payment gateway rather than 3 days after the sale. Also, even if your goal is to collect feedback upon a purchase or delivery, APNs are far more effective, as they can save your customer the trouble of clicking on the right link or visiting a page to log on.
- Go Phygital: Think about it. Your customer checks into your store and you are able to source their profile data, based on which you can customise your in-store offering. That would be a cool way to enrich your brand’s customer experience, wouldn’t you say?Data backs this logic. When you combine online with offline, you get great results. Across sectors, 48% mobile app users on an average make an in-store purchase after receiving personalised notifications.That’s how effective APNs can be.
- Customer Journeys: Orchestrating onboarding journeys with the help of APNs can boost your app retention by up to 71%. APNs are the little things that can make a big difference.
- Format of APNs: Don’t they say it’s not just about what you say but how you say that also matters? The same is true for APNs. Format is important.As you might know, there are 3 main types of APNs – Banners (band on top of your smartphone screen), alert box (a box that appears at the center of your screen as an alert that you need to dismiss), and interstitial (covering the entire screen).Generally seen, user reaction rates for alert box are higher than those for banners. And with interstitial, particularly with a captivating picture, you are likely to see a higher engagement. So now you know which format you should be using.
- Rich communication: On an average, use of emojis ups your user reactivity by 20% while rich formats add 25% to user reactivity. Your mission? Treat every message as special, give it due attention.
- We Heart Personalisation: The importance of personalisation and advanced targeting cannot be overstated. These approaches multiply user reactivity 4X and 3X respectively. Do not ignore it.
