Driving Top Engagement & ROI for Australian Marketers

Written by Brendan O’Kane, CEO, OtherLevels

Let’s face it: we know that mobile is taking over. That consumers spend increasing amounts of time glued to their portable screens. That mobile devices are on track to outnumber human beings. The runaway growth of mobile is evident in the 50 million iOS and Android devices activated just during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve 2012. Smartphone and tablet users downloaded 1.76 billion mobile apps during those seven days. Don’t you find that phenomenal?

Yet, even with this massive global boom, a recent survey by Econsultancy found that only 39 percent of Australian marketers were making use of the mobile channel to reach and engage customers last year. Conversely, The Telegraph referenced a study, which predicts that 85 percent of Australians will have gone mobile this year while the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the amount of data downloaded through Aussies’ mobile devices jumped 32 percent between 2011 and 2012.

So it’s clear there’s plenty of room for mobile marketing to grow here. Before marketers deploy full-scale mobile campaigns, however, they would benefit from having in place a process to test and measure their messaging for maximum effectiveness.  

Measuring Mobile Messages That Engage and Retain Customers

With the realization that mobile measurement has lagged behind the implementation of mobile campaigns, we produced an in-depth whitepaper, The Mobile Messaging Opportunity, to help educate marketers on how mobile measurement works – and why it’s a must.

Mobile measurement reveals customers’ preferences, which helps marketers craft messaging that is relevant and adds value, which in turn helps them retain those customers.

Not only has mobile’s evolution and growing sophistication created a powerful engagement tool, it’s also created a host of messaging types that marketers can use to reach almost any user – whether his or her device is a feature phone, a smartphone or a tablet. These include:

• Short Messaging Service or SMS
• Push Notifications
• Mobile Email
• In-App Content

After selecting messaging formats to reach particular audience segments, it’s time to devise and implement an action analytics plan – the best way to make sure marketers get the most from every mobile message sent. The process that helps marketers identify specific elements – e.g., wording, tone and length – that drive the highest conversion rates includes these three techniques >>>

• Action Analytics: This measurement method collects deep granular data – e.g., messages sent vs. opened, time since last open and opens resulting in goals such as registrations, purchases or social shares – linking specific message copy to particular user behaviors and outcomes. This data creates a detailed picture of individual customer preferences by showing exactly how they’re interacting with each message. It also sets the stage for the next two steps.
• A/B Split Testing: Using data gathered through action analytics, retailers can identify the particular audience segments they want to target and send them two or more versions of one marketing message to see which drives more conversions. The winning message will throw that customer-preference picture into even sharper relief, allowing marketers to make successive messages more relevant.
• Retargeting: After running an A/B test, the retailer can use the results to fine-tune the message even more, sending it to customers who did not open the first message or who did open but didn’t convert. Marketers can do this again and again, tweaking each round of messages as needed, so they can be absolutely sure they haven’t missed any opportunity to elicit a conversion.

Finding out what makes customers tick and acting on that information can make a huge difference – quickly, as the Australian parenting and pregnancy resource Kidspot recently found out.

Kidspot: A Real-World Case Study in Mobile Messaging Engagement

The popular parenting and lifestyle site was on a quest to increase mums’ engagement with its BumpWatch app – which includes fertility- and pregnancy-tracking features.

OtherLevels split test the push notifications Kidspot was sending to its mobile audience and found that, across the board, pushes addressing the process of pregnancy and child-rearing in straightforward, almost clinical language drove higher engagement than those with an informal, folksy tone.

Within two weeks of initial testing, the site saw an 87.5 percent increase in the engagement with its mobile app, eventually achieving a lift of between 200 percent and 300 percent after deploying winning pushes to wider audience segments.

Numbers like these are a true testament to the power of mobile measurement.

Eventually, nearly everyone will have a mobile device. Kidspot’s experience makes it crystal-clear that, regardless of what kind of conversions marketers are trying to drive, or what kind of products or services they are marketing via mobile, analytics is the key to unlocking and maximizing long-term engagement and ROI – not just here, but everywhere.