The iZooto

Journal

A comprehensive look at the push notification

marketing landscape and how iZooto navigates it to
empower its clients.

Part I:
Foreword by Vivek Khandelwal, Founder

Part II:
Published collection
 Part I: Foreword

Social Media Platforms Were Eating Your Lunch; Now They’re After Your Dinner.

Due to the immense power of social media, we have seen a poverty line of attention.
With giants like Facebook constantly pushing publishers over the edge, it’s time to
figure out how to find the spotlight in the overcrowded digital space.

Over the last decade, publishers have become increasingly reliant on likes and shares.
But the traffic coming from social platforms is just like a drug: It cultivates a toxic re-
lationship of dependency while leaving publishers in the dark whenever algorithm up-
dates hit the grid. And these platforms do change like the weather - once prioritizing
videos, then discussions, they have the potential of turning publishers’ whole strategy
upside down. In other words, if you want to use platforms like Facebook as your main
gravity centre, know that you also have to play by their rules.

After all, it all comes down to a simple reality. Facebook, Google, and other social plat-
forms chase the same advertising dollars as publishers. This is why there’s an urgent
need for publishers to build and own their audiences and find ways to defy the reign
of these platforms, who take away up to 85% of their profits.

So why not step closer to truly owning your audience and generating smarter reve-
nue? First, publishers need to solve a bleak dilemma. Unlike the retail model, which
requires building a direct relationship with the audience, publishers have traditionally
been overly obsessed with SEO, ignoring the importance of investing in a relationship
with their readers. Drowned in keywords, backlinks, and domain authority indicators,
they exhausted virtually every option and every channel - but failed to cultivate brand
loyalty. Now, they have to dance to Facebook’s music.

But all is not lost: Building a marketing stack can help publishers, giving them the
tools to leverage their own audience. Intelligent automation empowers them to en-
gage audiences in various ways, creating an authentic relationship without depend-
ing on Facebook and Google. Web push notifications can help with that — not neces-
sarily by bringing new data, but by simply pointing the audience’s attention to all the
right spots.

They also present an incredibly useful addition to email strategies: As there’s an over-
whelming amount of emails in people’s inboxes, with click rates around 15%, push
notifications offer another way to foster brand loyalty and establish a continuous bond
with your audience.
Just as you need email marketing, you need web push notifications to engage these
visitors better.

Push notifications are the crackerjacks of personalization. As every audience segment

needs to be engaged and monetized in a different way, they can be uniquely tailored
to fit each customer profile. And at iZooto, we believe that this is more important than
ever.

After all, your audience can generally be categorized into four different groups. There
are the flybys - new visitors who come to your website and bounce away. Then, there
are repeat visitors who show steady interest in your content. Subsequently, loyal read-
ers are those who come regularly and demonstrate an interest in the brand. Lastly,
there are paying subscribers, the group that every publisher should ultimately be aim-
ing to earn. But the recipe for success is understanding that this process is a journey,
and publishers should be catering to the needs of each segment along the way.

Capturing your users in the marketable moment is the holy grail in marketing. It can
be a gentle nudge at 8:30 am, informing them about the weather in the area. You
can’t hate that one, right? How about a post-match analysis about LeBron James after
you just finished watching the NBA finals?

Building an exhaustive and actionable reader profile is now becoming the key to
success for publishers. Rather than building reader profiles around just one single
topic or interest, publishers should enrich profiles by tracking user activity and then
finding ways to begin interaction without disrupting the user experience. Hard results
from iZooto show that in doing so, publishers can get up to 20% traffic just from push
notifications.

At iZooto, we know that the future for publishers lies in owning their audience. That’s
why we empower them to think more like brands without losing their unique identity
and value proposition - one push notification at a time. If you are interested in getting
in touch, feel free to reach out at any time.

Kind regards,

Vivek, Founder of iZooto
v@datability.co
 Part II: Published Collection

I. Push Notifications for Engagement, Retargeting,

and Retention

“4 ways cross-channel messaging levels up customer

engagement”
by Alexa Lemzy. Published in ClickZ. July 26, 2018.

Key Quote: “There’s the “push” – messages via email, SMS, or push notifications,
an avenue that is not your own to control, but can still be effective. Then there’s
the “pull”, via in-app or on website messages such as sale banners or discount
pop-ups – an environment you can fully control. The mix of the two of these strat-
egies sees a considerable increase in engagement.”

Multi-channel marketing is coming of age. Now, if you aren’t spreading your market-
ing efforts across several channels, often with a real focus on digital, then you’re falling
behind. This brings us to cohesive, fluid campaigns, all through multi-channel mes-
saging. These types of campaigns can help drive sales, increase brand recognition,
and level up customer engagement when done right.

A survey by Lucidpress reveals that “organizations that make an effort to maintain

brand consistency experience a growth dividend from doing so.” So let’s take a look
at how consistent messaging can help spur customer engagement across their
multi-channel journey.

1. Give customers a fluid and memorable campaign experience across different

mediums

Not only is it expensive to run elaborate campaign messages across different chan-
nels, but a lot of times it’s just downright unnecessary. The key to recall and product
awareness lies in successful similar messaging, as Clinique discovered during their
Chubby Plump & Shine Liquid Lip Plumping Glass campaign.

Given a print ad design (something that Clinique have excelled at for years), 6-second
bumper video ads were created with simple animations transforming the print ad,
alongside a similar-look ad for in store marketing.
The results? “Among Clinique’s target 18-24 audience, (the bumper ad) delivered a
93.7% relative lift in product recall and a 41.7% relative lift in product awareness.”

Through consistent cross-channel messaging, you can ensure your brand speaks per-
suasively to your target audience while repeating a familiar message. And such con-
sistency helps drive customer engagement and lead to sales.

2. Retarget customers who’ve forgotten “Oh I’ll buy that later”

Retargeting is all about grabbing those customers who’ve already interacted with
your brand but failed to complete a purchase. Brand interaction could be a long dwell
time on a product page or even items in an abandoned cart. Retargeting is about
serving up those items in a different channel, such as an email or via search ads, en-
couraging the customer to come back.

In a case study of MyFixCycles by webrunnner, after online search advertising, retar-

geting ads were deployed on Facebook. They really paid off, with a return of $15 for
every $1 spent on advertising, or 1,529%.

Having consistency across messaging on your site, then in retargeting (perhaps with
added incentive), and then when customers come back to your site (having more per-
sonalized messaging this time), can help in conversions.

3. Tailor messaging to each channel

Which type of marketing do you get the most success with engagement in each
channel? A poll on Twitter? Sharing a meme on Facebook? Clickable sale banners on
your website? Words like “deal” and “ends” in your email subject line?

A cohesive messaging theme geared towards engagement across all channels might
lead to a highly successful campaign, if well-crafted and delivered at the right times.

What works best in which channels is always changing. Customers can get what’s
known as “marketing fatigue,” not only from overexposure to your brand, but from
over exposure to the same types of messaging across different brands.

Here it’s not a case of “steal the best ideas” – you should try and come up with unique
messaging, design, text, and delivery to stand out in a sea of marketing.

4. Leverage a strategic local-focused approach

Brick and mortar isn’t dead – directing traffic in store can yield increased results. Not
only have searches for “near me” tripled since 2016, when retailers boosted spend with
AdWords in hyper-local locations in Q4 2017, they experienced a 107% boost in quar-
ter-on-quarter in-store visits vs a 69% holiday boost for retailers who did not (Think
With Google).
If you have a physical store, combining clever hyper-local targeted digital advertising
can help get more customers in the door. Once they’re in your store, similar messag-
ing directing them to products, sale items, or services can help influence their pur-
chase decisions.

In-store marketing has expanded within recent years, with in-store now blending with
other avenues, via:

• Time-limited text coupons to redeem in store – 77% of consumers said

they opted in to receiving a brand’s text messages because they wanted
to receive coupons or deals. Andx female consumer are more likely to get
texts with coupons: 83% vs 68% (texting statistics via TextMagic)
• Proximity marketing via beacons – 75% of top 20 U.S. retailers have im-
plemented proximity technologies and 90% of smartphone owners have
one or more subscription to access special deals (retail marketing statis-
tics via Proximity.Directory Report)
• Webrooming whereby people research online before heading in-store to
purchase – 69% of U.S. shoppers are known to engage in this activity (via
BusinessInsider)

Measure, measure, measure

Without measuring the effects of your multi-channel messaging, you’ll never be able
to accurately gauge the level of customer engagement you are getting, and whether
your strategies are having an effect.

Here are some data points to consider measuring:

• Customer interaction points and channels throughout your campaign

• ROI when a channel is added
• Number of interactions per channel vs views
• Most successful click-through channel

Put on your analyst’s glasses and see the holistic picture of how each channel per-
forms and how all the channels together contribute to your business goals. This way
you can make strategic, data-backed decisions.

The push and pull approach

What’s the push and pull approach? It’s a multi-channel strategy that helps you to get
the best results. There’s the “push” – messages via email, SMS, or push notifications,
an avenue that is not your own to control, but can still be effective. Then there’s the
“pull”, via in-app or on website messages such as sale banners or discount pop-ups –
an environment you can fully control.

The mix of the two of these strategies sees a considerable increase in engagement. In
Braze’s recent research, they identified that email and in-app messages received 185%
more engagement than email alone, and push notifications combined with in-app
messages received a full 224% increase over push notifications alone.

Push and pull. Take command of the channels open to you via other platforms, then
reel customers in further on the ones that you own.

The final word

The technology is there to help brands create successful marketing campaigns across
multiple channels, delivering a cohesive message. Informed planning and strategy,
combined with an intelligent feedback loop, will help boost customer engagement
and ultimately boost conversions.

“Publishers eye push notifications in aftermath of Facebook news

feed changes”
by Max Willens. Published in Digiday. January 31, 2018.

Key Quote: “Now that Facebook is deprioritizing publishers’ posts in the news
feed, there’s more urgency for publishers to make direct connections with read-
ers. That means they’re taking push notifications more seriously.”

If you’re wondering why you got the same Apple News push alert from CNN a
half-dozen times Tuesday afternoon, it wasn’t a coincidence. (CNN said it was an Apple
News glitch, something Apple confirmed later.)

Now that Facebook is deprioritizing publishers’ posts in the news feed, there’s more
urgency for publishers to make direct connections with readers. That means they’re
taking push notifications more seriously.

The Wall Street Journal has tripled, to nine, the number of topics that its mobile app
users can follow and made it possible to “follow” its writers so users get a push when
those authors publish something. Publishers are making an effort to stand out visu-
ally. Gannett’s USA Today grew its referral traffic from pushes by 18 percent by incor-
porating pictures, video and GIFs into its messages. The Guardian has played with the
font and style of its push notifications. CNN is will begin adding rich media to its push
notifications in the second quarter of 2018.

And while personalized push notifications didn’t gain much traction among publish-
ers’ app audiences last year, publishers including Gannett are looking to infuse more
personalization into the pushes they send. In a survey Gannett conducted with its app
users last year, relevance of the content was named as a top motivation for respond-
ing to push notifications.

“If they don’t identify with it, they’re less likely to engage with it,” said Larry Aasen,
director of mobile development at Gannett.
These moves were already in the works when Facebook announced changes to its
news feed algorithm earlier in January. But as publishers try to make up for the loss
of reach in the news feed, even areas that drive small amounts of referral traffic will
become more important.

“You’re seeing a lot more sophistication,” said Mike Herrick, svp of product and engi-
neering at Urban Airship, a push notifications technology provider. “The assets that
are owned are going to be the most strategic.”

Publishers pay close attention to their app audiences because their response to a sto-
ry often provides a good signal for how a publisher’s broader audience will react to it.
At CNN, for example, the click-through rate on its app push notifications determines
whether to move breaking stories to the top of its homepage or write more stories on
a developing story.

“They’re optimal for getting an early indication for how a story is playing with your
audience,” said S. Mitra Kalita, CNN’s vp of digital programming. “I used to use Face-
book metrics like this over five years ago. You’d look at shares over the course of 20
minutes.”

The competition for space on users’ phone lock screens has gotten intense. The vol-
ume of push notifications sent by publishers rose more than 50 percent from January
to December in 2017, according to data from Urban Airship. While there’s a risk that
publishers will overdo it, audiences are getting used to a fire hose of notifications:
Opt-in rates for push notifications rose 16 percentage points this year, also according
to Urban Airship.

Pete Brown, a senior research fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism and the
author of “Pushed Beyond Breaking,” a research report on push notifications pub-
lished last fall, predicts that images, automation and personalization will gain impor-
tance in pushes. Last week, Urban Airship rolled out a tool that will allow publishers to
use artificial intelligence to schedule push notifications based on when the audience
is most likely to interact with them.

Push notifications account for a small percentage of most publishers’ overall traffic.
For USA Today, they drive just 10 percent of its mobile app opens and 5 percent of the
mobile app’s pageviews.

Yet those slivers of audience are valuable. To receive a push notification, a person must
have either downloaded a publisher’s app or followed the publisher inside a platform
like Apple News or Google Play Newsstand, a sign of affinity.

“A lot of people would consider their push audience their most loyal, their most en-
gaged audience,” Brown said.
“How To Reap The Benefits Of Web Push Notifications”
by Bill Magnuson. Published in Forbes. March 6, 2017.

Key Quote: “That makes web push a powerful tool for keeping your web audi-
ence engaged — and for re-engaging visitors who have stopped visiting. It can
also support a more valuable product experience by keeping users informed
about new content, or updating them about the status of an order. And because
Chrome, the most-used web browser, supports web push both on desktop and on
Android mobile devices, this channel can reach users at home and on the go.”

For marketers, one of the hardest parts of the job is how fast things move. Customer
preferences and behaviors are always changing, and the marketing tools and tactics
that brands use to reach them keep changing, too. I’ve never met a marketer that
doesn’t dream of responding faster.

Using technology is a great way to move fast and engage a massive audience, partic-
ularly if it builds upon other technology that everyone is already familiar with. I work
on mobile marketing automation and would argue that web push is a technology
that can help. While still new and relatively unproven, its potential for early adopters is
clear.

The What And Why Of Web Push Notifications

Just as traditional push notifications let marketers reach mobile users when they’re
not using the app, web push notifications allow you to send outreach to web visitors
even if their browser isn’t open. That makes web push a powerful tool for keeping your
web audience engaged — and for re-engaging visitors who have stopped visiting.
It can also support a more valuable product experience by keeping users informed
about new content, or updating them about the status of an order.

And because Chrome, the most-used web browser, supports web push both on desk-
top and on Android mobile devices, this channel can reach users at home and on the
go.

While native apps have become a major part of people’s digital engagement, the
web hasn’t gone anywhere — it’s still a major platform. Americans spend 24% of their
screen time on computers, and the time people spend on desktops has grown 37% in
the last five years.

Because the web isn’t new, you probably already have the groundwork needed for
web push. This means companies have a new messaging channel in their arsenal with
very little additional work. I’ve found that it usually takes less than an hour to help cli-
ents get started with it. That’s the thing about web push: You don’t have to wrap your
head around an entirely new technology.
The First-Mover Advantage

Although there are a number of companies working on it, including my own, web
push is still new. It lets you speak directly to your web visitors beyond your website for
the first time. That’s powerful. And I think marketers who start using web push now
will see more value than those who wait.

Web push is in the same place traditional push was four years ago. Think about tra-
ditional push notifications. Over time, the number of people willing to enable push
notifications from native apps has dropped to 59% on Android and 40% on iOS, in part
because of marketers who misused the channel. It’s still possible to convince users to
opt in if you’re strategic and thoughtful, but it’s tougher than it used to be. So brands
that encourage their web audiences to enable push notifications now will likely see
a higher percentage of them opt in -- which will expand the benefits of having web
push notifications at all -- than brands who try later.

While you’ll need to try out web push to learn how to best reach users with this chan-
nel, there are also lessons from mobile app push that apply here, too. Getting custom-
ers to opt in for web push is a lot easier if you prime them by explaining the benefits
of receiving messages (for instance, being notified when a friend messages you or a
food order arrives at your door) before asking them to enable it. And while few users
are overwhelmed just yet with web push, it’s still wise to control how often you’re
reaching out with this channel by capping the frequency of web messages for each
user so they don’t get overwhelmed.

How To Use Web Messaging To Increase Conversions

Web push is a great way to nudge visitors to revisit your website and engage with
your brand. But if you’re looking to increase the chances that they make a purchase
or other conversion once they’re there, you should be using the full spectrum of web
messaging options to lead them down the funnel. This kind of multichannel strategy
works today on mobile, and I think can work on the web, too.

Imagine sending your web audience a promotional web push. Once they’re on your
site, you can leverage action-triggered, in-browser messages and a personalized news
feed to sweeten the deal if they’re about to leave, or remind them about discount
codes at checkout.

Some brands are already using it, leveraging one of the many marketing platforms
offering this tool. For instance, Photobucket, a client of ours, used a multichannel web
messaging campaign announcing free shipping and a discount on prints and posters
on Cyber Monday. By following promotional emails with in-browser messages appear-
ing one minute into each user’s post-email web session, Photobucket kept its audi-
ence focused on the promotion.

Whenever a new marketing tool emerges, there’s a temptation to wait and see how it
develops. In this case, though, I believe that waiting for the case studies may cost you
the full potential of web push. The technology for this messaging is here and ready to
use. For marketers looking to stay ahead of the curve, it’s time to seize the moment.

II. ROI and Performance of Push Notifications

“Study shows triggered push notifications are 2,770% better than

batch messages”
by Stewart Rogers. Published in VentureBeat. October 14, 2016.

Key Quote: “Even more staggering, triggered mobile push notifications drive
2,770 percent higher conversion rates for the same number of sends as compared
to batch and blast mobile push notifications. This is driven by a 726 percent high-
er click rate and a 420 percent higher post-click conversion rate.”

Yes. You read that right.

If you send a push notification to a mobile user based on events particular to that
user, rather than a notification to every user at the same time, you’ll get a 2,770 per-
cent increase in engagement.

That’s according to a new study released today by Blueshift, who analyzed 2 billion
emails and push notifications to find out how effective triggered messages are in
comparison to those sent to every user, or every member of an email list.

What do we mean by a triggered event?

When a consumer interacts with your website, app, email, or any other message sent
through any channel, you can send a corresponding message or notification because
of that. Maybe the trigger you’re looking for is an interaction with an onboarding
email or a retargeting ad. Maybe it is because the consumer has been using your app
for a specific amount of time, or because the price of an item your customer was inter-
ested in — but didn’t buy — just changed. There are lots of trigger types, but the result
of sending emails and push notifications at the right time is staggering, according to
this study.

Triggered emails drive 624 percent higher conversion responses for the same number
of sends as compared to “batch and blast” emails. This is driven by a 381 percent high-
er click rate, and an 180 percent higher post-click conversion rate.

Even more staggering, triggered mobile push notifications drive 2,770 percent high-
er conversion rates for the same number of sends as compared to batch and blast
mobile push notifications. This is driven by a 726 percent higher click rate and a 420
percent higher post-click conversion rate.

The report shows that different types of triggers perform with varying success. For
example, retargeting triggers do particularly well via push notifications — much bet-
ter than sending an email after a retargeting ad has been clicked. Email is better for
recommendation triggers, such as the use of “get the look” or “wishlist” features on a
retail website.

“In general, push notifications work well for targeting near-term intent and quick
decisions on the part of customers, whereas email is better for encouraging addition-
al browsing and targeting persistent interests,” Vijay Chittoor, cofounder and CEO at
Blueshift, told me. “That’s part of the reason re-marketing triggers work especially well
on push, and recommendation triggers work especially well on email.”

While triggered push notifications are apparently performing well against their batch
counterparts, VB Insight research shows that email still has the highest ROI of any
marketing channel. Why is that?

Email has the highest ROI for three reasons,” Chittoor said. “It’s a channel that can be
used with all ‘platforms’ — website customers can receive an email, but so can app
users and store customers. Customers can consume emails at the time of their choice,
sometimes hours after it’s sent. And email offers marketers a lot of real estate to deliv-
er a message leading to higher efficacy.”

So will we see a day when mobile notifications usurp the ROI attainable from email?

“Mobile push notifications will always be limited with regards to reach since they can
only be sent to users who have the app installed,” Chittoor said. “For some business-
es like Uber, that number is 100 percent, but for many other businesses mobile app
install rate will be a smaller fraction of customers. However, if iOS and Android contin-
ue the recent trend in improving the interactivity of push notifications and improve-
ments to the notification centers, their efficacy could potentially overtake email in the
future.”

Chittoor thinks that, by some definition, mobile push notifications have already sur-
passed email.

“In my previous experience as a marketer, I have also found it useful to look at mobile
as a marketing channel (e.g. mobile push channel, compared to email channel), as
well as to look at it as a platform (mobile app and mobile website as platforms, versus
desktop web platform),” Chittoor said. “While mobile as a marketing channel might
take longer to overtake email, mobile as a platform has already overtaken desktop as a
platform for many companies.”

So what’s next for personalized marketing? Apparently it’s driving significant improve-
ments in engagement over batch and blast tactics.
“We talk about three frontiers of personalization, and what’s next along each of them,”
Chittoor said. “Moving from batch and blast personalization, to segmented, and finally
to triggered 1:1 personalization. Moving from manual personalization, to rule-based
but automated, and finally to predictive personalization. And moving from single
channel to multi-channel personalization, and finally to unifying the personalization
experience across channels.”

The report, which breaks down engagement rates by trigger type and includes details
of both triggered emails and mobile push notifications, is available today from the
Blueshift website.

“6 Stats That Prove How Crucial Push & In-App Messaging Are To
Your App’s Success”
by Justina Perro. Published in Localytics. April 15, 2016.

Key Quote: “How do you combat this churn? By driving strong mobile engage-
ment with push notifications and in-app messaging. It’s no longer just optional to
have these two app features - it’s a must if you want your app to succeed
long-term.”

Let’s face it, apps are here to stay. You can barely get through the week without hear-
ing about a new, cool app your friend or coworker is using.

But with the infinite influx of apps flooding the market, competition is fierce and app
marketers have realized that user acquisition is only half the battle. App users are
fickle, and their limited attention spans combined with limitless app options result in
a high rate of churn. We know from research that a staggering 75% of app users churn
within 90 days.

How do you combat this churn? By driving strong mobile engagement with push
notifications and in-app messaging. It’s no longer just optional to have these two app
features - it’s a must if you want your app to succeed long-term. Below are six statis-
tics to prove just how crucial push and in-app messaging is to your mobile marketing
strategy:

Statistics on Push Notifications

1. Push notifications boost app engagement by 88% (Source: Localytics

Data Team)
When used properly, push notifications are a great way to drive users to engage with
your app on a more regular basis. The key is to find the right cadence so that noti-
fications are neither too sparse nor too frequent. Acceptable push notification fre-
quencies varies between app industries and even end users. For example, a news app
alerting users to important event updates in real time will be able to send push notifi-
cations much more often than an eCommerce app without coming off as spammy.
Pro Push Tip: A/B Test different push messaging cadences to find the right balance.
Be sure to keep a close eye on user churn.

2. 65% of users return to an app within 30 days when push is enabled (Source:
Localytics Data Team)

While 65% of users return to an app when push is enabled, only 19% of users who do
not have push enabled return to an app within 30 days. This statistic proves just how
compelling push notifications are to your ‘app stickiness’ cause. Mobile retention is a
major challenge all app marketers face today. The more a user is exposed to your app,
the more sticky it becomes. Get users to enable push to keep them attached to your
app like Velcro.

Pro Push Tip: Measure the % of lapsed users who re-engage with you after a push noti-
fication. This will reveal the True Impact of your campaign.

3. 50% of users opt into push and find push messages useful. (Source: Localytics
Data Team)

Every app strives to be useful to its audience. After all, apps were invented to accom-
plish tasks. With 50% of users choosing to opt-in to push notifications, app marketers
have a prime opportunity to prove their app’s value via push. Every push message
should be segmented and crafted with the end user in mind to ensure this value is
clearly depicted. For example, a weather app might send a push message to users
within a particular region about an impending winter storm.

Pro Push Tip: A/B Test different offers and copy text to hone in on what’s most effec-
tive for driving users back into the app. As always, make sure your push notifications
are segmented and highly relevant to the end user.

Statistics on In-App Messaging

4. In-app messages increase app launches by 27% (Source: Localytics Data Team)

In-app messages are the perfect way to enhance the app user experience, and the
above stat proves just how powerful in-app messaging can be. In-app messages
should serve as a friendly guide to help navigate users through the app, giving them
helpful pointers and delivering key information pertinent to real-time interactions.
Pro In-App Tip: Use in-app messaging to provide users with a solid app onboarding
process that introduces key features and sets them up for success.

5. In-app messages boost engagement by 3x! (Source: Localytics Data Team)

Complementary to stat #4, in-app messaging does wonders for mobile engagement.
Not only will your app users return to your app more frequently, but they’ll also be
much more engaged. This makes perfect sense because in-app messages serve as a
roadmap to help users accomplish their desired tasks. Using in-app messages to help
users achieve their goals creates highly engaged app users who turn into power users
with higher conversion rates and LTVs (lifetime values).

Pro In-App Tip: Create app user profiles to ensure you serve the most tailored in-app
messages possible.

6. In-App messages triggered from an in-app event increase conversion by 4X

(Source: Localytics Data Team)

We know app users expect a highly personalized experience, and by utilizing in-app
messaging as part of a real-time user interaction, you deliver that one-two punch nec-
essary to drive conversion. Giving users the information they need in a timely manner
not only encourages them to convert, but also grants them a sense of security that
will make them more likely to convert on a more regular basis.

The OpenTable app does a great job at this by sending users an in-app message
confirming their reservation with an option to add it to Google Calendar. In addition,
they send an email with the reservation information for further record. The more your
app weaves into the user’s everyday life, the more inclined they are to become power
users.

Pro In-App Tip: Transactional in-app messages do a great job at giving users peace
of mind that their conversion action completed, but why not take it one step further
with a CTA?

Owning Mobile in 2016

While many marketers may already utilize push and in-app messaging today, it’s
evident from the above statistics that they are not using them effectively. Using push
and in-app to simply broadcast generic messages to your entire user base is spammy,
and will only increase churn. Don’t be a victim of the mobile engagement crisis. In-
stead, use your app data combined with powerful push and in-app engagement tools
to combat churn and promote strong user experiences.

“Push Notifications and In-App Messages Can Skyrocket Your

Mobile ROI”
by Xavier Raj. Published in EliteMCommerce.

Key Quote: “What’s even more surprising is that push messages have very high
open rates that range anywhere from 47-80%. The key to high open rates is to
make the messages relevant, timely and relationship focused. It’s also important
to find the right balance in how often to reach out to users. Using push effectively
can help businesses achieve a great ROI on their mobile campaigns as the study
indicates that most of the messages had commercial intent.”
The rise of mobile devices has changed the landscape of marketing. It’s not enough to
market through channels like email and social media. It’s vital that you reach consum-
ers directly in their mobile devices if you want to reach your customers. Many busi-
nesses have adopted this mindset and pushed forward with mobile marketing and
mobile apps. However, many of these businesses expect outstanding results from the
get-go and don’t think about a long term strategy. Like other channels, it’s necessary
to engage consumers on a regular basis for optimal results.

That’s why continuous mobile customer engagement needs to be the strategy that’s
used. With continuous engagement, you create trust and build a relationship with
consumers by providing value to them. Long term engagement will also give you
valuable insight into what your audience responds to so that you can improve your
targeting and expand your reach to bigger and related audiences. A combination of
push notification and in app messaging can be the bridge that keeps consumers and
customers engaged, and consequently lead to businesses seeing high ROI numbers
in their mobile campaigns.

3 Stats that Prove Push Notification is Essential for Mobile Apps

1. Push Notification Increases App Engagement by 171%

Users that enable push notifications launched their three times more than users who
have not. These users were using the app 14.7 times a month compared to the 5.4
times non-enabled users which is an increase of 171%. One of the biggest mobile chal-
lenges that businesses face is getting their users to come back to their app and stay
engaged with them. These stats make it clear that using push is essential in getting
an app to succeed.

2. Half of Users Opt Into Push and Find Value in the Messages
Many businesses often wonder how many of their users want to be contacted by push
messages. Surprisingly, 50% of users opt in and expect useful messages from busi-
nesses. If you’re not taking advantage of push notification, then you’re actually alien-
ating a large group of users that want to receive updates from you.

3. Push Notifications Have Open Rates that Range from 47-80%

What’s even more surprising is that push messages have very high open rates that
range anywhere from 47-80%. The key to high open rates is to make the messages
relevant, timely and relationship focused. It’s also important to find the right balance
in how often to reach out to users. Using push effectively can help businesses achieve
a great ROI on their mobile campaigns as the study indicates that most of the mes-
sages had commercial intent.

3 Stats that Show the Importance of In-App Messaging

1. In-App Messaging Increase App Launches by 27%

In-app messages are basically messages that are sent while users are using an app.
According to Localytics, using in-app messages increased app launches by 27%. This
makes a lot of sense as these messages improves the user experience and make users
realize the value of the app.

2. In-App Messages Receive 8x Better Engagement than Push Messages

Urban Airship’s Mobile Engagement Benchmark Survey revealed that in-app messag-
es outperformed push messages by 800%. But that doesn’t mean you should use in-
app messages over push. The best way to use in-app messages is to combine it with
push messages to get the highest engagement numbers possible.

3. Triggered In-App Messages Increased Conversion by 400%

Deploying in-app messages triggered by events in the app lead to a 4x increase in
conversion rates. This statistic should wake up eCommerce store owners and motivate
them to do more with in-app messages. eCommerce stores can trigger time sensitive
discounts, send relevant upsell packages, notify users of current sales/promotions or
remind users about their store credit. Giving users relevant and well-timed offers gives
them an extra incentive to make a purchase.

III. Getting the Attention You Deserve

“How Not to Lose Attention of Gen Z in the 8 Seconds that

You Have?”
by Vineet Arya. Published in Entrepreneur. June 5, 2019.

Key Quote: “Gen Z loves personalisation. As far as possible, personalise all your
marketing efforts. It could be in the form of SMS, tailor-made lists, a chance to
create something for themselves or displaying advertisements for products re-
cently visited and this are sure to pay you rich returns.”

Over years marketing adapted well to changing times. From the Silent Generation
and the Baby Boomers to Gen X and Gen Y, every period in time has heralded its
own marketing challenges. Even so, the challenges posed by Gen Z to marketers are
incomparable, as it is the first ‘digital native generation,’ a population that has never
seen a world without the Internet and digital technology. The denizens of Gen Z have
integrated technology seamlessly into their lives.

This necessarily means that any company wanting to win today must make full use of
the Internet and the social media and must be digitally accessible at all times.

But why is Gen Z so Important for Marketers?

Well, for starters Gen Z represents USD 44 billion in purchasing power, as reported by
the “Uniquely Gen Z” study conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value. The
Gen Z is a market of high but fickle spenders with no strong brand loyalties, the study
found. Seventy-five per cent of the people in the study said they spend more than half
of what they get on discretionary goodies. But, what’s more, significant is that 52 per
cent of them will hop from one brand to another without the slightest thought if they
aren’t happy, according to a report by the National Retail Federation, USA.

Secondly, the Gen Z population is swelling rapidly around, led by India. By the end of
2019, one in every three humans on planet earth will be a Gen Z’er to coin a phrase. A
whopping 472 million of them will be in just one nation: India. Thus connecting with
this influential group would continue to gain in importance for retailers and business-
es. But it is not so easy, especially keeping in mind the fact that Gen Z has an attention
span of just 8 seconds compared to the span of 12 seconds of the millennials.

So How to Connect When You Have Only 8 Seconds to Gain Attention?

Every person loves his or her language and Gen Z is no exception. So you will have to:
Communicate in Gen Z Language:

Gen Z is particularly adept at using emojis, memes, animated GIFs and the visual
medium. If you make proper use of these elements in your marketing communication
then you have a greater chance of catching attention and sustaining it for the period
of your communication.

Be Active on Social Media

It is no secret that Gen Z is an active social media user. So marketers have to be pres-
ent across various social media channels. Remember, just churning out videos, article
and blogs with regularity will not do the trick as far as this generation is concerned. It
is an interactive generation, so you must be ready with pictures, reviews, polls, com-
ments, quizzes and user-generated content. You must also respond to comments and
chats.

Focus More on Mobile Devices

Your website and marketing messages must be optimised for mobile devices too. You
could invest in a mobile app and/or take advantage of mobile push notifications.

Why? Because Gen Z is a multi-device user. According to an IBM study, 66per cent of
Gen Z often uses more than one device at the same time. So, whatever you do it must
give a seamless customer experience across all devices.

Use the Power of Personalisation

Gen Z loves personalisation. As far as possible, personalise all your marketing efforts. It
could be in the form of SMS, tailor-made lists, a chance to create something for them-
selves or displaying advertisements for products recently visited and this are sure to
pay you rich returns.
Does all this seem a tall order? Do not let it faze you.
“Push Notifications - Finally a Non Annoying way to promote
your app”
by Rustam Singh. Published in Entrepreneur. August 29, 2016.

Key Quote: “An instant flash of sales, discount, freebies or something genuine-
ly new on your platform would excite the consumer and a push notification is
a good way to remind users. There’s a new cashback on your platform? Push it.
There’s a flash sale happening? Flash it. You just changed the logo color of your
app? Please don’t push it.”

If there’s anything I hate more than, exactly same startups launching exactly same
services, through an exactly same pricing and marketing strategy, its spam. Spam
come in different shades of dark annoyance – via emails, unwanted calls, SMSes, pop-
up ads, banner ads and even snail mail occasionally. From a consumer’s angle, there
literally is no circumstance whatsoever, when he/she would wants to be bombarded
with advertisements or constant reminder of capitalism.

From a business angle, marketing effectively actually matters much more than the
product/services you offer – so naturally you’d want to advertise to the maximum
extent possible. Where do you draw the line between annoying disruptive marketing
and acceptable reminders? I think the sweet spot lies in Push Notifications.

Push notifications are one of the easiest, free ways to encourage mobile engagement
on your device & other platforms. Here are some tried and tested ways your push noti-
fications can be more effective:
Timing matters strongly

Push notifications are essentially triggers to help the user remember you exist – and
using your platform is an option. If users get a notification to use a food delivery mes-
sage anytime before 1PM, it’s sure to be ignored. An ideal time would be just before
lunch time and right after office hours get over – when munchies are painfully high.
Target your timings according to when it’s most likely for users to engage.

Personalize the message

A simple way is to address the user by their name. An even better way is to look for
patterns in the user’s usage – why not personalize a simple a push notification of your
food startup with something that instantly clicks with the user such as “Is your lunch
option not worthy of your time? Try some Tikkas instead!” Using patterns based on a
user’s usage, you can safely predict when, and what a user uses your opt for – use this
information to your advantage.

Humor is your friend

While risky for the short run, you should definitely consider adding puns and witty
one-liners in your push notifications. Nothing makes it across social media, better
than a screenshot of something funny (where you’d get viral publicity on your own).
Instead of being too in your face and cutting straight to the point, using humor is very
advantageous for getting the user to open your app.

Don’t be too pushy with push notifications

We get it – you want to make daily push notifications, even more than once a day for
your users to use your platform. In all likeliness, all that results is the user disabling
push notifications completely for your app. Stick with occasional push notifications,
especially when there’s a long period of no usage.
Promos work great here

An instant flash of sales, discount, freebies or something genuinely new on your plat-
form would excite the consumer and a push notification is a good way to remind us-
ers. There’s a new cashback on your platform? Push it. There’s a flash sale happening?
Flash it. You just changed the logo color of your app? Please don’t push it.

“Study: Emoji drive open rates for push notifications 254%”

by Robert Williams. Published in MobileMarketer. July 17, 2018.

Key Quote: “While emoji were once derided as unprofessional for business com-
munications, brands are steadily beginning to incorporate them into marketing
messages to attract consumers’ attention and convey more meaning and emotion
than words alone.”

Push notifications that include emoji are opened 254% more often than those without
the digital smiley faces and icons, according to a Leanplum study provided to Mobile
Marketer. The response to push notifications with emoji is three times higher than last
year, the mobile marketing firm found.

Email messages that use emoji in the subject lines are opened 66% more than those
without, even as the average number of emoji used per message and the percentage
of messages including at least one of the icons have doubled in the past year.

In addition, apps that use emoji show 26% fewer uninstalls. Leanplum analyzed 300
million emails and push notifications during a 12-month period ending on June 1 for
this report.

While emoji were once derided as unprofessional for business communications,

brands are steadily beginning to incorporate them into marketing messages to at-
tract consumers’ attention and convey more meaning and emotion than words alone.
Leanplum’s study of open rates for push notifications and emails shows how emoji
can help to capture mobile users’ attention amid the flurry of text-based communica-
tions they receive throughout the day. The firm’s survey includes the results from mar-
keters such as Miss Selfridge, a women’s clothing retailer that saw an 81% lift in open
rates and 363% surge in revenue from outgoing messages that contained the icons.
When used appropriately, emoji can help to convey emotion and personality from
brands, which support marketers in driving in-the-moment engagement and can
help to build long-lasting user retention. Emoji have grown from an original set of 176
characters to a collection of more than 3,000 unique icons, expanding the range of
their communicative power for marketers, per Wired magazine.

Emoji have shown massive influence on internet communication. Last year, Facebook
said more than 60 million emoji were sent every day on its core social network, while
5 billion were sent via its Messenger chat platform, numbers that don’t appear to be
waning any time soon as more people and brands grow comfortable using the digital
icons in everyday communications. Facebook may provide updated emoji data with
today’s World Emoji Day, whose organizers will present awards for Best New Emoji,
Most Anticipated Emoji, Excellence in Emoji Use and which emoji best represents 2018
as Emoji of the Year.

IV. Empowering Our Partners

“Delhi-based iZooto helped companies like Trak.in and Koovs in-

crease user engagement thirtyfold”
by Aparajita Choudhury. Published in YourStory. August 31, 2016.

Key Quote: “iZooto is redefining the rules of user engagement on the web, and is
already managing over 50 million subscribers for businesses, and growing at 120
percent on a monthly basis,” says Vivek.”

“This Browser Notification Company Just Hit 400 Customers,

$600k ARR”
by D.J. Podgorny. Published in NathanLatka. November 24, 2018.

“PhilNews Is Boosting Their Traffic with iZooto”

by Neha Tanwer. Published in GrowthHackers. April 14, 2019.

Key Quote: “A case study that highlights how Philnews, a Filipino website with 11+
million traffic, grew its website session by 30%. Philnews started using iZooto for
building and owning a loyal audience. With timely, personalized and limited noti-
fications, Philnews has already boosted its traffic by 20% within 3 months.”