Automation can be a crucial tool to help apps thrive in the competitive mobile marketplace, helping developers and marketers fine-tune their mobile app retargeting campaigns. What’s more, automation is no longer a luxury but a necessity — helping streamline processes and ensure campaigns reach the right audience with precision. In this article, learn actionable ways app developers can use automation to make their marketing strategies more efficient and effective.

Understanding Mobile Marketing Automation

As the global economy fluctuates, the value of automation has become increasingly evident. Automation involves using technology to automate processes that would be otherwise done manually. Mobile marketers can leverage automation for tasks ranging from A/B testing to sending personalized push notifications based on user actions. The goal is to harness data to gain insights, understand user behavior, and deliver personalized messaging and in-app experiences that drive revenue. According to PHD, marketers worldwide spend 88% of their time on tasks that could be automated (reporting, monitoring performance, creating competitive analyses, and reviewing audience insights). Mobile marketing teams that leverage automation can diminish these admin tasks to allocate more resources and expertise to managing effective mobile app retargeting campaigns.

Benefits of Mobile Marketing Automation

Mobile marketing automation can provide an array of tangible benefits:

  1. Build User Cohorts: Rather than sending generic marketing campaigns to a broad audience, automation helps segment users into distinct cohorts based on criteria such as geography, behavior, demographics, psychographics, and acquisition. This enables highly targeted marketing.
  2. A/B Testing: Automation simplifies A/B testing, allowing you to split your audience into different groups and expose them to specific variables, like alternate creatives or calls to action. This data-driven approach helps optimize conversion rates and informs decisions about new features or designs.
  3. Referral Programs: Running a successful referral program is complex, but automation can simplify it by identifying triggers, sending timely messages, tracking sign-up mediums, rewarding users, and measuring performance. This ensures that your referral program is effective and enhances your brand’s growth.
  4. Personalization: Automation empowers marketers to tailor content and messages to individual users, delivering the right message to the right person at the right time. This enhances the user experience and boosts engagement.
  5. Predictive Insights: Automation goes beyond intuition, allowing developers to connect the dots in vast datasets. It helps identify patterns in user behavior and predict future actions, enabling more informed decisions.

Types of Mobile Marketing Automation

Mobile marketing automation can be categorized into three main types:

  1. User- or Audience-Based Automation: This involves creating user experiences based on defining characteristics. For example, you can retarget your most loyal users with personalized offers or send push notifications based on users' timezones.
  2. Event-Based Automation: Campaigns are triggered by specific user behaviors in real-time. For instance, retargeting first purchasers with a referral discount code after they check out or re-engaging users who recently downgraded their spending with timely discounts.
  3. Prediction-Based Automation: This type of automation uses predictive modeling to identify patterns in user data that indicate future in-app events. It helps proactively engage users based on their expected behavior.

Implementing Automation in Your Campaigns

Here's how to automate your mobile retargeting campaigns effectively:

  1. Gather Foundational Data: Start by collecting trustworthy, relevant, and clean data as the foundation of your campaigns. Metrics, user engagement data, user experience data, and financial KPIs are critical.
  2. Identify the Right Users: Analyze your data to identify the users most likely to contribute to your campaign goals. The more specific your targeting, the more impactful your campaigns.
  3. Determine your Channel Mix: Choose the channels (e.g., email, push notifications, in-app campaigns) that best reach your target audience and align with your retention objectives.
  4. Create Personalized Content: Develop content specific to your identified user segments. Personalization can include using the user's name, tailored product recommendations, or location-based content.
  5. Execute Campaigns: Set up triggers for your automation campaigns, whether they're user-based, event-based, or prediction-based. Run your campaigns across chosen channels and use analytics tools to gather and analyze data.
  6. Test, Measure, and Optimize: Continuously track and test your campaigns. Use A/B testing to fine-tune content, timing, and messaging. Adapt and optimize based on real-time data.

Best Practices for Mobile Marketing Automation

To excel in mobile marketing automation, consider these best practices:

  1. Prioritize Feedback: Collect feedback from users, particularly your most loyal ones, to gain insights into what's working and what needs improvement. Implement tools like Net Promoter Score (NPS) to gauge user satisfaction.
  2. Don't Overwhelm Users: While automation helps you reach users, it's crucial not to bombard them with excessive messages. Set frequency caps and let data guide your decisions on which notifications convert best.
  3. Ensure Data Quality: Reliable data is essential for successful automation. Outdated or irrelevant data can hinder your efforts. Work with your mobile measurement partner (MMP) and demand-side platform (DSP) to ensure data accuracy.
  4. Focus on your User Journey: Understand the timing, frequency, and triggers of your campaigns to enhance your app’s user experience over time. Ensure that your campaigns align with the user's journey.
  5. Leverage Location-Based Campaigns: Use location triggers to enhance your automation campaigns, especially if your app relies on offline activities. Offer discounts, promotions, or notifications based on a user's location.

Takeaways

Automation is the linchpin of an efficient and effective mobile app retargeting campaign strategy for the new year. By automating processes, segmenting users, personalizing content, and continuously optimizing campaigns, app developers can maximize user engagement and drive revenue growth. Automation is not a luxury; it is a necessity in today's competitive environment!

  • There are three main types of mobile marketing automation: user-based, event-based, and prediction-based automation .
  • Steps for implementing automation: gather foundational data, identify the right users, select appropriate channels, create personalized content, execute campaigns, and continuously test and optimize your campaigns.
  • Best practices of automation include prioritizing user feedback, avoiding overwhelming users with excessive messages, ensuring data quality, focusing on the user journey, and leveraging location-based campaigns.

 

Leverage the power of automation to drive dynamic, performance-focused in-app retargeting campaigns by getting in touch with our team.