Case Studies

Perhaps you and your phone were roaming, or you downloaded a new data-hogging app and forgot to use WiFi, but if you’ve ever gone over your smartphone data plan limit it’s likely a pain you won’t soon forget.

Our customer Onavo has gained a lot of attention and venture funding for its compression utility app for smartphones and tablets that puts users in control of their data plans by compressing data, tracking usage, and saving them money. However, the benefits delivered by the app were not being recognized as its magic simply happened in the background, whether users were actively engaging with the app or not.

Onavo turned to Urban Airship to power push notifications and after a few A/B tests decided to message users when they had saved certain amounts of data. Onavo’s push notifications are easily shareable anecdotes, which not only increased retention and app opens, but drove a 30% increase in shares and mentions across social networks. So now, when friends see friends save money, Onavo’s right there to welcome new users. Download the full case study.

Download the free Onavo app for iPhone/iPad or Android.

Swirl, an established online sample sale site created in partnership with DailyCandy, wanted to grow its already successful email based flash sale business by adding an offering built for mobile. They created an app to host daily flash sales and utilized push notifications to deliver alerts each day to notify users when new sales begin.

This new daily call to action, sent directly to customers’ mobile devices, resulted in a significant increase in traffic and sales and also added new life to previously slow weekend and holiday time periods.  Swirl’s daily Push is driving a 60% increase in mobile traffic and a 20% increase in total mobile orders.  Push also drives a 40% higher conversion rate than email driven, mobile browser.

Download the Case Study

“We don’t want our customers to miss out on a great deal. So we need a stable
platform that we can rely on to engage with our customers on a daily basis.”

-Janis Leahy, Senior Product Manager, Swirl

We are thrilled with the success that Swirl is finding and hope that other retailers can find the same success.  With the holidays right around the corner, there’s never been a better time to explore what Push can do for retailers.

Download the Swirl app in the itunes store here or visit the Swirl site.

Want us to share your Urban Airship success story?  Contact us.

Download the Case Study

As a marketer, it’s exciting to see companies large and small using Push Notifications to drive business goals.  The customer case studies we have produced over the past few months make it clear that Push is a powerful tool for business.  We’ve seen them deliver a daily dose of learning for Dictionary.com, make radio social for Jelli, and drive commerce for Swirl.  But like Peter Parker’s uncle Ben used to say, “with great power comes great responsibility”.

In the changing media landscape, it’s important to remember that the mobile user is in complete control of his/her experience.  Unlike radio, TV and print, mobile users will not tolerate broadcast advertisements sent to their mobile devices.  Misusing Push Notifications to serve only the needs of the app, ahead of the needs of the customer, is the quickest way to get turned off.  Follow these recommended practices of Push to assure a long lasting relationship with your users.

• If you remember only one thing remember this.  Every mobile user is an individual, treat them as such.
• Use notifications to solve a problem or delight customers, within the scope of your app.
• Segment your audience and deliver targeted Push paired with targeted content to deliver the best possible experience to your customers.
• Use timing to your advantage by incorporating quiet time preferences and optimize to times when users are most engaged with apps.
• Make it easy to opt in and opt out of notifications, location and social features.
• Measure engagement driven from Push and optimize.

If our recommended practices aren’t for you, make sure to follow the terms of Apple’s iOS agreement.

“You may not use the APN or Local Notifications for the purposes of advertising, product promotion, or direct marketing of any kind (e.g. up-selling, cross-selling, etc.), including, but not limited to, sending any messages to promote the use of Your Application or advertise the availability of new features or versions.”

At Urban Airship we believe the future of mobile will largely be driven by real time alerts and updates, based on personal context like location and preferences.  We are excited to welcome the SimpleGeo team and are dedicated to building products and services that will deliver our vision and ensure the success of our customers.

Push notifications and location updates are proven engagement drivers for mobile apps so there is strong incentive to maximize opt-in rates. Like it or not, most users will not give you a second chance open these valuable lines of communication. Asking for permission to send push notifications and to track location is a pretty big ask for most people. This is why every app developer should consider taking a look at how their app treats the opt-in moment and upon seeing the request, answer these two questions.

1. Have I had a chance to experience this app? Building trust is essential and building trust takes time. Instead of asking a user to opt-in right as they open the app (which is the default approach) let them explore the app and see all of the cool features and content that it offers.  Then link the opt-in to an action – whether it be posting their first comment, creating a user account, or beating the first level of a game. Even looking to delay the ASK to the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th time that they open the APP is being tested, and working successfully. After experiencing the cool features and great content that you’ve developed you will have increased your chances of getting permission to message, while providing context as to why you may track location of your users to provide valuable content tied to geo.
   
2. Is there compelling value exchange if I accept push notifications and location sharing? The term “push notification” can mean something different to every end user. While the term describes a technology ,that many people still do not understand, your users associate it with the inherent value that notifications will provide them. When you ask a user to opt-in to notifications and location sharing, think about how you can demonstrate a value exchange by telling them how notifications will benefit them.  What will they get in return for saying yes?  If you can put together a compelling case then you will have increased your chances of winning the opt-in moment and help increase the success of your app. In the end you must show with the value of the content and context to keep the relationship. 

Get it here: Guide to Push: Five Ways to Engage and Maintain Your Audience

The Jelli music app began promoting community and game features with a social strategy using push notifications to revitalize social sharing and rating functions.  Their real-time alerts highlighting the app’s unique features drove a measurable increase in engagement, repeat app opens, and usage of key social features.

Download the Case Study

“We didn’t pretend that we’d build push for a nanosecond. We were looking for something that would get us started fast and grow with us. Time and money were the key factors in choosing Urban Airship. We knew that we could go to market in no time and run huge volume for little cost. It would have taken us a couple of months to build our own Push, with Urban Airship we did it in no time.”

- Sarah Bacon, Director of Product, Jelli

Download the Jelli app in the itunes store here or visit the Jelli site.

Want us to share your Urban Airship success story?  Contact us.

Download the Case Study

Urban Airship chats with Steve Benoit (@studionumber9), about his latest mobile app, for the Newport Folk Festival.  This companion app includes event alerts, performance schedules, customizable schedule, artist profiles, a venue map and the latest updates about this year’s Newport Folk Festival – all right in the pockets of festival-goers. In the words of one reviewer, “like being there when you are there.”

UA: Tell us about your app. It sure makes us wish we were going to Newport.
The Newport Folk Festival is one of the premier folk festivals in the country, and one thing that sets it apart from the others is the feeling that everyone in attendance is sharing something special and unique. The festival organizers go out of their way to encourage that feeling of community and sharing by providing once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for the artists and their fans. Pop-up performances and guest appearances are just a few of the pieces of the puzzle for Newport Folk.

The goal of this app was not only to be a companion to festival-goers in a traditional sense (with schedules, artist bios and festival map) but also to be that little angel on their shoulder that lets them know their favorite artist just grabbed his or her instruments and is playing a few acoustic tunes down by the water’s edge.

Can you describe how you used our products in your app. What were you trying to do or solve?
Newport Folk Festival is the grand-daddy of folk festivals, and one of the most endearing traits of the weekend-long celebration is the spontaneous and organic way in which things happen. You could be watching a set from one artist and another decides to jump in and join. Or one of the groups could decide to pass some time by playing a few songs from the top of a construction crane. The main goal of this app was to let people know when one these one-of-a-kind events is happening, so UA’s push notifications became the cornerstone of our development.

What level of engagement do you think that push notifications will provide to your app? Will it help to drive better use?

Festival apps are a fickle beast to begin with; we really don’t want people staring at the application the whole time! A festival app is really only aimed at being used for that time during the festival when people are walking around and taking in the entertainment, so we’ve been focused on making the app as useful for that time as possible. We know that if everything goes well the push messaging we’ve instituted, we may draw the users’ attention away from the music for a brief moment but with a reason that hopefully allows them to enjoy the festival on an entirely new level.

Why did you choose Urban Airship?
At the beginning of the process we were faced with a decent-sized smartphone project with little time to complete it. We ended up choosing PhoneGap as a platform to save development cycles and UA is a featured partner of PhoneGap. Our app’s differentiating feature is the frequent updates sent during the festival, and after reading about UA and the ease of integration, the choice was a no-brainer.

To quote Gabi Schaffzin, our developer:

HighHolburn “Things that make my life better: @phonegap, @urbanairship, and this sunshine. My wife is probably on that list somewhere, too. I guess.”

Ed note: aw-shucks.

What goals you were trying to achieve by integrating with us?
We had about a month and a half to design and build the application. Given that tight turn, we needed to leverage as many good partnerships as we could to make sure the app maintained value for the user. The app would have been half as useful without the functionality UA put at our fingertips.

Going to the festival? Download the free iOS app right now.

Have an app you’d like to chat about for our blog series? Drop us a line to sign up for a Q&A.

We are happy to make a new case study from Dictionary.com available today describing how they used push to increase user engagement with their mobile app. Like many companies who have a successful mobile app, their decision to use push was a natural evolution.

“We wanted to enhance our users’ learning experience by increasing their access to our Word of the Day feature through push notification. Push noti-fication offers our word enthusiasts the added value of accessing one of our most popular features without the need to directly access the app.,” said Lisa Sullivan-Cross, General Manager, Mobile at Dictionary.com

Part of the key to their success was they identified an already popular feature of their website and mobile app as an ideal candidate for push messaging. As you look at using push messaging or more engaging rich push capabilities, it is important to focus on the things your customers are already using or information that they are trying to access. This will help you avoid the trap of devolving into simple marketing messages that could lead to turning off push, or worse, uninstalling your app.

Dictionary.com had great results based on their careful use of push. While many apps decrease engagement over time, Dictionary.com was able to increase their app engagement of an already very popular app. To learn more download the case study now.