Customers

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.

The crew is on the ready, the flight plan is set and the blueprint for a SXSW experience you won’t soon forget is coming to life. Over the next month you’ll be able to follow along in our journey as we bring Urban Airship’s Mobile Roundtable to the streets of Austin for SXSW; it’s beginning to take shape.

Last week you learned that we really are planning a mobile, mobile leadership event. With round-trips jumping off from The Screen Porch at W Austin, and a secret, ultra-cool way station, a few of you will have the opportunity to mix and mingle in small group discussions led by mobile, marketing and developer luminaries.

People like Andrew Mager, Chief Listening Officer at Spotify, and Chris Messina, Developer Advocate at Google, will spark a wide variety of discussions, from how mobile is changing content, marketing and consumer behavior, to how industries can adapt to seize new opportunities.

Head on over to our event site and submit your email address to get updates on how you may be able to hitch a ride with us in Austin.

As many of us pack our bags for CES this week, we’re bracing for the flood of events and information popping up on our respective feeds. So whether you’re on the floor at CES, following from your office, or on-the-go but still connected, we’d love to highlight one of our customers’ apps that will make sure you won’t miss the biggest news or product releases coming from the show. Because if you’re like us (which we suspect you are), you’ll want to be the first to know.

As you wait in your hotel room or boarding gate, make sure to download CNET’s iOS app to have the top breaking stories from the week delivered to your fingertips. CNET’s editors will be picking the top daily stories that you absolutely need to know about and sending them to you as soon as they’re live.  This way you’ll stay connected to the biggest news, even while your other hand is tied up clutching that Yard-Long Eiffel Tower drink.

Pick up the CNET app for iPhone and iPad at the itunes store.

Amazon shipped their first Kindle Fires eight weeks ago and since then we’ve seen a lot of interest in the platform from our customers. Consumers are jumping in too, making the Kindle Fire the best-selling product across all of Amazon.com since it became available. We’re also excited about the Kindle Fire, and even more excited to let you know that Urban Airship’s Helium push notifications for Android are already deployed on tens of thousands of devices: it just works.

Over the weekend we had several customers go live on the Fire using our Helium push notifications. Glu Mobile is just one of our customers who are using our push notifications for Android in all of their games for the Fire. When we asked Glu if they did anything special to activate push in their games for the Kindle Fire, Mike DeLaet, VP of Sales & Marketing said, “We just integrated the Urban Airship SDK into these titles like we do for all of our titles, which allows us to utilize push notifications on the Kindle Fire.” Our customers depend on Push to drive engagement and provide the best user experience possible for their applications. With Helium they can do that for the Kindle Fire today.

A little background: the Fire is an Android device with a few key differences. It is missing Google’s Mobile Services (Android Market, C2DM, Google IAP, etc). Additionally, your app cannot require a gyroscope, camera, WAN module, Bluetooth, microphone, GPS, or micro-SD to function. Beyond that, it’s Android 2.3.4 with a new screen size and functions just like any WiFi-connected Android device.

We know that in the world of mobile phones, tablets, PC’s, and other IP connected devices, powerful engagement tools are a requirement for success. We’re continually working to extend our services to any device and as many platforms as possible. But device and platform support only gets you so far–and that’s where our tools come into play. Urban Airship enables you to effectively address and engage with your application audience. With our recent acquisition of SimpleGeo, the future holds many exciting additions to our products, like enabling audience segmentation on a local level for the Kindle Fire and beyond. These are exciting times and we’re just scratching the surface on what we can do.

For more details on setting up an app for the Kindle Fire and selling it in the Amazon App Store, see their Developer FAQ. If you are interested in using Helium to power push on a Kindle Fire or any other Android device, check out our Pro Plans. And finally, if you want to make addressing your Kindle Fire audience easier, take a look at our FAQ on setting tags for your Kindle Fire app installations.

Apple’s Newsstand launched with the release of iOS 5 on October 12th, and by any measure, it appears to be a big win for Apple and for publishers alike. Since the iPad took the technology world by storm 18 months ago, it’s been an interesting time for publishers with several notable App Store rejections, industry confusion about how to implement tablet subscriptions, and a fair amount of criticism of Apple’s 30% revenue share. It appears now that Newsstand is the real deal, delivering on the iPad’s promise of a new dawn for publishers. Huzzah!

Not all major publishers came out of the gate with Newsstand titles, but a handful made a splash. Urban Airship customers The Guardian and Future Publishing were notable early adopters. The Guardian released a long-awaited update to its popular iPad reader, and Future Publishing launched nearly 60 new magazine titles on their custom-built publishing platform, including Future Music, Total Guitar, and Mac | Life. The New York Times, Conde Nast, Rodale, and others were all early to market as well, contributing to a great selection of Newsstand titles from which to choose.

The early success of the platform bodes well for traditional publishers that are under increasing pressure to produce big revenue gains in mobile distribution. Here at Urban Airship, we’re excited to see so many customers using our tools to achieve this success. We have been fortunate to work with many large publishers since the early days of Urban Airship, and have built a compelling product offering for this segment of the market. “Urban Airship is a Direct Marketers dream”, said Richard Walker, who oversees distribution and marketing at Future Publishing.  He also noted that, “The impact on our customers has been a better user experience, and the opportunity to discover new publications in Newsstand.”

Here’s a bit about each of the components we provide that make up our complete offering:

• Newsstand library support. Via our iOS library, Newsstand apps are configured to handle Auto-renewable subscriptions and single-issue purchases via Apple’s In App Purchase, integrating with the Newsstand framework easily.
• Content Delivery. Urban Airship hosts & delivers the physical magazine & newspaper content and verifies purchase receipts with Apple, making that content available to the end user on multiple iOS devices and restorable in the event that a device is reset.
• Push Notifications. Push is a key piece of the puzzle for a properly functioning Newsstand experience. Notifying subscribers of new available content, breaking news, or live in-app discussions is a key engagement driver, bringing end users back to your app again and again. Push Notifications also wake up the app and trigger background downloading when new issues are available, eliminating the need to wait around while the new issue downloads. Content is preloaded while you sleep and available for you right away.
• Audience Segmentation. Our flexible APIs allow publishers to collect preference information from end users, e.g., alert settings for Political & Entertainment stories, location information, “Quiet Time” preferences, and more. By allowing users the ability to opt in only for the most contextual alerts at the most appropriate frequency, volume, and times, publishers maintain optimal access to this communication channel. Use our Tags & Aliases features to run drip campaigns, associate mobile users with profiles in your CRM, and offer a highly personal and contextual user experience.
• Free (seed) content. It’s important to include a suitable amount of free and/or preview content for non-subscribers, or as our customers like to think of them, “future subscribers.” If a free app has no useful function without requiring a purchase, then it will most likely be deleted faster than you can say Qwikster. Urban Airship supports “free” content, such as back issues, that can be listed alongside single-issue sales and subscription options.
• Reports. Know thy users. Understand how your users are interacting with your app, which types of messages are most effective for which constituencies, peaks and valleys of app usage, and more. Our reporting tools round out the third pillar of any successful digital distribution strategy. Engage, Monetize, Analyze! (Rinse and repeat, naturally)

It’s been 18 months since the iPad was announced. Some called it a big iPhone. Publishers held out high hopes but ran into early disappointments, and even today, struggle with their digital content strategies. Today, Newsstand is paying off, and visionary companies like Future Publishing and The Guardian are taking the lead.

Contact us if you are interested in adding Newsstand and Subscriptions to your app.

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

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