Why was this in-app sent only to 10,000 users if our target audience is 80,000? Something must be wrong…

We have a very important offer going; let’s make sure we link all emails, push notifications, and in-apps to the landing page.

We have to send some critical info to all users; let’s set up a push notification for tomorrow morning.

Wow, in-apps have a much higher conversion rate compared to email and push notifications! Let’s only do in-apps going forward.

If you already understand what is wrong with each of these statements, great job! If not, don’t worry. This article will explain the intricacies of each channel, including when to use them, their limitations, and often hidden implications.

Those are common questions and comments I’ve encountered over the years from working with businesses that intensively use emails, push notifications, in-apps, and SMS to engage their users.

But first, I think it’s important to emphasize the value of using multiple messaging channels to begin with.

Why Should You Use Multiple Channels?

From my experience, email is still the most dominant messaging channel across all organizations and is often the only owned messaging channel in use for small and medium businesses. That is a shame because access to other channels like push notifications, in-apps, SMS, instant messaging, etc., is becoming more accessible and affordable every day.

I’d like more businesses to move away from just doing email marketing to doing customer engagement – a cross-channel approach that brings many benefits, such as increased audience reach, engagement, personalization, and improved user experience.

To cement my argument, here’s a fact: companies that use at least three different channels have a two times higher revenue contribution from CRM compared to companies that use only one channel.

Graph: CRM revenue contribution vs number of channels used

Email vs. Push vs. In-app vs. SMS Breakdown

It’s time to go through each channel and do a breakdown of pros and cons for each while listing good and bad use cases.

Email

Email Pros:

  • High Audience Reach: Email can reach the largest percentage of your audience. Transactional emails are always sent to 100% of your user base globally, while marketing email reach depends on country opt-in laws. You get 100% reach in the USA where all users are opted-in by default, and 40-70% reach in the rest of the world where users have to explicitly opt-in.

  • Detailed Content: Email can contain a lot of content comprised of different types of media in a fully custom structure and design. This lets us present a lot of information and be really creative with our email templates.

Email Cons:

  • It’s Expensive: The cost is usually based on the volume of emails you send, which can limit the number of campaigns or how much you test.

  • Deliverability: Sending a high volume of emails requires specialized knowledge in maintaining sender reputation and ensuring low spam rates.

  • Delayed Response: Email doesn’t require immediate interaction, so the response may be delayed for a few days or not occur at all.

  • Tracking Problems: With the introduction of privacy features in recent years, opens and clicks are no longer reliable for accurate measurement. For example, opens are inflated since iOS 15 introduced email preloading, and clicks are miscounted due to ad-blocking tech or Outlook’s link scanning.

Email is a very versatile channel, suitable for almost all use cases, including transactional and marketing messages like payment notices, product updates, personalized promotions, and onboarding flows. However, it’s not ideal for time-sensitive messages requiring a quick response, as emails can be ignored or end up in spam.

In-app Messages (IAM)

In-app Pros:

  • Instant Response – The main advantage of in-apps is that they are forcefully displayed to all active users who used the mobile app or your website. They make sure the user sees the information and action you want them to take, compared to email which can be ignored.
  • Free of Cost – In-app delivery is usually free. There is a cost that comes from the plugin or the platform you’re using to send in-apps, but there is no charge for the volume of in-apps you send. That is great because you can send and test as much as you wish.
  • High Conversion Rates – In-apps have really high conversion rates since they deal with active users, so they’re extremely powerful to drive meaningful conversions like sales.

  • Custom Design – In-apps can be fully customized in at lest HTML and CSS which opens a lot of room for creativity and testing.

  • Address Product Faults – Let’s say you notice a sharp drop-off in the funnel, and it takes you 3 months to ship a product update that can address the problems users are having. You can mitigate that problem by running an in-app that can partially fix a problem.

In-app Cons:

  • Lower Reach – In-apps can only be displayed to active users who have opened your app or website. That means that you can’t reach dormant users or churned customers. Exposure to only active users is also the reason why conversion rates are high.
  • Interrupted UX – The benefit of Instant response comes with a cost of adding friction to the user experience. In-apps display while the user is doing something, so it’s very important to pick a moment when the user is the most receptive. Poor timing can lead to poor user experience – I highly recommend tracking potential negative impact on a few metrics like session length and app uninstalls, even if the in-app has a positive impact on conversions.

  • No Linking-out for Purchases – iOS and Android forbid apps to lead users for payment outside App Store and Google Play. This for recently changed for EU users with the introduction of DMA. You can read about all changes in my Essential Guide to the Digital Markets Act (DMA) post.

Lastly, I’d mention there are significant differences between mobile and web in-apps in terms of how to use them. The only notable difference is user perception – due to low entry barrier for websites, web in-apps have been misused and developed a poor perception of annoying pop-ups. That is the reason why you should give extra care to web in-apps to make sure they are the least interruptible as possible.

In-apps are great for enhancing the user experience within your app. Good use cases would be onboarding tutorials, feature spotlights, contextual tips, surveys and opt-in prompts for other channels. The downside is that it only reaches active app users, limiting its reach so it’s not able to engage dormant users who haven’t opened the app.

Push Notifications

Push Notification Pros:

  • High visibility – even though push open rates are not very high (1-10%), almost every push receives user attention and is mostly read even if dismissed. Good for time-sensitive messaging and in combination with other channels – e.g. chaining to an in-app or pointing to an email.

  • Free of cost – Push delivery is usually free. There is a cost that comes from the platform you’re using to send pushes, but there is no charge for the volume of you send. That is great because you can send and test as much as you wish.
  • Product enriching — Push notifications can be a great extension of the product, sending real-time relevant updates, keeping users informed outside the app, and eventually increasing app engagement.

Push Notification Cons:

  • Medium reach – iOS, Android and Web push notifications require an opt-in from users. Mobile opt-in rates average 50%, while web only 3%. This means push will only reach half of your audience on average.
  • Content limitations – Push notifications have a system predetermined visual look which usually consists of an app icon, headline, text and optionally, image and buttons. This provides consistent user experience, but introduces limitations like character limits.

  • No linking-out for purchases – same as with in-apps, iOS and Android forbid apps to lead users for payment outside App Store and Google Play.

  • High opt-out rates – from personal experience, the average push unsubscribe rate is 0.3-0.4%, and can go as high as 1%. This is a costly rate, as you can lose about 5% of your push notification reach in just 10 push notifications sent.

Mobile push is ideal for timely and contextual messages. It performs best for time-sensitive offers, location-based alerts, event reminders, and breaking news. However, mobile push falls short with long content or messages that aren’t urgent or relevant to the user’s current context. Overuse can lead to notification fatigue, causing terrible outcomes like users disabling push or uninstalling the app.

SMS

SMS Pros:

  • Incredibly high open rate – 97% of all SMS messages get opened.

SMS Cons:

  • One-dimensional content– SMS is best used for short transactional messaging where users are informed about something important to them. Classic marketing messaging is received very poorly and results in very high opt-out rates and poor customer satisfaction.
  • Legal limitations – SMS is a channel with the highest regulation across the globe. It requires user consent, clear opt-out instructions, forbids excessive frequency, and it has a lot of content restrictions. You can’t send anything connected to gambling, betting or casino, no “SHAFT” content (Sex, Hate, Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Vaping). Many financial services are also loads and cryptocurrency are also not allowed. Failure to comply with these rules may lead to legal action and high fines.

  • Costly – SMS is usually paid per message sent, and the cost can quickly add up with the rising send volumes. Price is very dependent on send volume and geographical location. Domestic messaging can range from $0.005 for high volume to $0.05 for low volume, while international is much more expensive, ranging from $0.05 to $0.30.
  • Content limitations – SMS supports only text up to 160 characters. MMS can support images, but is also more expensive.

One unaligned factor for SMS is geographical preference. For example, South Americans very rarely engage with Email and Push notifications, as SMS is the most popular channel on the continent. Learned that the hard way, wondering why email open rates are 4% and push notifications are 0.2%.

SMS is the go-to channel for urgent, must-read messages. It’s perfect for time-sensitive information like two-factor authentication codes, appointment reminders, delivery updates, and critical alerts. With high open rates and immediacy, it ensures your message is seen. On the other side, marketing use can feel invasive since SMS is perceived as a personal channel.

The Conclusion

Now that we’ve gone through the breakdown of all channels, let’s revisit the beginning of this article, and let’s spot what was wrong with those comments and questions.

Why was this in-app sent only to 10,000 users if our target audience is 80,000? Something most be wrong…

This is because 80,000 was the count of our whole segment we targeted and represent, but only 10,000 users triggered the in-app by opening the app in our time period. 80,000 is the pool of potential users who might trigger the in-app, but in reality, many of them never will.

We have a very important offer going, let’s make sure we link all emails, pushes and in-apps to the landing page.

iOS and Android restricts apps from linking-out to purchases outside App Store and Google Play. Doing so is in violation of their terms and might result in penalization.

We have to send some critical info to all users, let’s set up a push notification for tomorrow morning.

Push notifications function on an opt-in basis, which is never 100%, meaning pushes can never reach the whole user base. Email is a better channel for this use case.

Wow, In-apps have so much higher conversion rate compared to email and push! Let’s only do in-apps going forward.

This is because in-app audience is “self-selective” – it will be consisted only of users who have opened the app, white pushes and emails are also sent to inactive users.  These conversion rates are not comparable unless segments are normalized.

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