Mobile Marketing Automation: A Complete Guide for 2023

Bear in mind that mobile app marketing automation can be very tricky and, if implemented wrongly, can make users hit “delete” immediately. But this won't happen to you because we'll explain how mobile marketing automation works and how to use it effectively.

What is Mobile Marketing Automation?

Mobile marketing automation involves the use of technology to streamline repetitive marketing processes and campaigns across multiple channels for a good mobile experience. You’ve seen these a million times already — the mobile pop-ups reminding you to complete an in-app purchase, the SMS messages offering discounts, the emails telling you about new arrivals, and so on. While mobile marketing automation tools require data-driven planning and implementation, it helps you deliver a relevant and personalized mobile experience based on the preferences and needs of your users. 

Here’s a handy example. Assuming you have a makeup brand, and a customer orders a makeup package including foundation, eyeliner, mascara, and lip gloss. Using the products’ average consumption patterns gives you an idea of the best time to separately remind the customers about a repurchase. Would you rather do it manually or automate reminders for each item? Choosing the latter, follow the next steps:

• Have a user database that segments customer data using filters like their age, location, date of purchase, next reminder, etc.
• Set up an automation layer that can trigger hyper-personalized messages on the next reminder dates.
• Get an integration layer for omnichannel marketing, like SMS, push notifications, and in-app messages, to form a continuous user engagement strategy.

This 3-step marketing automation process can be modified, analyzed, and streamlined for hundreds, thousands, or even millions of customers with similar pain points such as discounts, offers, cart abandons, and feedback requests.

Types of App Marketing Automation

When it comes to app marketing automation, there are different ways of implementing it into your marketing strategy. Every app has a specific audience that, unfortunately, does not get inspired by the same things. To ensure you target the right persons, for the right reasons, and at the right time, we recommend using the “playground strategy”. 

Picture a playground with kids walking in from different doors and, once in, interested in different games. If you force all kids to play the same game, many will become grumpy and leave. However, while the same applies to app users, their preferences can change, so it’s best to keep analyzing ways to re-engage, reward, or incentivize users based on their app’s performance. 

Here are different types of mobile marketing automation that you can use to automate your app marketing actions.

1. Lead-Targeted App Marketing Automation

Lead-targeted AMA uses historical data to create a marketing flow that is automatically triggered by users’ interactions with the app. These works by a data-based mapping and scheduling of lead magnets for a specific user segment, determined by factors like buyer persona, app sessions, the information they provided themselves, and the content they’ve subscribed to or downloaded. Marketing automation for apps is pre-defined, including the flow frequency, the time when it should be triggered, and the duration of each session.

2. Real-time App Marketing Automation

This type of app marketing automation is built to identify customer behavior and events. While mobile marketing campaigns in this category are triggered in real time as users are navigating the app, the triggers must contain hyper-personalized messages to drive any result. 

Tracking the key performance indicators throughout the campaign will help you determine the triggers that are working and those that need to be filtered. For example, you can offer discounts and coupons to returning customers that purchased an item above a specific amount or to customers searching for products on sale. The opportunities are endless, and e-commerce brands like Amazon are leveraging this real-time AMA. See an illustration for your inspiration:

3. Analytical App Marketing Automation

This marketing automation for mobile app data and trends is used to predict user behavior. Deeply analyzing their behavior and what informs their buying decisions, you can automate your in-app and omnichannel marketing to forecast future actions accurately. This can help you personalize your direct promos and offerings across multiple channels.  

App marketing automation plus product recommendations not only save time but also reduce churn, increase user engagement, and gives your customers an unforgettable omnichannel experience.

Benefits of Mobile Marketing Automation

Build User Loyalty and Increase User Lifetime Value

Identifying users’ pain points, automating a data-driven personalization strategy, and hitting the bull’s eye across different channels is a tried and true method for boosting app retention and increasing your brand’s marketing real estate. The most important factor in improving mobile app retention is understanding why you are losing users. For this, collect, aggregate, and implement data from all channels, including push notifications, geo-specific messaging, in-app messaging, and email marketing.

Boost Return-on-Investment (ROI) 

One way of increasing your ROI is by using the “in-your-face” marketing strategy, where you streamline targeted customer messages based on interests and customer preferences. These can include AI product recommendations, special offers, and purchase reminders via omnichannel. Using a mobile marketing automation platform motivates customers to buy and keep making repeat purchases, thereby boosting sales and ROI. 

Enhance User Experience by Launching Highly Personalized Campaigns

Bombarding users with the same messages across different channels is boring. Automating repetitive marketing tasks will give you enough creative time to deliver highly valuable, data-driven personalized campaigns for improved user experience. To achieve this, analyze and segment your app users based on specific parameters like location, age, progression, and user journey. 

Reduce Churn and Win Back Inactive Users

If your churn rate — the number of app users you’ve lost over the total number of customers — is increasing, then a marketing automation solution is just about what you need to drive your marketing and retention efforts to the top.

Automate Marketing Across Different Channels and Save time

Cross-channel marketing automation for mobile apps offers a seamless customer experience across different platforms. For instance, if a customer carts a pair of shoes but abandons the cart, you can use emails, pop-ups, and push notifications to remind them to complete their purchase. 

9 Mobile Marketing Automation Best Practices to Try in 2023

1. Set your Objectives and Goals

Setting objectives and KPIs should be part of the planning process of every marketing automation campaign. Take a data-driven approach to determine your potential gains from the campaign and the metrics to track. 

2. Know your Audience and Tailor your Campaign Accordingly

A great way to do this is to leverage your customer data and market research to get a clear picture of your customer persona. This will help you determine the motivations, interests, experiences, occupations, and emotional pains of your audience and how to add a hyper-personalized touch to your campaign. 

3. Utilize Omnichannel Marketing Platforms

To stay atop customers' minds, you must maintain strategic and steady communication with them. Triggered messages, automated push notifications, timely SMS messages, and other omnichannel marketing tactics are popularly known as app marketing gold. And for this, you need to make use of the customer engagement platforms. Using such platforms, you can create an integrated, cohesive, and personalized shopping experience across different sales touchpoints. 

4. Always Use Data to Drive Your In-App Product Recommendations 

The use of data and analytics to create personalized product recommendations for your customers cannot be overemphasized. Following the right triggers, your target audience gets to see the right products at the right time. The benefits are endless — accurate product recommendations can help you improve conversion rates, spur repeat purchases, boost loyalty, increase AOV, and many more. 

5. Collect Mobile Data and Build Your Database

Mobile marketing automation is useless if your software can’t interface with user data. Always make sure to properly integrate CRM with your automation tool to allow for a streamlined data flow between them. This helps to create more valuable insights and improve UX. 

6. Avoid Complicated Keywords

Your promos and offers should always contain simple, clear, and concise keywords your customers can understand in one glance. Also, ensure they're relevant to your target audience.

7. Offer Incentives

Special offers, discounts, sales, and promos, are some incentives you can use to increase user engagement and build brand loyalty.

8. Create Omnichannel Experiences

Marketing automation has evolved beyond just mobile push notifications and emails. You can also distribute your marketing messages to include other channels, such as in-app messages, SMS, and more. 

9. A/B Test Your Campaigns

Always go back to the drawing board to analyze your KPIs and test your campaigns to compare performances and identify gaps for improvement. 

How to Choose the Right Mobile Marketing Automation Platform?

There are numerous mobile marketing automation platforms, and deciding the best pick can be daunting. Here are factors to consider when choosing an automation tool for your mobile marketing needs.

• User interface: If the tool’s dashboard is confusing, difficult to navigate, or has a poor learning curve, then you may want to reconsider.  
• Channels: Double-check the platform’s channel offerings and whether they are aligned with your strategy.  
• Integrations: Confirm whether the tool’s features serve your users. Integrations make it easier to create your automated lead nurturing campaigns, so be sure it is compatible with your existing technology. 
• Pricing: Determine how the features impact the cost. For instance, how many contacts can you have, and does it affect the pricing in any way? 
• Onboarding and other services: Inquire about how much assistance you’ll get during the onboarding process, as well as the terms and conditions that apply. 

Improve Your Mobile Marketing Workflows with Reteno

Get ahead of the game with Reteno’s marketing workflows. We offer omnichannel marketing automation involving mobile push notifications, in-app messages, AI product recommendations, and order automation. Product marketers love us because our integration is fast and requires zero coding knowledge. Our key offerings include:

• Automated segmentation engine: Target the right audience and create actionable user segments with our powerful segmentation engine.
• Behavioral analytics: Our automation tool provides conversion funnels, cohort analysis, uninstall tracking, profile data, and much more behavioral analytics.
• Unified software: Reteno bridges the gap between teams, including product teams, developers, and growth marketers.

Omnichannel experience: Using our platform, you can deliver your messaging campaigns across multiple channels such as push, email, SMS, in-app, and more.

Still unsure whether to benefit from our platform? Here’s a case study for your consideration.

Umico, an app that offers a marketplace, loyalty program, and mobile bank features to its 2.5 million customers, recorded a 150% increase in purchase frequency using push notifications. Also, there was a 20% decrease in cart abandonment. 

How can Reteno help you?

• You can analyze the user data from your mobile application, website, CRM system, loyalty programs, etc.
• Then the data will be unified in one profile.
• In addition, we will form segments to provide communication in different channels.

Sign up with us today!  

Final thoughts

To product marketers, marketing automation takes the form of a dashboard they can use to plan, manage, coordinate, and measure all their campaigns. To users, it comes in the form of push notifications, SMS, in-app messages, and other forms of omnichannel messaging. The platform is ideal for brands that wish to create personalized and targeted campaigns for their audience. However, there are many automated mobile marketing platforms, and choosing the best one for you may be tricky. Before choosing the right one, such as Reteno, always consider the cost, features, integrations, and channels you’ll get.