mobile engagement industry benchmarks first look: message...

FIRST LOOK: Message Center Read Rates

Mobile Engagement Industry Benchmarks

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OverviewAs a designated content repository within an app, a message center gives a brand’s messages persistence and its users a location to consume and re-visit rich content at their convenience. Unlike push notifications that only reach opt-in users, message centers can drive engagement with an app’s entire audience. This is the industry’s first quantitative assessment of in-app message center performance.

The data set for this report includes 83 apps that collectively sent more than 1 billion message center messages over a two month period. Retail and media apps have adopted message centers most quickly, enabling the creation of actionable benchmarks with high, medium and low values using the performance of apps in the 90th, 50th and 10th percentiles.

For other industries, this report’s findings offer insight into: • The unparalleled reach marketing can achieve with

high-performing message centers• Differences in consumer behavior and tactics to boost

message center read rates• The massive performance gap between iOS and

Android

Executive SummaryIn undeniable and absolute terms, apps without a message center are missing a huge opportunity. The average opt-in rate for push notifications is 45% (up a couple of points from last year), which means more than half of a typical app’s audience is left unaddressed.

Mobile Engagement Industry Benchmarks

FIRST LOOK: Message Center Read Rates

App users are a brand’s most engaged and valuable customers. By downloading your app, they’ve sent a strong signal that they want a closer relationship — which, just like personal relationships, means giving them special, personalized and even preferential treatment. If you want the relationship to last, it also means doing this far more often than periodic app update cycles.

Push notifications, even more so than email, compete for attention. A user may be interested in several notifications in their lock screen queue, but can only immediately click one. The rest go to a notification center, which they may or may not remember to revisit. Despite this competition and temporal nature, many customers report 5-12X greater response to notifications than email. The best notifications are relevant and timely, with highly targeted messages getting 4-7X greater response rates than messages broadcast to all app users.

In contrast, message centers live within your app, uncluttered by competitors’ messages or other distractions. They offer a home for persistent, full-page rich content including anything you can put on an HTML5 page: photos and videos; forms and surveys; mobile wallet passes and social feeds; and, of course, links to any other content in your app or mobile website. They can also be targeted to specific users or broadcast to all users. As a result, message centers support a wider variety of experiences and use cases than notifications or other forms of in-app messaging — from promotional and editorial content, to lifecycle campaigns and transactional order and shipment confirmations that recipients may want to refer to repeatedly.

In comparing the performance of message centers to push notifications, it’s important to realize they are not


mutually exclusive. In fact, message center messages achieve the highest average read rates when paired with a push notification. In addition, badges on app icons offer another less interruptive means to drive users from their device home screens to in-app message center content, and we’ll share data showing the efficacy of pairing these different messaging tactics with message centers.

The most direct comparison of message center and push notification performance is evaluating the explicit behavior of “opening” either. For notifications this means the percent of recipients directly tapping or swiping a notification, while for message centers it’s the percent of all users who open a message center message to display its contents. Findings show that medium-performing iOS apps (the 50th percentile) achieve eight times greater message center read rates than direct taps on a notification.

Even if you factor in overall notification engagement rates — which include the impact a notification has on app opens whether tapped or not (something we algorithmically calculate for each individual app and message) — medium-performing iOS apps see engagement rates that are more than twice as high for message center messages compared to push notifications.

Topping off the tremendous opportunity message centers provide is a deeper realization that the scale is really incomparable. A message center read rate is based on the percent of your entire user base that reads the message, while notification engagement rates reflect the response of a sub-segment of your total audience — your opt-in users.

These key findings are massive indicators of app users’ receptivity to consume message content inside apps and on their terms, versus whenever a brand wants to light up their home screen with a notification.

Home screen badges can be used to indicate new message center content awaits users.

Neiman Marcus and Starbucks have used message centers to promote good causes along with business goals.


While it may be tempting (and somewhat true) to think that message centers are simply more nascent on Android, it’s much more likely that the mechanics of the different operating systems contribute the most to this delta — just like they do with notifications.

Our Notification Response Rates benchmark report delved into several differences with the way iOS and Android handle notifications, with the end result being that push notifications are simply harder to find later on iOS than Android. Since publishing that report, iOS has made some improvements, which we’ll evaluate in a forthcoming report.

For message centers, badging app icons to alert users of new in-app content is a standard feature within iOS. Badging on the home screen is not supported at an operating system level by Android (only by various device manufacturers through APIs), making it an unrealistic capability for app developers or even engagement platforms to use.

Perhaps not so coincidentally, medium-performing Android apps see the same message center read rates as direct taps on a notification — 6%. Zero difference, and stark contrast to the 8X greater explicit response iOS sees with message centers over notifications.

5%

17%

44%

2%6%

18%

10th PercentileLow

50th PercentileMedium

90th PercentileHigh

10th PercentileLow


90th PercentileHigh

iOS vs. Android: Message center performanceAverage read rates for high-, medium- and low-performing apps.

Right Now, iOS Crushes AndroidOur 83 app sample includes 12 Android apps and 71 iOS apps. This massive difference in representation is likely due to Android developers lacking clear-and-present motivation to adopt message centers. Android automatically opts users into receiving notifications, meaning medium- and high-performing apps can reach nearly all users. However, this reasoning is rather shortsighted, considering the different types of content and use cases that message centers support, as well as new signals that Android’s carte blanche notification access may fade. Last year, for the first time, we saw significant deviation in Android notification opt-in rates for low-performing apps (the 10th percentile), which we’ll revisit in an upcoming report.

While our 2015 benchmark report on push notification response rates found that Android users respond to notifications at more than twice the rate of iOS users, the opposite is true for message centers. A medium-performing iOS message center sees read rates that are nearly three times greater than the average Android message center.


Messaging Tactics Boost Message Center Read RatesOur data scientist and strategy consulting teams dove deep into the iOS data to bring more clarity to the question of whether combining a message center message with a badge or push notification increases read rates. The short answer is an emphatic “yes.”

When a message center message is used in combination with a push notification, average read rates more than double. When a badge is used, average read rates increase 23%. Interestingly, message center messages paired with badges were a close second to the amount of standalone message center messages included in this study, showing that apps realize not every push deserves a shove.

Only 1% of the more than one billion message center messages in this study included both a push notification and a badge — only two apps out of the 83. So while there’s not enough data to definitively conclude that combining a push notification with a badge produces the greatest message center read rates, that’s clearly the direction the analysis points. It’s also clear, however, that badge updates on their own can drive more app opens and better read rates, giving users a way to dive into new content on their terms and marketers a way to control push notification fatigue.

Some brands take it even further and eliminate badge anxiety from the home screen by only displaying badge counters inside the app on the message center. This type of badge implementation doesn’t drive people to open the app from the home screen, but it’s readily visible once they are in the app and is something Android developers can leverage as well.

Fandango uses in-app badges to indicate new message center content.

MessagingTactic

No PushNotification,No Badge

PushNotification,No Badge

No PushNotification,Badge

% of Total MessagesUsing the Tactics

39%

24%

37%

13%

27%

16%

AverageRead Rate

Effect of messaging tactics on average read rates


Message center read ratesfor high- and medium- performing retail and media apps

Differences in User BehaviorAs a final dimension to evaluating the overall effectiveness of message centers we set out to understand the differences in read rates of opt-in and opt-out users. One of the core value propositions of message centers is being able to reach users you wouldn’t be able to otherwise.

Zeroing in on medium- and high-performing message centers, it’s clear that users who opt in to push notifications are very receptive to business’ messages in whatever form they take — they’re likely your most engaged, highest value customers that want to be kept in the know. It’s also clear that message centers significantly expand reach. Apps that make message centers core to their experience see opt-out users reading 25% of all message center messages. This provides a stellar opportunity to use content interests of opt-out users — which messages they read and links they click — to tailor notification opt-in requests and gain another valuable messaging tactic that is shown to double message center read rates.

Vertical FindingsRetail apps are the earliest adopters of message centers, followed closely by Media apps. If you’ve been following our data this shouldn’t be surprising, as of the six verticals where we have multiple years of data, these two industries saw the steepest declines in notification opt-in rates. While message centers serve broader purposes than reach, it’s a key factor prioritizing adoption.

In fact, for the 2015 holiday shopping season, retailers really ramped up message center use with four times as many apps adopting it and message center volume increasing 152% year-over-year. Better yet, nearly a quarter of those holiday-timed messages were read. We really loved GameStop’s message center with vivid imagery and holiday colors.

The vertical sample for this report includes 30 retail apps 18 media apps with message centers.

High-performing retail apps see nearly half of all message center messages sent being read, while it’s closer to one-third


90th PercentileHigh

Opt-In

Opt-Out

52%

25%

23%

7%

Average read rates for opt-in and opt-out users of high- and medium- performing apps

19%

49%

18%

30%


90th PercentileHigh


90th PercentileHigh

Retail

Media


90th PercentileHigh

Opt-In

Retail

Opt-Out

58%

23%

19%

8%


90th PercentileHigh

Media

40%

17%

22%

8%

Average read rates for opt-in and opt-out usersof high- and medium-performing retail and media apps

RETAIL AND MEDIA


for media apps. Even for medium-performing retail apps, a 19% message center read rate is a point higher than the average 18% notification engagement rate they saw over the holidays. And remember, those rates are on an entirely different scale — all users for message center vs. opt-in users for notifications.

In addition, while the same pattern of opt-in and opt-out message center read rate behavior exists for these verticals, it’s clear they are reaching many users they wouldn’t otherwise. Retailers are putting message centers to use in a variety of ways, and one of the most interesting is for welcome series messages during the critical time of onboarding new users.

Redbox combines push notifications with its message center and lifecycle automation to deliver a free movie rental code to new app users within one hour of their first app open. Open rates for these message center messages are 33% higher than its typical promotional offers including 300% greater redemption. To redeem this offer, users must sign up for a Redbox account, which streamlines future rentals and enables cross-channel user profiles to pinpoint the type of movies they want to see most.

Another good example: a luxury specialty department store uses its message center to deliver a welcome series with the goal of driving a second and third app open within the first two days. Two hours after download, its users receive a push notification deep linked to its message center welcoming them to the app. From this first welcome message, the retailer saw 27% of all message center messages being read and a 40% notification engagement rate. A second notification deep linked to the message center is sent two days after download promoting specific app functionality, and 15% of those message center messages were read with an 18% notification engagement rate.

The applications for message centers are only limited by your creativity.

GameStop’s message center during the holidays.

Redbox combines notifications with a message center offer to welcome new users.


Express uses its message center to drive excitement and promote contest entries.

The Path to Greater EngagementOur data shows that message centers generate more than eight times greater explicit action from app users than notifications on average, and have more than double the overall impact comparing message center read rates to app opens influenced by notifications. You’ve also seen how these messaging tactics are not mutually exclusive. Message center read rates double when paired with a notification and offer businesses another path to learn what opt-out users care about most in order to better serve them, and eventually ask for the notification opt-in within their context.

Of course, the value of notifications goes beyond direct taps and even app opens. They can serve up contextual information in moments that matter and remind people why they keep an app on their phone without soliciting an app open. Similarly, the value of message centers goes far beyond read rates to the actions and behaviors those messages are designed to stimulate.

However, if retailers are an indicator species to mobile’s evolution, as there’s no other industry where benefit is measured so definitively, then businesses are beginning to run — not walk — toward the engagement opportunity message centers offer. And unlike notifications, where growing popularity means a more crowded, competitive and potentially less effective channel over time, message centers stand alone as an owned destination to engage people with rich, persistent, targetable content — no app update required.

This flexible support for all types of content delivered through customizable HTML5 templates means message centers can be a relatively easy opportunity for brands to tackle. Everything that’s going on with your brand, from social streams to email content, can be repurposed for a message center, offering a direct line to your most valuable customers without the gatekeeping hassle of email readers and social algorithms. In fact, we’ve even seen entire apps designed and delivered through message center technology.REI’s shopping app leverages its message center to

serve rich content, drive deals including mobile wallet items and solicit app store ratings.


MethodologyAnalysis included 83 apps that sent 1,149,156,265 message center messages between 11/13/15 to 1/13/16. Message center read rates were calculated as the total number of users that read the message, divided by the total number of users that received the message.

This report was generated by Urban Airship’s Strategic Consulting group and its data scientists. Strategic Consulting partners with brands to deliver tailored, relationship-based mobile strategies that increase app engagement and boost business metrics. Please contact Urban Airship to schedule a benchmark review.

About Urban AirshipUrban Airship provides the world’s leading mobile engagement platform, helping thousands of businesses of all sizes form a direct and lasting connection with their customers. With Urban Airship, companies gain total control of their mobile footprint — apps, wallets and user-level data — to deliver experiences that get noticed and drive action across mobile or any other customer touchpoint. More than 30,000 apps and some of the most innovative global brands, trust Urban Airship to accelerate their business through mobile marketing with an independent study calculating an average 878 percent return on investment for customers.

For more information, visit www.urbanairship.com, read our blog and follow us on Twitter or LinkedIn.

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