New Message To You CC Friends From Not Your Grandma s Email The Transformation of Email in a Mobile World
Your Email Guide, Built for the Mobile Era Are you emailing like it s 1999? Using email as a standalone channel is old school. Today, you can t afford to miss the opportunity to use email to drive mobile engagement and revenue. In Q1 of 2018 alone, the app economy was responsible for $18.4 billion. Email marketing enables brands to tap into this revenue by prompting mobile users to come back to the app, where brands have a chance to monetize. But email alone isn t enough. To truly engage customers wherever they are, you need a mobile marketing strategy that combines email with other communication channels. You need an email marketing strategy that is not siloed from the masses on mobile. 2 The Transformation of Email in a Mobile World Tinder Grab, Macy s Google Play, App Store Greg from Leanplum How do mobile teams create novative mobile solutions Zynga ames
The Power of Email Fueled By Mobile This isn t just another email report with benchmarks on open rates though we have those, too. Instead, this is a comprehensive guide that uses data to inform you how to grow email as a core part of your multi-channel campaigns, so you can engage customers and drive mobile revenue. For example, did you know that app re-engagement increases 3x when you combine emails with push notifications? Luring users back to your app with a multi-channel approach is far more effective than sending emails alone. If mobile retention and revenue are critical to your success, this email handbook is for you. r games The Transformation of Email in a Mobile World 3
Methodology This report analyzed an aggregate of global data over a 60-day period, from apps that sent at least 1,000 emails per day. To eliminate bias, we included apps from a variety of verticals and with varying counts of daily active users. This means that apps were both big and small, and included but were not limited to travel, gaming, education, entertainment, and fintech. 4 The Transformation of Email in a Mobile World
In This Report, You ll Learn You need to connect with users on more than one communication channel. App re-engagement increases 3x when you send both emails and push notifications. How many is too many? Increasing email frequency does not directly lead to increased unsubscribes. It can be trickier than that. Email is great for re-engaging dormant users. Including dormant users in your email segmentation mix may convince half of them to come back to the app once more per week, on average. The Transformation of Email in a Mobile World 5
Come back! Your app 6 The Transformation of Email in a Mobile World
Return of the App The primary goal of emails isn t just getting users to open them. After all, it s great if people read your emails, but what you really want is for them to re-engage with your app. Our data shows that users who open emails have 40% more weekly sessions versus those who don t. Email is a fantastic channel to reach app users. As the majority of users don t opt-in to other channels or uninstall the app, email can still reach them and ask them to re-engage or re-install. The Transformation of Email in a Mobile World 7
Email + Other Communication Channels But that s not the whole story. When we looked at the impact of sending emails in combination with other channels like push notifications the average weekly number of sessions increased 3x. This speaks to the power of sending email plus other communication channels. 8 The Transformation of Email in a Mobile World
Best Practices for Email + Staying top of mind and reaching your users where they prefer to connect is an essential multi-channel messaging strategy for customer engagement. If you re not sure how to coordinate email marketing with other channels like push notifications, web push, in-app messages, and App Inbox we have hundreds of resources with best practice guidelines. Here are a few to get you started. The Most Powerful Words for Push Notifications Everything You Need to Know About Rich Push Notifications 4 Simple Steps for Better Web Push Notifications The Transformation of Email in a Mobile World 9
Email + push notifications = the winning formula for conversions. A mobile marketing guru 10 The Transformation of Email in a Mobile World
Knocking on the Door With Email So we know how email influences engagement but next, we wanted to learn if that strategy was effective for dormant users as well. 21% Average Retention Rate for Mobile Apps Dormant users are the bane of every app. In our past report, Retention Revealed, we uncovered that only 21% of users return after the first app open. The numbers don t get better from there. When you consider how much you re spending to obtain app users in the first place, it s clear you need to protect your acquisition budget with a solid retention strategy. That s where mobile messaging like email marketing comes in. Retention Rate (%) 7.5% Day Since First Install 1.89% The good news: As we identified in that same report, many of your app users are simply dormant. There are still opportunities to knock on the door with email and convince them to come back to your app. The Transformation of Email in a Mobile World 11
From Dormant to Dynamic It turns out, on average, 35% of users who receive marketing emails are dormant. But not all is lost. Marketers are already taking steps to re-engage their users by messaging them with new content or deals to lure them back into the app. more app engagement from dormant users as a result of email The outcome: Half of the dormant users you email may come back to your app as a result of email. Say for example that you have 100MM users, with 35MM of them dormant. That s 17.5MM app opens for each message sent to the group of dormant users. Think of the results in terms of revenue. More time in-app means more ad views and more chances to promote a deal. 12 The Transformation of Email in a Mobile World
Push It Like Salt-N-Pepa In Retention Revealed, we also discovered that sending push notifications can increase retention by 20%. Combining email with push notifications is a unbeatable strategy for convincing dormant users to come back to your app. The Transformation of Email in a Mobile World 13
Send me baby, one more time. Your email marketing team 14 The Transformation of Email in a Mobile World
Open Rates by Email Frequency Open Rates by Email Frequency 54.12 61.03 When it comes to email, does more = better? 44.56 The average open rate for apps that send one email a week is 13.4%. When apps start sending two emails a week, that number plummets dramatically to 1.67%. Open Rate (%) 29.22 But then something really interesting happens. For every additional email apps send, the average open rate increases. 1.67 Number of Emails per Week The Transformation of Email in a Mobile World 15
Analyzing the Engagement Surge Okay, what exactly is going on here? The open rate starts low, gets lower, and then skyrockets. It s worth noting that the click-through rate (CTR) follows roughly the same pattern. Our theory: If you send one email a week, you may have a digest or regularly curated list of deals for users to check out. It s probably not a personalized or relevant send, so users respond accordingly with low engagement. But sending two emails is even worse. The most common send rate, more than 90% of users receive two emails per week from one brand. As two emails is baseline, users have learned to ignore them. Now, the higher open rates tell us that apps sending three or more emails per week probably aren t blasting everyone. They re likely connecting with a loyal following and sending emails triggered by user behavior, like items browsed. This is a small, selfselected group of users who haven t opted out and are interested in your content they re opting in to receive multiple emails per week. 16 The Transformation of Email in a Mobile World
Unsubscribe Rates by Email Frequency Unsubscribe Rates by Email Frequency 3.15 2.85 3.01 Engaging users is one thing. But in marketing, there are usually trade-offs. Does email frequency and engagement come at a cost? To find out if you re losing too many users, we looked at how frequency affects unsubscribes. Unsubscribe Rate (%) 1.38 For a reference of what s normal, you can expect the average unsubscribe rate across industries to be 0.49%..13.36 Number of Emails per Week The Transformation of Email in a Mobile World 17
Surfing the Unsubscribe Wave The unsubscribe rate rises and falls based on email frequency. Generally speaking, sending three emails or fewer per week will keep your unsubscribe rates well below industry average. However, unsubscribes sharply peak at four emails per week. By nine emails, the numbers dip again. You may be saturating users, but some have found value in what they receive. 18 The Transformation of Email in a Mobile World
Lessons in Engagement vs. Unsubscribes One email is great for re-engaging dormant users. But limit your marketing communications to that except when sending relevant updates to your fanbase. This small group will enjoy communications, but the rest will likely unsubscribe. Our recommended best practice: Segment your email audience so the most engaged users receive the most (relevant) communications, and spare dormant users the inbox chaos with only one email per week keeping your app top of mind, while still providing value. The Transformation of Email in a Mobile World 19
Putting a Name to the Numbers HelloTalk is an educational app that helps users learn a language by chatting with native speakers around the world. It ran an onboarding campaign encouraging new app users to send their first message figuring if users could master this one action, they would understand the app s core value. The results: 21% of users returned to the app and the number of first messages increased 7x! To persuade users, HelloTalk launched a lifecycle campaign combining push notifications and emails. After 24 hours, users received a push notification encouraging them to talk to native speakers. After three days, users received an email about hidden messaging features. After seven days, users received a final email asking if there s anything the app could do to help them start chatting. 20 The Transformation of Email in a Mobile World
Connecting users around the world is the heart of HelloTalk. To prove this value early on, we crafted a campaign that reached new users across multiple channels. A single pop-up message worked well already, but combining it with an educational follow-up email was even better. While using Leanplum, our engagement and retention efforts significantly paid off with 21% of users coming back and first messages increasing 7x. Marta Krzeminska, Marketing Director at The Transformation of Email in a Mobile World 21
Summarizing the Data Still with us? Let s recap what you learned in this report. A multi-channel approach is a must. Weekly app sessions increase 3x when you send both emails and push notifications. Emailing dormant users once per week may convince half of them to open your app once more. You should email loyal users more frequently, but don t give less engaged users the same treatment they may unsubscribe. 22 The Transformation of Email in a Mobile World
Gain Great Insights From Our Other Reports Find out how push notifications can retain up to 7x more app users. Get 120 Power Words to lift push notification opens. Discover how emojis can boost mobile engagement 85%. Learn how push notifications can drive 9.6x more users to purchase. The Transformation of Email in a Mobile World 23
Leanplum is the mobile marketing platform built for engagement. We help brands like Tinder, Grab, Tesco, and Zynga orchestrate multichannel campaigns from messaging to the in-app experience all from a single, integrated platform. hello@leanplum.com www.leanplum.com San Francisco New York Sofia Amsterdam Singapore