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Mobile Tutorial Series – What is Mobile Marketing Automation

By John Koetsier January 1, 2017

Mobile marketing automation (sometimes abbreviated MMA) uses technology to streamline, simplify and automate digital marketing tasks. Automation platforms can be used by marketers for audience-based communications, but many of their most interesting applications are in triggered communications to customers.

Mobile Marketing Automation and Triggers

Marketing automation is often driven by individual customers taking specific actions that trigger some sort of targeted marketing event.

Some examples include:

  • When an app user puts items in a cart but abandons before buying
  • When an app user gets within a certain radius of a retail location
  • If someone hasn’t visited a site or app in a certain amount of time
  • When someone searches for a certain class of items on a site, like airline tickets

What is Mobile Marketing Automation?

Mobile consumer interactions are particularly suited to marketing automation because people keep their phones with them all day, and brands can identify and leverage moments of opportunity as they occur. As brand attention to mobile has increased, and as new mobile marketing methods have been developed, more and more brands have deploying mobile marketing automation solutions. This is particularly true for app-based businesses.

For instance, a person who abandons a full shopping cart might receive and email or push message reminder to return and finish their transaction. Marketing automation creates individualized marketing experiences at a scale that simply wasn’t possible before. Brands create business rules based upon triggers, and then can deliver personalized marketing experiences without significant human effort.

Example Touchpoints for Mobile Marketing Automation

Mobile technology now offers a vast array of potential communications paths to leverage with mobile marketing automation. Here are some examples:

  • Push notifications
  • Emails/Email marketing
  • SMS/texts
  • Message center communications within a mobile app
  • mWallet offers
  • In-app personalized experiences
  • Mobile website personalization
  • Landing page personalization

Mobile Marketing Automation Use Cases

Mobile marketing automation platforms are an incredibly versatile tool with which to drive customer actions in apps, especially for e-commerce and m-commerce businesses. The following chart outlines a variety of users’ actions (or…inactions) and how marketing automation and the delivery of focused messages and offers could help turn these actions into business opportunities for a brand.

Failure to visit app/site for N days: Deliver ads and push notifications reminding users to return and engage

  • eStore browsing/no purchase: Deliver mobile and PC ads featuring the last item viewed
  • Get customer to visit again/transact: Target past buyers with ads and push notifications timed to likely restock needs
  • Enters within a store radius: Trigger mobile ads and push notifications that encourage people to stop in to a retail location
  • Encourage more browsing/shopping: Target past in-app buyers with ads encouraging them to buy related items
  • Lapsed user reactivation: Offer promotion to return to the app or site
  • User fails to install app update: Remind/incent to update app

In each case, a trigger event could lead an automation platform to deliver some message, offer or content via this communications vehicle.

How Singular Insights and Data Help Mobile Marketing Automation

Singular helps make data, profiles, and audiences available to mobile marketing automation tools more quickly and easily. By measuring in-app customer events and combining that data with mobile-web and other first party data sets, we create incredibly rich 360 profiles and can deliver real-time data on customer events.

Most data management platforms (DMPs) have little or no visibility into customer events inside apps. Singular, by contrast, enables you to measure any type of consumer event for rich insight and granular marketing automation campaigns. You can then power an automation platform with those personalized insights.

Our offering makes it easy to securely share event data with leading mobile marketing automation products.

Download The Singular ROI Index to see the world’s first ranking of ad networks by app ROI.

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