5 Trillion Ways Mobile Advanced in 2022

by Michael Lavoie

Reflecting on 2022, I was struck by the impact of external factors. The pandemic disrupted business-as-usual and mobile adoption in both positive and negative ways. And emerging from the pandemic presented its own set of extraordinary conditions. But the current economic climate of uncertainty has further complicated what one can view as “normal” for businesses and mobile.

Taken together, there are some clear takeaways.

  • Mobile has been established as the primary interaction vehicle for consumers — with mobile apps providing the most cohesive and controllable mobile experience for brands
  • Consumers have gravitated to “in-the-moment” interactions on the mobile device, in the app and on the lock screen expected and compelling. Unlike more traditional channels like email where messages may sit for days before being opened (or more likely deleted), mobile experiences are instant and memorable – which is why they drive brand impact and value
  • Leading brands are turning to mobile apps as the key vehicle for brand loyalty and, in some cases, the platform around which they are pivoting their business
  • Getting mobile “right” is a driver of economic value. When reading the annual reports of leading mobile brands like Nike, Chipotle, Starbucks, Kingfisher, Ulta, Very Group and Veepee you can’t ignore the role of the mobile app in their strategy and business performance
  • Despite year-over-year consumer migration to mobile, data shows that customer engagement with an app after 30 days has not improved even though the number of mobile app downloads continues to increase

These mobile realities are borne out by the year-over-year growth of mobile message sends. During the current holiday season, Airship saw a 22% increase in message volumes over the same period in 2021. In fact, by the time you are reading this review, we expect to have sent our five trillionth message

A volume milestone like 5 trillion messages doesn’t happen by accident — and it certainly doesn’t happen without the wonderful roster of brands we have the honor of serving every day. 

In 2022, Airship accelerated its investment in scalable mobile innovations that provide mobile teams with the most advanced capabilities in the industry. The Airship Experience Platform (AXP) was launched earlier this year with a new suite of in-app messaging features that drive engagement and ultimately financial impact. In fact, Airship’s customers implemented 120% more in-app messages during this year’s holiday season than in 2021, a strong indication that brands are preferring to create experiences for their customers in the mobile app versus purely promotional messaging through traditional channels.

Mobile teams have told us they have a requirement to move more quickly. So AXP was built tof provide the agility today’s mobile leaders need to stay ahead. AXP offers many different ways to create in-app experiences, collect zero-party data. personalize interactions and test alternatives, all in real-time. 

AXP has been fundamentally designed to enable these initiatives with no-code, native capabilities – including, templates and an advanced experience editor. These no-code solutions allow marketers and their technology colleagues to implement, test and modify customer experiences at the speed of mobile. I’m proud of the effort of our Product and Engineering teams and the mobile functionality they have introduced. Here are just a few of the advancements designed to make mobile teams more capable and efficient:

  • Live Activities – Airship was the first to market enabling Apple’s new Live Activities functionality (iOS 16) through our UI
  • Preference Center – Although Airship has always supported channel-specific preference centers for opt management, the new AXP multi-channel Preference Center manages opt status across channels and can also be deployed to collect user information about product category, interests, time horizons, disposition and wish lists. Preference Center is a great way to collect subscription lists for use in segment-focused initiatives
  • Mobile Data Hub – When collecting data for opt management, segment creation and experience personalization, mobile teams need the information to be easily accessible, which is exactly what Mobile Data Hub does with its new UI for accessing individual records
  • In-App Experiences
    • Scenes – operating much like Airship’s in-app automation, AXP Scenes offers mobile teams the ability to quickly and easily implement a carousel of messages in a single interstitial. It’s ideal for App feature tours, deal of the day promotions or trending content
    • Surveys – offering a vehicle for collecting information directly from customers, surveys come with templates for standard surveys like NPS, but also offer a robust design editor to enable data collection in a predefined format or free form text. Combined with AXP Scenes, the functionality of AXP Surveys can transform the onboarding of new app users to increase activation
  • Journeys has also been enhanced to make it easier to create automated, multi-channel channel messaging flows that align with the individual experiences brands are looking to create for its app customers
  • Enhanced Single Sign-On offering. Security is a core tenant at Airship as is our commitment to continually enhance our system access protocols. To support the SSO needs of our customers, Airship is migrating to Okta and offering enhanced security for the data under management

All of us at Airship are committed to helping you and your brand increase your mobile app audience and drive more value from the app by helping you activate and engage more of your mobile audience.

All the best for the holidays! Here’s to a year of mobile advancements in 2023!