作者：Peter Dille

在今天，“手机营销自动化”真的很普遍，许多公司将其用于提升应用程序用户粘性和用户留存中。如果用户3天未打开一款应用，“传统的”手机营销自动化平台便会给用户发送一则告示提醒他们重新回到应用中。这是非常传统的做法，但却不够直观。

Peter Dille(from venturebeat)

而最近，自动营销活动技术得到了发展，并且也能够用于盈利方面了。

让我们举个例子来说，一个用户之前从未在一款应用中进行消费，但与其他用户的历史数据相比较，他的行为显示如果能在适当时间存在适当的机会，他便会进行消费。这是将非消费者变成消费者的绝佳机会。对于应用开发者来说的好消息便是，手机营销自动化技术已经能够帮助他们识别用户，判断适当的供应内容，并在绝佳时机将其呈现在用户面前。

当然了，为了更好地发挥功效，开发者必须谨慎且系统地执行这些活动。

以下是免费游戏开发者可以利用今天不断发展的手机营销自动化工具去提高应用用户粘性和盈利的6大步骤。

1.理解用户行为

为了任何类型活动能够获得成功，开发者必须理解用户行为及其背后的动机。

怎样的价格点能够推动特定用户消费？用户最有可能购买怎样的道具或服务？什么东西最有可能推动他们进行首次购买？第二次购买？以及第十次购买？他们最想要得到怎样的奖励（免费货币，额外的生命，打开的内容）？他们是否有可能介绍好友加入？为什么或者为什么不？他们最常使用怎样的功能，他们最想看到怎样的新功能？

关于这些问题的答案将能够提供给开发者了解怎样的活动更适合用户以及能够创造更清楚的前进方向的基础。

2.划分高级用户

并不是所有用户都是平等的。他们必须被当成个体，为了基于特定规模做到这点，开发者必须将用户划分成不同的部分。

这些部分通常被称为“同类者”，并且存在许多不同的方式去创造它们，即可以利用像用户的应用内部行为，国家，参照资料，应用版本，设备类型，操作系统，朋友数等等元素。同类者可以是像“美国的所有用户”那样大的范围也可以是像“来自特定广告网并已经完成游戏中第10个关卡且在过去4周内至少进行过两次价值4.99美元以上购买的泰国用户”这样小的范围。

越具体越好。

3.设置自定义消息和活动

一旦创造了同类者，开发者便可以使用自定义消息和活动去瞄准这些群组。

例如上述所提到的更复杂的同类者可能会对购买一款应用中更有价值（较昂贵）的道具感兴趣，因为他们是固定玩家或者“鲸鱼”用户。而其他玩家，也就是那些因为很少进行购买而被称为“小鱼”的用户可能会对折扣活动或者奖励广告更感兴趣。

对于那些从未进行过应用内部购买的用户，开发者应该停止向他们发送IAP推广。

根据用户类型，开发者可以通过提供不同的广告更好地获得盈利，或者他们也可以彻底忘掉盈利而只是专注于提高用户粘性，病毒性传播或用户留存。

4.在适当的时候传递信息

有效利用手机营销自动化策略的下一步便是选择适当时机执行活动。

需要考虑非付费用户热衷于接收奖励性视频内容。如果你是在他们首次打开应用时提供这些内容，那么这便不符合情况，而这样的广告也会阻碍他们去做想做的事。假设在一款无尽奔跑游戏中，你是在用户进行一次最佳奔跑最后失去“生命”的时候呈现广告，那么他们便能够通过广告一个15秒钟的视频而重新回到奔跑线上。

这种做法能够往用户体验的背景中增添一些价值，从而既能让开发者赚取额外利益，也能够让用户感到满足。

5.选择适当的渠道

应用内部信息并不是推广活动的唯一途径。

推送通知是触及一段时间未使用应用的用户的有效方式。尽管推送通知主要用于将用户重新带回应用的活动中，但是它也能够有效推动小鱼，海豚和鲸鱼，或者那些有可能成为消费者的免费用户等不同用户群组间的盈利。开发者应该基于与应用内部信息相同的方式去划分用户并尝试着测试推送通知在推广虚拟道具或货币促销的作用。

6.追踪，测量，优化

与任何活动一样，最后一步便是基于你的结果不断进行完善。

确保追踪每个活动对于整体盈利的影响，与类似群组相比较特定同类者是否具有更强大的用户粘性，对于特定同类者来说哪种类型的活动更有效。同时，测试，测量并优化活动中的每一个变量也很重要，如文本，创造性，渠道，以及其它能够影响性能的内容。为了更好地优化活动的性能，开发者应该不断追踪数据并不断地问自己各种问题。

结论

手机营销自动化代表了应用用户粘性和盈利的未来。它让应用开发者能够为了传递更多个性化的应用体验而缔造与用户之间一对一的关系，并通过每个用户创造出更强大的用户粘性与价值。

尽管一些解决方法能够让手机营销自动化开始变得成熟，但是许多应用开发者仍然在学习如何最有效地利用这些工具。我相信对于任何想要提高应用用户粘性，用户留存以及整体收益的开发者而言，这些诀窍将会是不错的开始。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

6 ways mobile marketing automation boosts app engagement and monetization

Peter Dille

The term “mobile marketing automation” tends to be everywhere these days, used by many companies to refer solely to app re-engagement and retention. If a user hasn’t opened an app for three days, a “traditional” mobile marketing automation platform might simply send that user a notification urging them to come back. Pretty standard stuff, and not very intuitive.

But lately the technologies for automating marketing campaigns have evolved and are now being applied to monetization as well.

Take, for instance, a user who has never made a purchase in a specific app before, but whose behaviors, when compared to historical data of other users, indicate a willingness to do so if the right offer came along at the right moment. That is obviously a compelling opportunity to turn a non-spender into a spender. The good news for app developers is that mobile marketing automation technologies have gotten to the point where they can help identify that user, figure out the right offer, and deliver it at the most opportune time.

Some of this is already being done by many of the top game and app developers. And not just to increase IAP promotions, but also to deliver advertising offers, engagement campaigns, cross-promotions, app updates, and a number of other messages that increase the overall lifetime value of each and every one of their app users.

Of course, in order to work most effectively, these campaigns must be implemented and executed in a thoughtful, methodical manner.

Below, we have identified a six-step process that freemium app developers can use to take advantage of today’s burgeoning mobile marketing automation tools in order to increase app engagement and monetization.

1) Understand users’ behaviors

For any type of campaign to succeed, developers must first understand their users’ behaviors and the motivations behind them.

What price point is likely to get a certain user to make a purchase? Which items or services are they most likely to pay for? What is most likely to trigger their first purchase? Their second? Their tenth? What kinds of rewards (free coins, extra lives, unlocked content) do they want most? How likely are they to refer a friend? Why or why not? Which features do they use most often, and what new features would they most like to see?

The answers to these questions and others like them will give developers a foundation for knowing what kinds of campaigns will resonate with which users and create a more clear path forward.

2) Build advanced user segments

Not all users are created equal. They must be treated as individuals, and in order to do that at scale, developers have to divide their user base into distinct segments.

These segments are often called cohorts, and there is a practically infinite variety of ways to create them, using factors such as users’ in-app behaviors, their country of origin, referral source, app version, device type, operating system, friends count, and other characteristics. A cohort could be as broad as “All users in the U.S.” or as narrow as “Users in Thailand who came from a specific ad network, have completed level ten in the game, and have made at least two purchases worth $4.99 or more over the last four weeks.”

The more specific, the better.

3) Set up custom messages and campaigns

Once cohorts are created, developers can start targeting those groups with custom messages and campaigns.

For instance, the more complex cohort described above might be interested in purchasing an app’s more valuable (and expensive) items, since they’re regular buyers, or “whales.” Other buyers — those whom we might consider “minnows” because they don’t tend to buy very often or spend very much — might be interested in a promotional campaign for a discount on an app’s more affordable items or in the opportunity to engage in a rewarded advertisement.

To those users who are never going to make an in-app purchase, developers need to stop sending them IAP promotions altogether.

Depending on what type of user they are, developers would be better off monetizing them through targeted advertising offers, or forgetting about monetization altogether and simply focus on trying to increase their engagement, virality, or retention.

4) Deliver messages during contextually relevant moments

The next step in perfecting a mobile marketing automation strategy is to pick the right moments to serve campaigns.

Consider a non-paying user who’s been targeted to receive a rewarded video offer. If the offer is served when they first open the app, there is no relevancy to the context and the ad is only blocking them from doing what they came to do. But suppose that ad is served right after the user has lost a “life” at the end of a great run in an endless running game, and they are offered the chance to revive their run by simply watching a 15-second video.

The offer actually adds value to the context of their experience, which makes the user happy while the developer earns additional revenue.

5) Select the right channel

In-app messages aren’t the only way to promote campaigns.

Push notifications are a great way to reach users who might not have used an app for a while. Although push tends to get used most often for re-engagement campaigns, it can be an especially great way to drive monetization among the various groups of minnows, dolphins, and whales — or those free users who are predicted to become purchasers. Developers should segment their users the same way they would for in-app messaging and then try testing the impact of notifications to promote virtual items or currency discounts.

6) Track, measure, and optimize

The final step, as with any campaign, is to continually improve upon your results.

Be sure to track what effect each campaign has on overall monetization, how certain cohorts are engaging compared to similar groups, which types of campaigns are most effective for specific cohorts, and so on. At the same time, it’s important to test, measure, and optimize every variable within a campaign, such as the text and creative, the channel, the offer itself, and anything else that affects performance. There is practically no end to the data developers should be tracking and the questions they should be asking themselves in order to optimize performance of their campaigns.

Conclusion

Mobile marketing automation represents the future of app engagement and monetization. It allows app developers to forge one-to-one relationship with their users in order to deliver more personalized app experiences, and to generate more engagement and value from each and every user.

While the solutions that enable mobile marketing automation are beginning to mature, many app developers are still learning the best practices to make the most of the tools at their disposal. Acting on these tips should be a good start for any developer looking to increase their app’s engagement, retention, and overall revenue.(source:venturebeat)