Airship Enhancements Bring Ease, Freedom and Control to Engage Customers With Experiences They Want

Too frequent or poorly timed pop-ups, interstitials and takeovers can disrupt customer experiences and are among the top reasons customers delete apps. Marketers’ reliance on interruptive tactics has led to more consumers ignoring traditional marketing, while younger generations are more likely to take active steps to avoid it.

“As the leading global sports-fashion retailer, JD Sports is committed to connecting with our customers in consistent, convenient and rewarding ways everywhere — in-store, via our website and apps and through email, SMS and loyalty”

Today at Shoptalk Europe, the mobile-first customer experience company Airship announced new platform enhancements that give marketers unparalleled flexibility and control to personalize content and gather zero-party data directly within customers’ app experiences — without disrupting them.

• Embedded Content: Seamlessly integrate dynamic, personalized content throughout apps to offer tailored value to all customers — even those that typically ignore marketing.
• Feature Flags: Easily toggle new no-code experiences and features on and off and perform controlled rollouts to gain confidence and refine effectiveness before launching to everyone.
• Cross-Platform Wallet Notifications: For the first time, brands can message all customers with a mobile wallet pass across iOS and Android through Airship’s Wallet Notifications API.

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Embedded Content, Airship’s newest no-code native app experience, adds multiple customizable content blocks anywhere within apps. This enables non-technical teams to tailor experiences to every individual, collect feedback and incentivize high-value actions without ongoing developer support.

Embedded Content is a massive (and necessary) shift for marketers who traditionally rely on techniques that interrupt customers with ads, email, SMS and notifications or distract them during online tasks with pop-ups and prompts. “In the face of more marketing activity, customers are tuning out and disengaging from brands: Email open rates and social media engagement have both declined by over 30% in the past two years … even though marketing email volume has increased,” (Gartner, Inc., “How to Deliver Commercially Productive Digital Engagement,” by Devon Weidemann, Sharon Cantor Ceurvorst, Kristina LaRocca-Cerrone, 17 July 2023).

Feature Flags allow controlled rollouts of app features and no-code native app experiences like Scenes and Embedded Content, giving both marketers and developers the freedom and confidence to rapidly innovate, mitigate risks and optimize results prior to a modified or full-scale rollout. For example, to mitigate risks to customer experience, retailers might perform a controlled rollout of an in-app Scene introducing a new loyalty program, then continue to refine execution for optimal outcomes. By releasing the experience to a small audience and slowly increasing the percentage of customers who receive it, marketers can optimize Scene effectiveness and spot and remedy any downstream impacts to operational teams’ workflow and workload.

Airship automatically creates a segment for customers in the Feature Flag audience, making it easy for marketers to drive awareness and education through messaging and embedded experiences and obtain feedback on the feature through surveys.

Airship’s new Wallet Notifications API offers brands the industry’s first consistent method for messaging mobile wallet passholders across iOS and Android, including dynamically updating and personalizing passes. Airship Mobile Wallet makes it easy to keep all customers informed of discrete topics, such as loyalty rewards, coupons, tickets, membership benefits, special events and much more.

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“As the leading global sports-fashion retailer, JD Sports is committed to connecting with our customers in consistent, convenient and rewarding ways everywhere — in-store, via our website and apps and through email, SMS and loyalty,” said Arianne Parisi, EVP Global Chief Digital Officer, JD Sports Fashion Plc. “Airship’s recent innovations in mobile wallet notifications and no-code app experiences empower our team to deliver elevated customer experiences and enriched personalization over time.”

Brands can now fully capitalize on the untapped potential of mobile wallet marketing, as anyone with a wallet pass is now addressable through highly visible wallet notifications delivered to smartphone lock screens. Apple Wallet and Google Wallet come pre-installed on all smartphones — there’s no app to download or website to visit — which means brands have fewer barriers to attain unparalleled reach. These are significant advancements for businesses that want to offer consistent, streamlined customer experiences without being concerned about customers’ chosen operating systems.

“The mobile wallet is an important platform because it allows marketers to borrow moments and extend their reach beyond their own apps,” said Julie Ask, a renowned expert in mobile app experience. “It’s not just credit cards that consumers store on the wallet but also their identity, boarding passes, coupons, tickets, building access and much more. The wallet offers phenomenal utility to consumers and gives marketers another way to engage their customers.”