Hard to imagine but summer is on the outs and fall is here. Though seasons change, here at Iterable, mobile is a constant on our mind. And for good reason! Let’s review some select mobile updates from this last quarter alone:
- iOS shook things up: Apple made marketing waves with their announcement of all the privacy-focused enhancements packed into iOS 15. Though anything iOS 15 related triggers alarm bells about open rates at this point, it’s important to acknowledge the changes coming to push notifications, too. The launch of Apple’s Focus modes now pauses the delivery of push messages and holds onto them for later consumption, while Notification Summary allows an end user to create scheduled summaries of notifications that they’ve received from apps of their choosing. These updates usher in new changes to our learned behaviors and attitudes concerning the channel.
- SMS is all the buzz: It seemed like 2021 was destined to be the “Summer of SMS.” There’s been a ton of buzz about the channel itself—some brands are teaching this old dog new tricks, while others are simply vying to build it into their cross-channel arsenal. Apple’s potential compromisation of email only further fanned the flames around brands needing to diversify messages over new channels. Luckily, SMS has a ton to offer. It’s a (relatively) easy implementation, offers high engagement, and a quick ROI…when leveraged effectively.
- Mobile presence is a priority: We recently concluded our semi-annual Marketing Masters and Customer Advisory Board meetings, where some of the brightest marketing minds came together to talk shop. No shocker here, but mobile as a movement was a hot topic. Marketing leaders, strategists, and executors are all thinking about their respective mobile futures—this included everything from their plans to adopt new mobile channels, how iOS 15 is catalyzing mobile action, and how brands are reimagining the potential within SMS.
As you might imagine, we’ve been hard at work making sure we’re moving in-step with the trends of the market and our customers’ needs. And naturally, we’d be remiss if we didn’t use this opportunity to show how we’re responding in kind!
Recent Mobile Updates
Pushin’ Forward with iOS 15
We wrote last month about how we were specifically tailoring our push solution to operate alongside Apple’s new standards. We’re now pleased to report that our Interruption Levels for push messaging is live!
Interruption Levels settings enable marketers to tailor their push experiences with granular controls over message delivery and design. This feature assigns a new “Interruption Level” weighting to push notification templates. Based on the level you choose, important push messages can now “break through” Focus Mode and Notification Summary, ensuring your message isn’t accidentally missed.
How Interruption Levels Work
Within your iOS-specific template settings, you can give a push template an Interruption Level designation of active, passive, time-sensitive, or critical to perform desired actions under Apple’s new standards. We’ve also defined their actions in the dropdown for easy review!
After that, simply select the level you feel is important from the dropdown under the template’s iOS Only Settings.
A closer look at Interruption Levels in the iOS push template
Less SMH, More SMS
Back in July, we broke new SMS ground with our introduction of native link shortening and click tracking. We’re happy to report that the enhancement was received with overwhelming enthusiasm, and to date, we’ve seen some very strong customer adoption rates! Building atop that success, we’ve been expanding into these new capabilities to layer in some additional bells and whistles to further power up the channel.
The first of these is the auto-generation and auto-appending of UTM parameters to those shortened SMS links. Traditionally, one of SMS’s greatest challenges was the inability to track performance of opens and clicks. Thankfully, our first release resolved much of that pain. But taking that one step further, with this mobile update all you have to do to add unique UTM tracking to your SMS campaigns and use them for segmentation in tools like Google Analytics is simply check a box. Yes, it really is that easy.
How Auto-UTM Parameters Work
Inside the SMS template editor, click over into the “Advanced options” tab and check-on the Google-enabled analytics tracking (it’s the same way it’s done with email). Once deployed and live, you can monitor your SMS specific campaign performance and the impact it has on your website traffic.
Streamlined SMS link open tracking inside the SMS template editor
But wait! There’s more! We’ve also added the functionality to build your own custom link parameters should you prefer to track it your way.
Add and customize your brand-specific parameters that keeps performance reporting on track
And last but not least, we’re very excited to announce that deep linking for your shortened SMS links is now available! Deep linking is an invaluable tool for streamlining the SMS click experience. Now, once a user taps your SMS short links, they’ll automatically be taken to your target destination inside your app (if it’s installed) or to a specific section of your website.
How SMS Deep Link Shortening Works
For customers already using deep links in email, this new enhancement will work right off the bat for SMS if you’re using the same tracking domain! If this release is the mobile update that inspires you to start deep linking, even better! We’ve got the full configuration in our documentation, but at a high level, all you’ll need to do is configure your desired tracking and destination domains you’d like your links to route to. This way, once your SMS links are shortened, Iterable will know which links need to be rewritten as deep links, routed and tracked.
Mobile-Forward
Ultimately, we see mobile as the primary vehicle for enabling today’s and tomorrow’s connected customer experiences. And with that as our North Star, we’ve got big plans on the mobile and cross-channel fronts and are very excited about some of the developments we have planned on both our near- and long-term roadmaps. Thanks for your continued support!
To see our mobile updates in action, schedule an Iterable demo today and, in the meantime, take a look at our product features in more detail.
