Specialty retailer’s mobile campaign strategy delivers

While many retailers struggle to find the best mobile marketing formula, Urban Outfitters is bucking the trend — big time.



Through a partnership with Appboy and PlaceIQ, the specialty retailer is using consumer behavior, location data and insights to more smartly deliver consumer messages within its brand-owned app. Armed with this data, Urban Outfitters has boosted customer conversions by 75% and increased related revenue by 146%, the chain said.



While the messages are targeted to app users, the data foundation for these mobile messages is based on visitation and behavior outside the app. Using this information, the platform helped the chain create more targeted real-time messages. For example, Urban Outfitters sent push notifications to promote party dresses exclusively to female audiences who frequent bars and nightlife locations.



Meanwhile, to make messages more eye-catching and engaging to their targeted demographics — and keep campaigns light-hearted and fun — the retailer included emojis in their push notifications. While this is a new effort for Urban Outfitters, open rates for iOS and Android push notifications containing emojis have increased by 210% and 1,063%, respectively, year-over-year, according to Appboy.



To ensure mobile users get to the specific product they are seeking via their device, the platform supports a mobile deep linking process that sends users to the relevant page within the app when they tapped the message. Urban Outfitters can also tweak campaigns on the fly based on results revealed in the platform’s message testing capabilities. Meanwhile, Appboy's Conversion Events feature tracks when the push notifications sent as part of this outreach resulted in a purchase.



"Our goal is to provide better experiences for our audience in this competitive landscape," said Andrew Rauch, senior director, global digital marketing at Urban Outfitters. "Our data enriched by PlaceIQ in Appboy's mobile messaging and testing platform has helped with this goal.”