Launching a mobile marketing program for your company is a big deal. If done right, you’ve opened the door for your brand to have meaningful 1:1 interactions with your customers through mobile devices, a much more personal medium than TV, email, and digital advertising.
It’s also a big deal because of how effective it is for driving revenue.
Along with all of this pride you have for launching your mobile program, it also begs a few questions.
How effective is my mobile marketing program? Are the mobile messages I’m sending to my customers resonating like they should be? How am I going to measure the true impact my program is having?
Success metrics and KPIs are often an aspect of launching a mobile marketing program that can get lost. And because mobile marketing is new territory for many brands, established benchmarks to help marketers understand what good performance actually looks like can be tricky to find and define.
Why Mobile Marketing Metrics Matter
Like any marketing program, tracking performance is critical in order to deliver the best business results. While you may have established marketing metrics for existing programs, I’m here to tell you that you should be tracking the success of your mobile program specifically in order to prove its incremental effect on your business. Here are a few reasons why:
Mobile continues to see momentum
Adoption of mobile continues to rise with no intention of slowing down, as evidenced by the following statistics:
- Americans check their phones 186 times a day - or about once every 5 minutes while they're awake
- 27% of consumers say they use up all their high-speed data each month
- It's projected that mobile commerce will be responsible for 59% of total retail e-commerce sales, accounting for $4.01T in 2025
SMS drives strong engagement
Customers are highly engaged when receiving brand messages through the personal touchpoint of a mobile device. In the United States alone:
- 80% of consumers say texting is the most important activity they do on their phones throughout the day
- 98% is the average open rate of SMS messages
- 5x higher open rates are seen of text messages compared to email open rates
Mobile will remain a top channel for personalized communication
The battle of third-party cookies and tech giants like Google and Facebook using data without a customer’s knowledge or explicit permission continues to rage on, but not with mobile. That’s because mobile is a highly regulated, consent-based channel that uses zero-party data, which is defined by Forrester as “data that a customer intentionally and proactively shares with a brand for future targeting efforts”.
Let’s spend a little more time talking about the proper mobile marketing metrics for measuring the overall health of your mobile marketing program.
Mobile Acquisition Metrics
Mobile acquisition is all about building your mobile program’s list of subscribers, which is a database of customers that have consciously chosen to receive text messages from you in order to engage with and purchase from your brand.
Your top priority, whether you’re just starting a mobile program from the ground up or have been doing it for years, is to make sure you’re always growing your mobile audience and providing your brand the opportunity to reach as many of your consumers through their most personal means of communication.
- Audience growth rate - Percentage change of total mobile subscribers over a specific time period.
- Opt-ins - Total number of consumers that join a brand’s text program over a specific time period.
- Opt-in confirmation rate -The percentage of consumers who successfully complete the process of signing up for a brand’s text program, including responding Yes (or Y) to a text message prompt to confirm their opt-in.
- Opt-outs - Total number of mobile subscribers that exit a brand’s text program over a specific time period.
- Opt-out rate - The percentage of mobile subscribers that exit a brand’s text program at a given time.
Mobile Acquisition Benchmarks
Based on performance results from specific acquisition strategies and activations done by Vibes customers, mobile program opt-in confirmation rates can run as high as:
- 90% from calls-to-action (CTAs) included on printed signage in stores
- 63% from CTAs on a brand’s website
- 87% from CTAs included in a brand’s email sends
Mobile Engagement Metrics
Once you've acquired your new mobile customer, the focus shifts to measuring the engagement, revenue and retention directly driven by the mobile messages you’re sending to your mobile subscribers.
"Engagement" can mean different things to different brands, but it's most often understood as an active customer relationship that drives purchases or brand loyalty.
Mobile also plays a critical role in the post-purchase phase when your customers need – and expect – notifications and updates about things like deliveries, accounts, and other servicing needs.
Here are some metrics more specific to how you should be measuring the engagement from your mobile marketing program.
- Mobile attributed revenue - Revenue that is credited to mobile channels (SMS, MMS, Mobile Wallet, mobile app Push) following a company’s established lead and sales attribution models.
- Click-through rate (CTR) - The ratio of mobile subscribers who click on a specific link in a text message to the number of total subscribers that receive the message.
- Conversion rate - The percentage of mobile subscribers that make a purchase through the specific link they received in a text message that they clicked on (for example, a subscriber who ends a web session and abandons items in their cart before buying but after receiving an automated text message reminder clicks on a link back to their cart and purchases).
- Revenue per message - Average gross revenue generated by each text message sent.
- Revenue per subscriber - Average gross revenue generated by each subscriber of a mobile program list.
- Scan rate - If a text message requires a user to take some kind of action, like check-in for an upcoming appointment, scan rate tells you whether users are taking that action.
- Reduction in customer service calls and corresponding cost savings - Text messages can proactively provide customers with the information or a link to the information they need without having to contact a customer service rep. This metric helps you measure how much money mobile messaging is saving your company and ensures your customer service team is available for more customers and harder challenges.
- Reduction in appointment cancellations or late payments and corresponding revenue gains and cost savings - Text messages can also ensure that customers are always aware of the things that they need to do and don’t lose track of payment dates, appointments, or even necessary medical procedures or treatments. This metric helps you measure how much mobile messaging is helping your customers do what they need to do, helping you drive revenue gains while also reducing costs.
Mobile Engagement Benchmarks
Since the business outcome varies widely depending on the industry you’re in, the content of your mobile messages and the corresponding metrics to measure impact and success can vary widely.
Here are some performance results from specific mobile marketing strategies and activations done by Vibes customers:
- 8-10% average conversion rate from SMS messages automatically sent to users regarding items they abandoned in their online shopping cart
- 3x average increase in mobile attributed revenue from buyer-targeted content compared to non-segmented, general promotional content
- 21% average click-thru rate from buyer-targeted content compared to non-segmented, general promotional content
- Click-thru rates as high as 8.5% for post-purchase surveys sent via SMS
- As high as a 90% decrease in late payments as a result of payment notification reminders sent via SMS, and a $1 increase in profit/customer over a 12-month period
Mobile Loyalty Program Metrics
Mobile as a channel makes loyalty programs more accessible and personal – exactly how consumers wish to engage with any loyalty program they’re a member of. According to RetailMeNot, ~70% of consumers are more likely to participate in a loyalty program if they can access it through their mobile device.
Among a few key trends in loyalty programs, a central concept is that these programs require brands to not only offer exclusive perks and other ways to make their members feel extra special but also requires all of it to be available in the most accessible, personal way: their mobile device.
Whether it’s using SMS to most effectively reach your loyalty members fast, or incorporating a personalized mobile wallet loyalty card to create a permanent brand presence in their Mobile Wallet, these are the key success metrics you should be looking at.
- Loyalty card Mobile Wallet install rate - The percentage of viewed mobile wallet loyalty cards that are saved by members to their Mobile Wallet.
- Mobile app download rate - The percentage of consumers that download your mobile app after seeing a text message with a download call-to-action.
- Mobile attributed customer lifetime value rate - The percent change in customer lifetime value for loyalty program members that are part of your mobile program or have a mobile wallet loyalty card downloaded and saved to their Mobile Wallet.
- Mobile attributed revenue per loyalty message - Average gross revenue generated by each mobile message sent to your loyalty program members.
- Mobile attributed revenue per subscriber - Average gross revenue generated by each member of your loyalty program through mobile messaging.
- Mobile attributed revenue per subscriber or message per loyalty member vs. non-loyalty member - Percent difference between revenue generated from loyalty program members through mobile versus non-loyalty program members.
- Purchase frequency - How often a single loyalty program member purchases from your brand in a given period of time.
Mobile Loyalty Program Benchmarks
Based on performance results from specific mobile loyalty strategies and activations done by Vibes customers:
- 57% average loyalty program enrollment rate via SMS
- 55% average mobile wallet loyalty card install rate
- 6x increase in revenue per loyalty-specific SMS messages vs. non-loyalty-based SMS messages
How to Track Mobile Marketing Metrics
Navigating all of these mobile marketing metrics can be tricky. This is why you should work with a mobile marketing partner who has both the tools and subject matter experts that can help you be smart about which metrics you’re tracking and make sure you’re able to effectively measure your mobile program performance, the health of your mobile customers, and your progress toward your unique business goals.
Once these metrics are properly defined you and your team will not only be able to clearly understand today’s performance of an existing program but also get a sense of the true potential your mobile marketing program has.
The Bottom Line
Putting standard benchmarks in place not only helps you clearly understand your program’s success, but it should also empower you to continue growing your program with confidence.
Let's chat about how we can help you define your mobile marketing program’s KPIs and determining what strategic activations will best help you achieve them.
