Ultimate Mobile Marketing Glossary. 20 Terms You Must Know

With mobile marketing growing in popularity and becoming a part of marketers everyday life (not just a new toy) we find it useful to collect and explain commonly used terms in mobile marketing. We hope that it will help you figure out your mobile strategy, what is a crucial task at the moment, as most marketers declare. With Google’s Mobilegeddon, omnipresence of mobile devices (smartphones are the fastest sellers in history!) and changes in customers behavior due to extensive use of smartphones, mobile marketing is a matter of necessity, not fancy.

A/B Testing

Your app, as any other element of your marketing, should be carefully tested to find optimal UI and features. Here you will find tools to app testing and optimisation.

App store

An online store with apps, as Google Play for Android, iTunes for Apple, BlackBerry World for BlackBerry or App Store for Windows Phone. In the app store user searches for apps, buys and downloads them for his own device, so ensuring good visibility of your app in the app store is vital. More on that below.

ARPU

(Average Revenue Per User)

The total revenue divided by the number of subscribers. A KPI that helps marketers learn how much do they earn on one user.

ASO

(app store optimization)

Practices aiming at increasing app’s visibility in the app store and making it easier for users to find it. ASO resembles SEO, but it’s less complex, as it focuses on including keywords in app’s name and description, and on amount of downloads and reviews.

Beacon

A small device using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to communicate with other beacons and mobile app. Marketers use it to send customers 1-to–1 messages (SMS, push notification) in brick and mortar stores, and to advanced behavioural analytics.

Thanks to beacons we can learn in which areas of the brick and mortar store customer spent most time and compare that with his purchases. If he spent a lot in the soap area, but didn’t buy any, maybe we should send him an offer with soap?

Behavioral profiling

Identifying user (on website or inside mobile app) and collecting data about her behavior to build an image of her interests and needs. Basing on that system can deliver automated messages tailored to individual predilections of each user.

CPI

(cost per install)

Cost of one installation of an app. As Venture Beat predicts, it might replace LTV (Life Time Value) as a crucial marketer’s KPI.

CPI is also a type of advertising, where charge is defined by amount of installations (other types of mobile ads include charging for impressions or for interactions).

Engagement

Holy Grail of mobile apps’ developers and marketers. Statistic app loses 90% of its users in 6 months. Often people don’t open even once the app they downloaded. Users simply forget about apps and abandon them.

To address that issue, marketers use advanced personalisation and analytics tools dedicated to mobile apps, like APPmanago, to ensure that their push notifications are precisely tailored and relevant, and that communication in all channels is cohesive and personalised, and that it is based on individual user’s behavior and interests.

Geolocation

We understand it here as using GPS installed in mobile device to identify user’s location, what allows for personalized communication, tailored to her current needs.

That way you can offer a discount to your user right when he’s coming nearby your store. In that context your offer gets more relevant, increasing possibility that customer will act on it.

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Gamification

Implementing solutions characteristic for games in mobile apps in order to boost engagement. These include:

– mechanisms of collecting (points, objects),

– levels,

– tasks, challenges,

– rewards,

– competition.

In-app messages

Are messages sent inside the app, not via push notification or SMS. It means that in order to read such message, user must actively use the app.

IoT

(Internet of Things)

A term describing growing amount of smart, connected objects, such as bedsheets monitoring your sleeping habits, to self-driving cars, to wearables, to smart homes which you can control and monitor from distance with your smartphone thanks to sensors, cameras and devoted app.

For marketers it entails necessity to focus on mobile apps, gathering data and possibility of sending even more precisely tailored messages.

M-commerce

A section of e-commerce, embracing sales via mobile devices.

In the U.S., mobile commerce is anticipated to grow from $54.6 million in 2014 to $96.3 million in 2016. Compared to the roughly 9–11 percent increase e-commerce is expected to see each year, m-commerce in the U.S. has a projected growth rate of between 32–26 percent each year through 2016. Globally, mobile commerce across the 22 markets is estimated to grow from roughly $102 billion in 2013 to roughly $291 billion in 2016. That growth is stimulated mostly by consumers between 18 and 34 years old (59% of mobile buyers).

Micro-content

Content is still the king, but we must adapt it to mobile devices. Writing becomes concise and short, easy to consume in one chunk. We also care about clear graphic presentation of the message.

Learn how to create micro-content.

Mobile app

Mobile application, m-app A software designed for mobile devices (smartphones, tablets, phablets), with mobile users in mind. Marketers should notice that an app serves performing a specific task. That’s what differentiates it from static website, which just displays some pre-existing content. Mobile apps on the other hand DOES things, or enables user to do things. It’s interactive and dynamic.

Push notification

Messages generated by application, sent to user’s device to increase her engagement. Marketers have love-hate relationship with them: as much as they appreciate notification’s amazing ability to boost commitment, they fear aggressiveness and being too pushy.

Push notifications can be batch (sent to all users or to a segment) or 1-to–1 (triggered by an event on action, sent to one indvidual user).

Skilfully implemented, they increase engagement in app by 540%.

Real Time Marketing

Responding to user’s actions or events in real time. Campaign might be triggered by:

– user appearing in a given spot,

– user searching for a product or browsing a category in the e-store,

– spending relatively long period of time in an area of brick and mortar store.

Having access to advanced analytics, marketers can respond to such actions in real time, e.g. sending himoffer on the product he wants to buy right now. Real Time Marketing means tailoring time and message perfectly to users interests and particular situation he finds himself in at the moment.

RWD

(Responsive Web Design)

Designing a website in such a way that its layout and look adjust automatically to the size of the device, so it displays properly on big as well as on small screens.

Segmentation

Like with well-prepared campaign, you don’t have to send every message to all users – segment them by time of installation (so beginners get different notification than advanced users), engagement or interests (basing on frequently used features of the app or other apps installed on the device).