To get started, click Create In-app Message in the In-app Message tab, to open the message creation wizard and select Inline Message. The main steps of creating a campaign are:
Scheduling step is only available if the recipient source is using a segment. Also by default, the new campaign receives the highest priority.
1. Message settings
Define the General settings of your brand new In-app message campaign.
General settings
- Message name – You can name (or later rename) your In-app message to identify the campaign on the In-app Messages tab.
- Mobile app – You can select the mobile application on which you want to display your message notification. You can send your message only to one application. Only apps already associated with your account are listed here.
Source Settings
The options for Recipient source settings are as follows:
- Broadcast - Send to all contacts on mobile devices.
- Audience - Send to contacts that are part of an automation program or you can select a pre-built segment, if you are using a segment for your recipient source.
Update audience from segment
Select the pre-configured segment-based audience from the drop-down list.
Optionally, you can check the Update audience from segment option to select the frequency when the segment is going to be updated by In-app.
In In-app, an audience is a subset of the target segment, because an SDK event (user action) must occur for the message to be sent. A segment only determines the eligibility for the message, but the audience determines whether the contact receives it.
One should use this checkbox to update an audience from a segment periodically according to audience's wish. For example, a Marketer wants to change the segment every 12 hours for a push campaign, but would rather leave the chance for different audiences to receive In-app campaign from the original segment to improve In-app campaign result.
You should consider the following when using the "Update audience from segment once every X hours" setting:
- The use case of your segment
- Do you expect your segment to change within a day?
- Doing a workout once a day vs clicking a link
- Do you expect your segment to change within a day?
- Expected usage frequency of your app
Do you expect your users to interact often with your app in a day?- A sport tracker app is likely to be used once a day
- It is enough to set the update frequency to every 24 hours, your targets are likely to be using the app and doing a workout once per day
Setting it to more frequent might cause unnecessary runs
- It is enough to set the update frequency to every 24 hours, your targets are likely to be using the app and doing a workout once per day
- A news app is likely to be used multiple times a day
- It is recommended to set the update frequency to 1-3 hours to get everyone using your app
- A sport tracker app is likely to be used once a day
Mobile Engage segmentation is included in the universal segmentation feature of Emarsys, available in the Contacts > Segments menu. For details, see Creating Mobile Engage segments.
Apply segment criteria for devices
Optionally, you can apply segment criteria for devices with various conditions.
Tick the Apply segment criteria for devices checkbox to enable device level filtering. By ticking this option, the Conditions drop-down list is appearing.
Conditions
In the Conditions drop-down list you can select a segment criteria for mobile devices. If you initially created the segment and you added device level criteria here you can select that segment. The earlier set device level condition will be taken into consideration when sending a push message.
If you want to specify a device level condition you can do so by creating Mobile Engage segments. Here you can only verify that device level conditions specified when created a segment and these conditions are really taken into account.
An example of device-level conditions is to target a specific OS platform. Therefore if the contact has 2 registered devices, e.g. iPhone and Android, the contact is only received the message on the targeted OS device. Device-level conditions are also useful as the contact list does not display device information like OS platform, OS version etc.
When you are finished with your general settings, click Save & Next to save your message for the first time.
2. Content creation
In the Content creation step you have 3 tabs + a Preview pane to use for defining the content of your In-app message campaign. The tabs (and the Preview pane) in the Content Editor are the following:
Template tab
In-app messages can be created based on predefined templates. The In-app Engage Mobile campaign templates come with a preset design that is easy for you to adapt to your brand and content.
Select the most appropriate template by clicking on it.
Preview pane
The Preview pane on the right shows how your message will appear. In this section you can directly modify the text, fonts, images and action buttons of the campaign.
Editing Text
To edit the text, click on the text box and perform the update. When doing so, the text formatting options appear to allow customization.
If the template chosen allows changing the background image, the option is available on the Styles tab.
Editing Action Buttons
To edit the link, click on the link and perform the update. When doing so, the text formatting options appear to allow text customisation. In addition to text formatting, it is possible to configure the action performed when the link is clicked. The options are as follows:
- Application Event - To trigger an application event with a button click. Use a key=value format to send a payload. For more information, see External event and custom mobile event personalization. Use it for example after the contact finishes a review or a profile update.
- Deep Link - To deep link to a particular area within the app. For example, link to a product on sale in your shop.
- Custom Event - To fire a custom event for tracking, to be used in segmentation or to launch another campaign. Use it for example after the contact finishes a review or a profile update. For more information, see External event and custom mobile event personalization.
- Open External Link - To open a URL in the browser.
- Request Push Permission - To request push permission from the contact. Use this to request again the user to enable in-app or push messages.
- Close - To close the In-app message. Tapping anywhere in the message will close it.
- Close with click - To close the In-app message with the click of the button.
- Copy to clipboard - To copy any value or voucher code with the click of this button.
JSON Editor for custom events
In the Button Editor, you can select between the following button editing options:
- Button-based editing: Edit your new button by entering the "key" and the "value".
- JSON-based editing: You can paste a complete JSON snippet from your app developer into the field, if you feel more comfortable with writing a code.
Styles tab
In the Styles tab on the left, you can customise the settings, so the In-app messages appear native to the app.
The In-app style customisation options available include:
- Background opacity.
- Close button background colour.
- Close button font colour.
- Close button position.
- Content alignment.
- Heading colour.
- Height of Template.
- Text colour.
Languages tab
You can add and remove languages. Use the dynamic search field to find the requested language or select it from the drop-down list then click Add.
Add any new languages and write the message content in that language. Languages which are not shown here will receive the content in the app's default language.
You can delete languages as well, but a default language is mandatory.
If you add a language but it has no content, those customers will also receive content in the app's default language.
Testing an Inline In-app message
To test an Inline In-app message, you need to create a segment that contains only test contacts and launch the campaign.
3. Scheduling
In the Scheduling section, you can define the campaign trigger, and what is the desired outcome after a click. Also, you can define a specific date and time in the future.
In the View-Id section, enter the view-id that is the trigger for the campaign which needs to be matched with view-id implemented on the app.
Click Save and Launch once the schedule has been configured.
You can click the Cancel scheduled launch button to call off an already launched campaign. For more details, see Canceling a scheduled launch.