This article provides you with a guide on the recommended steps to plan the integration of the Emarsys Mobile Engage feature. To future proof the integration as much as possible, it is advantageous to review this guide as it provides insights to our learnings from previous customer integrations.
Introduction
At the start of planning the integration, it is valuable for all stakeholders to have a clear understanding of the marketing goals and strategy for the coming months. The goals will translate into use cases which will guide the developers on integrating the Emarsys SDK.
In case of updating to Emarsys Mobile Engage SDK version 3.5.0 or later, you will comply to the demands of Apple's third-party SDK privacy manifest, as described here.
At a high level, the steps are:
- Confirm Mobile Marketing Strategy and goals.
- Translate strategy/goals into tactics (i.e. use cases)
- Confirm to developers where the key milestones of the contact journey are.
- Integrate the SDK.
- Create segments.
- Create Push and In-app campaigns.
- Add campaigns to existing Automation Center or Interactions programs or create new programs if applicable.
1. Confirm Mobile Marketing Strategy and Goals (Owner: Marketer)
Confirm the goals of the marketing strategy for the coming months, as this will allow the understanding of the types of campaigns you will need to run in the next step.
2. Strategy to Tactical (Owner: Marketer)
This step is crucial in any integration, as if completed, marketers will be empowered to create automation campaigns at will, and mitigate the need for additional development after the SDK's initial implementation. It is beneficial to try to accumulate as many viable use cases and campaigns that are to be run in the future. When forming the use cases, it is valuable to note the point of the user journey that will trigger a use case or perhaps important event(s) to track.
Example events to track:
- The first time a user loads a new feature of the app.
- When there is a purchase.
- When product(s) are viewed.
- User completes an action (makes a deposit, adds details to profile).
Example use cases are:
- Abandon Basket/Browse
- Welcome Journey
- Push permission request
- Win-back campaigns.
You will find some examples in our mobile marketing strategy section of the documentation.
If this step is a challenge, please reach out to your Client Success Manager or implementation consultant, as they will be able to schedule a call with a Mobile Strategy Consultant to advise on this.
3. SDK integration planning (Owner: Marketer & Developer)
Marketers confirm to the developers what are the key events in the app to track. This will allow developers to plan which type of SDK tracking to use and where it should be placed.
4. SDK Integration (Owner: Developer)
The first step for developers is to add the app to the account. The steps to complete this task are found in the App Management section of the documentation.
Developers can then integrate the SDK using the provided iOS and Android integration guides. Should the developers have any difficulties with integrating the SDK, please raise a Support ticket.
For any complex integrations require additional support for your developers, Emarsys can provide a mobile engineer to have a developer call to quickly remove obstacles.
5. Building the campaigns in the account (Owner: Marketer)
Emarsys have provided some common use cases and guides on how to add them to the Emarsys account. Therefore it is worthwhile to check the mobile strategy section of the documentation first.
5.1. Create Segments
It is likely that for any automation or ad-hoc campaigns, there will be some form of segmentation. This step should be undertaken before the campaigns are added to the account. You can find more information on our segmentation service here, including how to create a segment.
5.2. Create Campaigns
5.3. Create Automation Journeys
This step is where the automation is added to the campaign, if applicable for the use case. Again, you will find examples in our mobile strategy section of the documentation. Additional resources for using the Automation Center features can be found here.