• by Cezar Kolodziej , March 27, 2013

We all know that analytics are essential to ensure your campaign is working. Mobile messaging initiatives are no different. So why do many of us fail to measure this on a regular basis? The simple answer is because it’s often very difficult to measure mobile analytics due to platform fragmentation and the vast array of device capabilities.

Here are some tips to help you find the best strategy to track mobile analytics, learn more about your customers and increase your campaign results along the way.

Know Your Customers

Do you really know what mobile devices your customers are using? Many mobile marketers use mobile Web analytics to extrapolate what devices their customers are carrying in their pockets. Unfortunately, this only provides a partial view of your entire customer base. Using this approach, you are able to view device type for customers who are already using your mobile site, not the customers who have yet to access your mobile site. This is an important distinction, because not every customer segment will use your mobile tools the same way.

In order to get a broader picture, it is a good idea to get mobile device analytics from your messaging program. Messaging providers who employ device detection can tell you the full spectrum of devices that are included in your customer base. This technology also allows you to push mobile users to the right mobile solution, for instance, if you know which customers are Android users. Then you can use messaging to push them to the relevant Android-based mobile application.

Measure Often

You may think that measuring initial results from your mobile campaign is enough, but one thing we have learned about mobile is that results change over time. This applies to any click-through calls to action embedded in mobile messaging campaigns. Mobile messaging is a sticky technology, and users tend to keep messages on their mobile devices longer than email. Users open links in messages multiple times or save the message to view later. We have seen this trend on many messaging campaigns where the initial analytics for click-throughs embedded in messages kept growing for several weeks and the final results were nearly 40% higher than immediately after the blast.

Test Your Campaign

Not all campaigns generate the same results. Just as we use A/B testing for online campaigns, the same techniques can be used for mobile messaging. By making small changes in messaging, images or color, the results can vary greatly.

To maximize the potential of your own campaigns, split your list into multiple segments and send slightly different messages to each group to see what resonates best with your target audience. Ensure that there is a strong call to action and a way to measure redemption from the message. The results will likely surprise you.

From our past testing, the best results we have seen are from interactive content, where the user is asked to participate in a contest or survey. These types of messages generate an immediate response and are much easier to track than simple branding content.

Messaging analytics are an essential and cost-effective way to learn more about your customers. Marketers often fail to track the simplest of marketing initiatives, but measuring on a regular basis, using A/B testing techniques and device detection can help you understand what content can generate a response not only via messaging but throughout your digital initiatives.