Mobile inbox

A mobile inbox contains the in-app messages that are directly delivered to the inbox in a non-intrusive way or have been saved by the customers to read later at their convenience. When a message is delivered directly to the mobile inbox, customers can continue with their in-app activities like placing orders, watching shows, and so on, without being disrupted. They can then check your notifications at their convenience. This can help drive customer engagement without negatively impacting your top line metrics (for example, orders placed, shows viewed). Customers can retain the messages or delete them after reading.

Mobile inbox synchronization across multiple devices

Blueshift’s SDKs automatically sync the mobile inbox, along with the message status (read/unread), across all the devices on which a customer has installed your app and has logged in.

When the app is launched from a closed state and a customer views the inbox screen, the SDK syncs the messages with the server.

• New messages are fetched and stored in the device for offline use.
• The status of messages, read or unread, will be fetched from the server to update the messages stored in the device. (Note: the unread status sync is only applicable to campaign sends and not to test sends.)
• Messages that are deleted from another device will be synced and removed from the current device.

The SDK also automatically fetches new messages sent from a campaign when the device is running in the foreground or background.

For more information, see Set up mobile inbox for Android and Set up mobile inbox for iOS.

Use cases

You can send a message to the mobile inbox in the following cases:

• When the information in the message is important and something the user might want to refer to later. 
• When the message contains information that the customer can use at a later time.
• Messages that are not time-sensitive so that users can check them later at their convenience.

Note: Customers will see the messages in their inbox until the message expires.

Consider the following example use cases for sending messages to the mobile inbox:

• Promotions to re-engage dormant users or drive additional purchases.  For example, holiday sales, monthly discount codes, and so on.
• A list of recommendations. For example, if you offer a restaurant reservation app, you can send a list of the “10 Hottest 10 Restaurants in your area” to your customers.
• Onboarding guides. For example, links to your onboarding guide that new customers can refer to later if they run into difficulties.
• Feature announcements. For example, if you are a mobile-first company, you can deliver and store feature updates for customers to engage and reference when needed.
• Order confirmations with order details.
• Limited time offers. For example, send an in-app message targeting high-churn audiences by offering them free shipping for the next 5 days and also save the message in the mobile inbox so that customers can refer to it in the future.
• Deliver personalized, persistent content to your entire app audience, even those who have opted out or not yet subscribed for push notifications.

Features

Consider the following points about messages in the mobile inbox:

• Blueshift’s SDKs provide a default user interface for the mobile inbox. You can also customize the UI to match your brand style and colors.
• For each message in the inbox, you can see a title, a short description, an image, the date (timestamp) the message was sent on, and the status (read/unread).
• Customers can tap the message in the inbox to view it.
• Customers can swipe left on the message in the inbox and click Delete to remove the message from the inbox.
• When you design an in-app message template, you can set the message properties to display the message only in the app, only in the mobile inbox, or to display in both the app and the mobile inbox.
• When you design a message, you can set a different title, content, and image for the inbox.
• There is no character limit for the inbox message title or short description.

Example of the mobile inbox 

Analytics

For every mobile inbox notification you send, you can track whether customers are engaging with it.

• Create an Insights report where you Group by the opened_by attribute and Filter by the in-app Channel.
• Additionally, the information is also captured in campaign activity reports in the opened_by extended attribute:
  • When an in-app messages is displayed automatically to the user, you can see opened_by = prefetch.
  • When an in-app message is opened by the user by tapping the message in the mobile inbox, you can see opened_by = user.

Example of an Insights report: