In-app purchases, i.e. directly from a mobile application, has become a major trend among consumers. They are 74% say they use mobile applications with the main intention of making a purchase. Mobile purchases also accounted for 44% of e-commerce revenues by 2023.

Creating your own mobile application is therefore an excellent way of differentiating yourself from your competitors and attracting an audience that buys mainly or even exclusively via a smartphone. But this new acquisition and loyalty channel means that you need to adapt the shopping journey and offer a unique experience, different from the web and retail.

In this article, we present some practical advice and inspiring examples of how to boost your in-app sales.

SUMMARY

• L’achat in app c’est quoi ?
• How in-app competitions can influence users’ purchasing behaviour
• Tips and examples for boosting in-app purchases through gamification

As the name suggests, in-app purchases are simply transactions carried out via an e-commerce application In the early days of mobile technology, the vast majority of these transactions were purchases of :

• features (such as new filters for a photo editing application);
• or consumables in a mobile video game (such as extra lives or accessories to boost your avatar’s powers).

But with the ever-increasing use of mobile shopping (smartphones and tablets), brands have started to develop their own shopping applications. In-app purchasing offers many advantages for e-commerce companies.

By encouraging consumers to download a dedicated application, they create a much closer relationship with their audience. L’application leur permet en effet d’envoyer à ses clients des SMS, des notifications push, etc.

But above all, it’s an excellent way of creating a much more immersive bubble. With a web browser, it’s much easier for customers to leave the shop, for example to compare the brand’s offer with that of competitors.

Whether in retail, on the web or in mobile marketing, gamification offers brands a wide range of tools for capturing the attention, engaging and retaining the loyalty of consumers. Brands that want to boost in-app purchases can use the mechanics specific to the world of games at every stage of the customer journey.

To boost app downloads and drive buyers to the app

The first challenge for brands looking to boost their in-app sales is quite simply to increase the number of downloads. This can be achieved through a number of different strategies. App-Store Optimization (or ASO), for example, involves optimizing content so that the application is promoted on the dedicated shops (Play Store, App Store, etc.).

Brands can also offer attractive benefits to their prospects or customers to encourage them to buy in app. For example, downloading the app will entitle them to a discount voucher on their first purchase, a selection of exclusive products or lower delivery charges than on the e-commerce shop.

Marketing competitions are also an excellent way of raising awareness of your application and encourage its audience to download it. A winning instant (such as a Wheel of fortune for example) can enable the brand to encourage its customers to make their first in-app purchase. The prize will take the form of a voucher that can only be used on the app.

Building customer loyalty in app

Once the application has been downloaded, the next step is to encourage users to make their first in-app order. As we’ve seen, offering a discount after each new download, which can only be used on the first mobile purchase, is already a good conversion driver.

But the brand can also target other relevant triggers to convince users when they are about to buy. These might include the first product selected or a shopping basket abandonment (the customer leaves the application without purchasing the items they have selected).

For each of these pre-determined actions, the company can automatically send an in-app message or SMS that redirects to a marketing game encouraging the customer to validate their order in exchange for benefits (discount, access to the VIP club, etc.)

Playable marketing is also proving highly effective in retaining new in-app buyers. It allows a game to be shared directly in the application’s purchase path, without any redirection. This is a crucial factor in boosting brand sales. In fact, a study shows that mobile users make 37% more purchases than other customers (e-commerce and retail).

Competitions with a purchase obligation or reserved for loyalty programme members are a good way of encouraging repeat orders. By activating the reward circuit, gamification mechanisms make shoppers want to continue consuming in order to reap new and ever more attractive benefits.

We have just seen that playable marketing is an effective strategy for increasing sales. To achieve its commercial objectives, the brand can draw on the best practices of companies that have succeeded in optimise their mobile marketing.

Using transactional data to personalise the in-app shopping experience

As with any sales channel, personalisation is now a key driver of conversion and loyalty for brands. They need to adapt their purchasing path from the behavioural and transactional data they have on their customers. With this information, they can make more targeted recommendations, present more relevant content, and so on.

Supermarket giant Lidl has understood this perfectly well, and has integrated it into its in-app purchase strategy. The Lidl Plus application enables the company to centralise customer purchasing data. Users can find their till receipts, making it easier to monitor their budget. The brand, for its part, is boosting its in-app purchases by offering discount coupons based on the consumption habits of each customer.

Lidl is going a step further by using this customer data to personalise the gaming experience. Based on in-store purchases, users can access tailored games and rewards. As a result, the application has over 5 million active users and records millions of games played every week.

Offer games with an obligation to buy or accessible based on a volume of points

As we saw a moment ago, Playable marketing is a good way of building customer loyalty, whatever the channel used. Within an application and with the aim of increasing its re-purchase rate, the brand can simply make its interactive experiences accessible only to customers who have have already made an in-app purchase or have accumulated a certain number of loyalty points.

This is the strategy adopted by Coca Cola for its mobile application. To be eligible for attractive prizes (such as tickets to a football match), mobile customers must have accumulated 100 loyalty points.

The same goes for Fuzz Tea, which launched a competition with an obligation to buy. To take part, the brand’s customers had to enter the code shown on their receipt.

Conclusion

Gamification is an effective way of influencing consumer behaviour in a fun and subtle way. Your brand can use this lever to boost the number of downloads of its application and its volume of in-app sales. Find out how Adictiz can help you gamify your in-app journey.

A brand that can maintain its profitability over the long term is a brand that knows how to engage its customers. Engagement (i.e. the depth, quality and frequency of interactions between a company and its audience) is the primary indicator of commercial performance.

It’s engagement that boosts a brand’s visibility, converts prospects into customers and, above all, builds loyalty. Engaged customers (particularly through gamification mechanisms) are more likely to buy regularly from the same brand, recommend it to friends and family, etc.

To activate the neurons in our brains and engage their customers effectively, brands can rely on Playable Marketing. By taking up the elements traditionally associated with games (points, competition, progression from one level to the next), brands can optimise the purchasing journey and boost their revenue.

In this article, we explain how you can make the most of the advantages of playable marketing at every stage of your customer journey!

SUMMARY

• What is playable marketign and what impact does it have on buyers?
• Creating an engagement loop through gamification
• Best practices for designing a gamified shopping experience
  

Whether in education, healthcare or marketing, organisations are all looking for effective tools to capture and maintain the attention of their audience. Gamifying the way they speak to their audiences is a highly relevant strategy for achieving this objective.

Why ? It’s all in our brains. Lors de la phase de découverte, lorsqu’un consommateur commence à se familiariser avec une nouvelle marque, les éléments empruntés au jeu permettent par exemple d’améliorer la rétention d’information.

Neuroscience has shown that gamification acts as a catalyst for hippocampal memory, which encourage the store of new data in long-term memory. We also know that our brains are more likely to retain information when it is associated with positive experiences.

During the consideration phase, when consumers are comparing a brand’s offer with that of its competitors, gamification can play the role of a differentiating element. The fun aspect, as well as the opportunity to unlock rewards, strengthens customer commitment and encourages them to make a purchase.

In fact, Gamification releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter that creates positive associations when we win something or achieve a goal. The feeling of happiness and satisfaction increases. We are therefore much more motivated to buy from a brand that offers a gamified buying experience. Playable marketing is therefore a powerful loyalty-building lever .

By increasing the number of interactions between the customer and the company, gamified marketing campaigns also enable more comprehensive data to be collected. This information gives the brand a much more detailed understanding of the needs, preferences and motivations of its audience. The brand can use this information to optimise the buying process, improve the customer experience and even perfect its products.

One of the key mechanisms in gamification is the engagement loop. Les utilisateurs sont motivés à effectuer une action (e.g subscribing to a newsletter, buying a new product or leaving a review) because this action unlocks a reward. With each new action, customers can access even more interesting prizes. This strengthens their bond with the brand and their feeling of belonging to its community. Gamification also activates the reward circuit. it makes customers want to prolong their interaction with the brand (in particular by continuing to consume) in order to conitnue to reap the benefits.

The reward, but also the recognition offered by the brand (via a badge for its most loyal customers or access to a VIP club) becomes a motivating factor in itself. And the commitment loop starts all over again.

This is why Playable marketing is not just about converting new customers. More importantly, it builds loyamty among customers who have already bought from the brand and boosts their Lifetime Value. brands that make good use of gamification to optimise their customer experience and their buying journey will see their incomes increase significantly.

For example, with its gamified application Run Club, Nike has increased its cusotmers’ sense of belonging. It encourages more frequent interactions and a higher re-pruchase rate. The same goes for Starbucks, whose loyalty program consists of accumulating points to move up to higher levels. This program has generated 40% of the company’s revenues and a 7% increase in sales in 2019.

Interactive marketing formats and the gamification of marketing content enable companies to optimise their purchasing paths. However, simply introducing game elements is not enough to move a prospect up the conversion funnel.

Here are the best practices to keep in mind to maximise conversions thanks to Playable marketing.

Getting to know your customers

The first step in designing a gamified shopping experience is to understand your target audience, what they are looking for and what motivates them. This in-depth knowledge is facilitated precisely by gamification (as a tool for data collection and enrichment)). Les marques peuvent en effet récolter des données qualifiées issues de formulaires de participation, ou directement via l’expérience de jeu (par exemple en faisant choisir à son audience son produit préféré etc)

Using the data at its disposal, the company will be able to adapt its interactive animations to the needs of its customers. It’s also a good time to segment the data collected in order to personalise and boost the performance of its campaigns .

Setting clear objectives

The brand will then need to determine which stage of the purchaising journey it wishes to reinforce. It is moe relevant and affordable to determine the strategic contact points where gamification will enable the company to boost its results.

Depending on which part of the conversion funnel is most problematic (awareness, consideration, purchase, loyalty), the company can determine which marketing games to offer and when.

Incorporate relevant game elements for each stage of the customer journey

When a brand adds gamified elements to its shopping journey, it is crucial that they make sense in the context of the customer experience. For example, introducing a points and reward system is relevant in the post-purchase phase to build consumer loyalty.

On the other hand, interactive formats such as competitions and instant wins are more effective at the moment of discovery and consideration.They will help to boost brand visibility and convert new prospects more effectively.

Enhancing the added value of gamified elements

The final step is to regularly evaluate the effectiveness of gamification of the pruchasing journey. Tracking precise metrics (conversion, lead generation, retetention) will enable the company to optimise its shopping experience and achieve its objectives.

Conclusion

By following these best practices, you can create a gamified customer experience that is both more engaging for your customers and more effective for your brand. We provide a complete catalogue of interactive formats to target buyers at every stage of your customer journey. Whether you want to engage your audience, convert prospects or build customer loyalty you’ll find a gamified animation to meet your needs!