That Felt Natural..! In-App Product Placement
Nudge entries that sharply increase high-quality traffic
When launching a new feature, you have to decide where to place it within the product. At this point, rather than prioritizing the feature's usage rate, you usually decide in a way that doesn't disrupt the overall information architecture and hierarchy of the product. This is partly to prevent cognitive dissonance as the number of features grows, and partly because helping users navigate well within the product ensures a healthy overall usage rate across various features. (Previous post — Funnel Optimization Strategy)
When positioning a new feature, we usually organize it like arranging a drawer—making it 'easy to find the feature you want to find'. But the problem at the starting line is that 'users don't want to find' the feature. Since being completely unaware of the feature's existence is the biggest reason, we previously took a look at the home entry strategy, which carries the most impact. (Previous post — The cheat code to increase conversion by 10x )
In this post, I want to outline a contextual entry strategy that sharply targets users who are aware of the feature but don't bother looking for it because they're too lazy or simply forgot.
Contextual Entries
Nudge entries that sharply increase high-quality traffic
It's about finding contexts where users 'seem likely to need' the feature and giving them a nudge. You've probably seen screens like the ones below a lot while using food delivery apps. These are screens promoting a feature or promotion that grants specific benefits when you invite a friend.
A promotion that offers a discount coupon for inviting a friend—when is the moment you need this the most? The most appropriate time would be the moment you're making a payment, rather than when you aren't paying for anything. Is right after payment better, or right before? When it's ambiguous, you can easily find out through an experiment. You can just look at the entry rate against the nudge attempts, alongside the conversion rate within the funnel after entry.
Also, setting benefits aside, when is the moment you'd actually want to invite a friend? It would be the moment you feel satisfied while using the product. Nudging at the moment you leave a 5-star review would also be a decent approach. By finding contexts that suit a specific feature and trying out various approaches like this, you can discover good contextual entries.
In the case of Alarmy's friend invitation feature, we reward users with a 7-day subscription for every friend they bring in. If they can bring in 4 friends every month, they can use premium features for 28 days without having to pay for a monthly subscription. In this case, which context is the most appropriate? We focused on the user segment that is interested in premium features but drops off without actually making a payment. Since it shouldn't negatively impact subscription conversion, we added several extra conditions and ultimately tried pitching the friend invitation at the moment they exit the payment screen. The results were amazing.
Compared to the control group that didn't have any contextual entries added, the conversion rate surged by up to 16 times. It probably took about 4 hours in total for planning, design, and development, but it generated an increase of at least 4x to 16x. Although the absolute increment wasn't huge because there was a big hole in the backend funnel, the fact that the conversion rate relatively increased by such a high multiplier compared to the control group showed clear 99% statistical significance.
As another example, we needed an appropriate nudge entry for Alarmy's sleep analysis feature (a feature that provides the value of a refreshing morning by helping you sleep well). The moment sleep analysis is needed, the moment the need for deep sleep is highest, is probably right before falling asleep. So we decided to pop up a nudge entry like the one above when a user edits their alarm at night. The results were similarly amazing.
When you add a separate entry, usually the entry rate goes way up, and the conversion rate against entries drops slightly. However, with a well-placed nudge entry, you can increase the entry rate while maintaining the conversion rate against entries. This sleep analysis nudge entry was exactly that. Because of this, we were able to meaningfully increase the final conversion rate deeper in the funnel afterward.
Nudges That Don't Fit the Context
Turning into an unnecessary internal billboard: Beware
Lately, more and more products have been adopting these nudge entry strategies. It's probably because the conversion impact is that significant. However, experiences where it's doubtful if it's the right context have also increased. If it's optimization during an experiment phase, that's a relief, but if it's being exposed to a blunt, unrefined user segment or simply the wrong user segment, then it's a concern. If an in-app journey that used to guide me to exactly what I needed right then turns into an unnecessary internal billboard, users will find it hard to trust those journeys anymore and might just universally bounce off without even looking.
Of course, doing this will definitely have a bigger impact than not nudging at all. Because either way, it will get exposed to the user more. But unlike a home entry strategy, adding a nudge entry is fundamentally an act of interrupting the user's journey, so while the immediate feature usage rate might go up, overall app retention could deteriorate. Keeping this in mind and approaching it more meticulously to plant suitable contextual entries here and there will allow you to taste a healthy metric improvement—boosting both overall user retention for the app and conversion rates for individual features.
Now, an adequate pool of users has started entering the funnel of a specific feature.
To maximize the impact on the final target conversion, building a healthy funnel is essential. Since we've secured the entry rate, let's explore various in-funnel methods to secure the conversion rate against entries in a follow-up post.