1 Click Automations on Mailchimp’s mobile apps

Mailchimp’s mobile apps had just recently implemented campaign creation and editing on the device. The mobile team was looking for more ways to get our customers to make and send more campaigns because our research showed two things:

1. Folks who used the mobile apps where more likely to be paid customers

2. Folks who sent campaigns (specifically automated campaigns) have 2x the retention rate over twelve months than those who don’t.
   

Resend to Non-openers

Our first foray into this started with a simple idea based on some data we had outlined here by one of our delivery managers, Matthew. Essentially, if you resend your campaign after ~24 hours to any subscriber who hasn’t opened it yet will get a higher open and click rate. We started here because the concept was simple and didn’t REQUIRE than our customers edit anything.

Wire-framing

We had to think through how to leverage as much existing work as possible. This also helped us map out where and when we were making network calls and figure out when to actually generate the campaign.

This general wireframe helped the entire team plan out the work.

The Trigger & Notification

~24 hours after after a campaign is sent, we check to see if the open rate is lower than the list average.

If it’s lower than the average, we send a notification suggesting the user resends it to all the subscribers who haven’t opened it yet.

The Selling Point

Based on user interviews, customers responded very positively to data backed assertions that performing an action will increase their campaign engagement.

We used this point to educate our users on what the benefit of resending to non-openers is and we give them the option to either resend it right then and there or edit it if that makes them feel more comfortable.

Abandoned Cart Suggestion

While resending to non-openers isn’t a true automation, it allowed us to test out this general flow of suggesting a simple action via notification, and start sending a campaign of some sort. Our second notification-backed-suggested-one-click-automation was a true automation: Sending a follow-up email to customers who left things in their shopping cart.

The Trigger

15 Days after a user connects an e-commerce store to Mailchimp, we check to see if there are any abandoned carts associated with their store.

We’ll send out a notification telling them how many abandoned carts they have and encourage them to start an Abandoned Cart Automation.

The Value Prop

Here comes the challenge of trying to convey a complex idea that a lot of our users don’t fully understand or know about (we only show this to folks don’t already have an Abandoned Cart Automation).

What we do for the user is set up the automation using placeholder content that they can easily sub-out with their own brand or message. Editing on mobile isn’t the most elegant so our goal here is to reduce the amount they have to do to get sending and make it super simple to at least create the draft for finishing later on desktop.

Editing

The user can then open up the newly created automation draft and edit any settings or designs using our Campaign Detail Page.

Wherever possible, we always use a default value that we are confident will work for must users but always give the option to edit. Our customers trust our judgement and we try to leverage that to get them the best results.

Starting

Once everything looks good, we leverage our campaign sending flow to check for errors and enable the automation right from the mobile app! This is a powerful moment for our users so we try to be as empathetic, explicit, and celebratory as possible. This visual is also very heavily reflected in the web app so it creates a sort of continuous experience and fosters trust.