Mobile Engagement Platforms:

Leveraging Context to Capture the

Mobile Moment
November 2014

Peter Crocker

Smiths Point Analytics LLC

6 Lufkin Street
Essex, MA 01929
617-633-9507

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www.smithspointanalytics.com

Executive Summary
The convergence of cloud technology, big data, and mobile is driving a paradigm shift in marketing. The
age of anonymous messaging with generic segmenting or targeting is over as the technology to support
more contextual engagement comes to market. Mobile marketing is shifting from a campaign focus to a
customer focus and mobile users increasingly expect brands to deliver personalized messaging and
content relevant to their current physical and digital environment. A multitude of vendors are emerging
in the mobile ecosystem that are focused on helping brands engage with mobile users on an one to one,
personalized, and contextual basis. These competitors are growing quickly, with the mobile engagement
platform market forecasted to reach $405 million in 2014, a 105% increase over 2013.
A primary demand driver for these platforms is fueled by enterprises need to generate more value from
existing applications. By leveraging next generation engagement platforms, brands can encourage users
to interact with their apps more regularly and for longer periods of time, extending the lifespan of the
app. Vendors ability to measure and demonstrate the ROI and value of capturing the mobile moment
with the right message at the right time and is also helping to stimulate growth. Technology
advancements are another factor helping to support new engagement tactics. The emergence of
iBeacons and BLE technology is helping to drive investment in proximity based marketing strategies
creating opportunities for brands to engage users based on more precise location data. Advanced
smartphones with a greater quantity of sensors and better battery management is also providing more
real-time environmental data to enable greater context.
The American consumer is spending more time each year looking at their phones and accessing the
internet via mobile apps. Marketers are beginning to adjust their budgets to reflect these trends but
some barriers to adoption of mobile engagement platforms still exist. The lack of effective
communication between IT and marketing departments has limited the ability for enterprises to
formulate a holistic mobile strategy. Consequently organizations are taking advantage of mobile
engagement platforms to support. The nuance of each potential situation represents significant risks for
brands if they get it wrong. The challenge of understanding all the possible scenarios to effectively
deliver the right message at the right time is also slowing adoption of mobile engagement platforms.
To execute one to one mobile engagement, platform vendors need to integrate three fundamental
processes.

Behavior Analytics and Tracking The process of tracking users behaviors in the digital and
physical world to identify patterns.
Marketing Automation The process of leveraging analytics to define messaging and triggers to
automatically deliver the right message to the right segment at the right time. These triggers
and segmentations are informed by analytics and tracking.
Messaging The process of delivering messages and content thought the right messaging
channel including, push, in-app, and SMS messaging or even widgets.

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While distinct value propositions, these processes need to work together to enable effective personalize
contextual engagement. As this market gains more traction and continues to attract capital, companies
from various segments of the value chain including: analytics, automation, messaging, and CRM are
eyeing the opportunity. Working to leverage their existing relationships, large enterprise software
vendors are also positioning themselves as omnichannel engagement providers and will be an important
force in the market.
The market for mobile engagement platforms will be crowded and competitive and not all will survive.
Execution and a constant focus on benefiting the mobile app user with valuable and contextual content
and messaging will also be a key differentiator. Companies that can build this customer focused mindset
into their corporate culture and business models will be better positioned to reach consumers.
Integrating the right data with appropriate predictive models will also be an important competitive
advantage.

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www.smithspointanalytics.com

Table of Contents
MARKET STRUCTURE .....................................................................................................................................................8
Personalization, Context and The Mobile Moment ............................................................................................8
Mobile Engagement Value Chain ......................................................................................................................10
Analytics & behavior tracking ................................................................................................................10
Automation ............................................................................................................................................11
Delivery ..................................................................................................................................................11
MARKET OPPORTUNITY ...............................................................................................................................................13
Market Drivers ..................................................................................................................................................13
Increased focus on more holistic mobile strategies ...............................................................................13
Context and personalization is driving response rates ..........................................................................14
Hardware advancements .......................................................................................................................14
Market Barriers .................................................................................................................................................15
Challenges of marketing on mobile........................................................................................................15
Disconnect between it and marketers for holistic strategy ...................................................................16
Challenges of getting it right ..................................................................................................................17
Geofencing challenges ...........................................................................................................................18
Privacy issues .........................................................................................................................................18
Market Size and Forecast ..................................................................................................................................18
Forecast methodology ...........................................................................................................................20
Leading industry segments.....................................................................................................................21
COMPETITION & STRATEGY .........................................................................................................................................23
Analytics Adding Marketing Automation ..........................................................................................................24
Big CRM Vendors Buying Sophisticated Marketing Automation Suites ............................................................25
Web Analytics Firms Migrate To Mobile ...........................................................................................................25
Messaging Vendors Adding Analytics & Automation .......................................................................................26
Push Messaging Vendors ..................................................................................................................................26
Mobile Marketing Vendors ...............................................................................................................................27
Organic Mobile Marketing Automation Vendors .............................................................................................27
Proximity Vendors.............................................................................................................................................28
MARKETING STRATEGY ................................................................................................................................................28
Business Models ...............................................................................................................................................28
Go To Market Strategy ......................................................................................................................................28
COMPETITIVE DIFFERENTIATORS ................................................................................................................................29
Approaches To Analytics Granularity And Volume ........................................................................................29
SMS Vs. Push .....................................................................................................................................................30
Experience In Making Context Work ................................................................................................................31
Importance Of Access Right Data Significant Value Add ................................................................................32
FUTURE TRENDS & RECOMMENDATIONS ...................................................................................................................33
Emergence of Two Separate Ecosystems .........................................................................................................33
Innovative start-ups ...............................................................................................................................33
Large enterprise software vendors ........................................................................................................33
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Messaging & Delivery Variety Is Key ..............................................................................................................34

Push Messaging Vendors Must Constantly Innovate to Compete .........................................................34
SMS Vendors Need To Partner Or Change Business Models to Compete .............................................34
Organic Mobile Marketing Vendors Well Positioned .......................................................................................35
Multiple Vendors With Similar Approach, All Will Not Survive ........................................................................35
VENDOR PROFILES .......................................................................................................................................................36
ADOBE ...............................................................................................................................................................36
Overview ................................................................................................................................................36
Product ...................................................................................................................................................36
Competitive Advantages ........................................................................................................................37
Competitive Challenges..........................................................................................................................37
GIMBAL .............................................................................................................................................................38
Overview ................................................................................................................................................38
Product ...................................................................................................................................................38
Competitive Advantages ........................................................................................................................38
Competitive Challenges..........................................................................................................................39
IBM ................................................................................................................................................................40
Overview ................................................................................................................................................40
Product ...................................................................................................................................................40
Competitive Advantages ........................................................................................................................41
Competitive Challenges..........................................................................................................................41
KAHUNA ............................................................................................................................................................42
Overview ................................................................................................................................................42
Product ...................................................................................................................................................42
Competitive Advantage ..........................................................................................................................42
Competitive Challenges..........................................................................................................................43
LOCALYTICS .......................................................................................................................................................44
Overview ................................................................................................................................................44
Product ...................................................................................................................................................44
Competitive Advantages ........................................................................................................................45
Competitive Challenges..........................................................................................................................45
URBAN AIRSHIP .................................................................................................................................................47
Overview ................................................................................................................................................47
Product ...................................................................................................................................................47
Competitive Advantages ........................................................................................................................48
Competitive Challenges..........................................................................................................................49

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TABLE OF FIGURES
Figure 1 Contextual Engagement Feedback Loop...................................................................................... 9
Figure 2 Mobile Engagement Value Chain ............................................................................................... 10
Figure 3 US Time Spent Accessing the Internet by Device....................................................................... 15
Figure 4 Mobile Engagement Market Size ............................................................................................... 18
Figure 5 Mobile App Active Installs .......................................................................................................... 19
Figure 6 - Identified Market Players............................................................................................................ 20
Figure 7 Mobile Automation Platform Competitive Ecosystem .............................................................. 23
Figure 8 Web and App Analytics Comparison .......................................................................................... 25
Figure 9 Data Granularity vs. Data Tracked ............................................................................................. 29

COMPANIES MENTIONED
Accengage
Adobe
Amazon
Appenvoy
Appboy
Apple
Appoxee
Appsee
Apsalar
Archer
Artisan
Broadcom
Carnaval
Clickatell

Element Wave
Eloqua
Gimbal
Google
Hipcricket
IBM
Iris Mobile
Jasper Mobile
Jeapie
Kahuna
Leanplum
Local Social
Localytics
mBlox

mGage
Mixpanel
Mobile bridge
Mobile ROI
Mobile RQ
Mtkis
Netmera
OpenMarket
Oracle
Pardot
Qualcomm
Radium One
Responsys
Roximity

Salesforce.com
SAP
Silverpop
Sitecore
SugarCRM
Swirl
Swrve
Syniverse
Tapjoy & 5Rocks
TeaLeaf
Upsight
Urban Airship
Waterfall
Xtify

FORECAST METHEDOLOGY
Smiths Point Analytics has used a variety of techniques to develop our market estimates and
forecasts. To reach our estimate we have triangulated a number of data points including:

Estimated vendor revenues

Mobile marketing spend forecasts
Developer surveys
Estimated total potential market based on active use of applications

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For the purpose of our market forecast, we have limited the market to vendors supporting
the three segments of the value chain, analytics, automation, and delivery.

2014 Smiths Point Analytics LLC All Rights Reserved

www.smithspointanalytics.com