GameStop’s Playbook for Winning With Mobile Marketing

Learn how GameStop uses Urban Airship’s mobile engagement solutions to stay connected to their customers and grow with mobile — generating 8x read rate for their mobile messages, and earning a 90%+ retention rate for their loyalty program.

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If you’re a digital marketer, you’re always looking for the best ways to keep your customers connected to your brand. GameStop is no exception.

GameStop’s extremely popular app keeps their customers connected to their brand, helping them stay up to date with the gaming news they care about the most.

The app also makes it easy for GameStop customers to keep track of discount codes and coupons, make purchases and see their PowerUp RewardsTM  loyalty program points anytime.

The goal for GameStop is to be wherever their customers are.

“We don’t see our business in terms of channels, and we work hard to focus on the user to fulfill their needs regardless of where, and in what context they choose to interact with us,” said Bill Graham, director of multichannel operations at GameStop.

Personalize Messaging Based on User Preferences

The GameStop app uses our solutions for push notifications, message center and mobile wallet to communicate with users. Users can pick and choose what sorts of notifications they would like to receive such as promotions, PowerUp rewards, and account activity.

“By using our business system of record to create lists and Urban Airship’s mobile messaging capabilities, we can deliver a customized experience for our users to give them content related to what they care most about,” said Graham.

GameStop’s push notifications preference center allows users to choose exactly which message they do — and don't — want to receive.

Why This Works

Taking a personalized approach creates better engagement. In fact, our research shows targeted push notifications earn 4-7x higher response rates when sent to a more curated audience.

“By using our business system of record to create lists and Urban Airship’s mobile messaging capabilities, we can deliver a customized experience for our users to give them content related to what they care most about.”
– Bill Graham, Director of Multichannel Operations, GameStop

Combining Push Notifications & Message Center Content

When GameStop sends push notifications, they often pair them with in-app message center content. When they combine the two, they typically see an 8x increase in read rates. (Which, coincidentally, is exactly the lift our mobile engagement benchmark research shows marketers can expect when combining these two channels.)

For example, a promotional offer for a “Buy 2 pre-owned products, get 1 free,” could be delivered via push notification to its list of “Top Scoring Pro Members” (their most loyal members who had met a reward point threshold), with content also appearing in the message center.

GameStop’s team develops custom HTML5 pages to create a visually compelling message center. When a user taps on the content, they’re taken to the related destination in the app or GameStop’s mobile website. 

GameStop’s HTML-rich message center content is another way to deliver mobile marketing campaign messages to their app users. Message content is often paired with a push notification and deep links back to the most relevant place in their app or on their mobile website.  

Why This Works

Combining push notifications and message center messages just makes sense. In addition to the increased read rates, message centers on their own are a great way to reach users who have opted out of receiving push notifications.

Message center content also stays in the app (although marketers do have the option to “expire” content to keep the inbox clutter free) making it an ideal channel to share information or offers customers will want to refer back to.

Another example of GameStop's message center content.

Explore Adding Mobile Wallet to the Mix

GameStop also provides a mobile wallet loyalty card and mobile wallet coupons for easy access when shopping online or in store.

“GameStop’s PowerUp Rewards loyalty program is one of the fastest growing loyalty programs in retail, and we continue to make enhancements so rewards can be issued monthly and customized to each customer’s preferences,” said Darin Smith, senior director of GameStop’s PowerUp Rewards program. “Mobile wallets give us another highly visible and convenient way to reach more customers with the personalized benefits of our exclusive loyalty program.”

According to Loyalty360, PowerUp members drove 71% of GameStop's sales volume in the U.S. last year, so providing an easy way to access their rewards card is important.

“Mobile wallets give us another highly visible and convenient way to reach more customers with the personalized benefits of our exclusive loyalty program.”
– Darin Smith, Senior Director, GameStop PowerUp Rewards Program

More than 339k users have downloaded the GameStop loyalty card, and nearly all of them keep it — GameStop sees retention rate for this pass consistently over 90% month-over-month.

Why This Works

Research shows consumers want to use digital wallet more often. Mobile wallet passes help brands reach new customers and extend their mobile footprint. Use it to grow loyalty programs, share coupons, boarding passes, tickets or gift cards and much, much more.  

PowerUp Rewards loyalty members can also add their membership card to their phone via Wallet.

Invest in Mobile to Grow Your Business

GameStop has seen their mobile traffic and revenue grow significantly over the last year. They attribute much of their success to better engaging their most loyal customers on mobile.

“Our aim is to connect and unify [all of our] different touchpoints to drive engagement, loyalty, and ultimately purchases — regardless of channel,” said Bill Graham, director of multichannel operations at GameStop.

Ready to Get Started?

Want to learn more about the solutions that power GameStop’s Success? Check out these resources:

Urban Airship’s Engage solution: Send personalized push notifications, in-app messages and message center content with our easy-to-install SDK.

Urban Airship’s Reach solution: From coupons to loyalty cards, use mobile wallet to increase your mobile footprint. You can get started with minimal developer resources, and be up in running as quickly as two weeks.

Want to chat? Talk to one of our solutions experts to talk through where you may be missing opportunities to drive mobile growth for your brand. Contact us anytime.