Twilio and Urban Airship Collaborate to Expand Mobile Delivery Options for Digital Wallet Marketing
New solution enables marketers to send Apple Passbook and Google Wallet passes through market-leading services for push notifications, in-app messaging, SMS and MMS
SAN FRANCISCO — May 19, 2015 — Urban Airship, the leading mobile engagement platform, today at Twilio’s SIGNAL conference announced a collaboration with Twilio to enable businesses to leverage Twilio’s SMS and MMS messaging capabilities to distribute mobile wallet campaigns created and managed by Urban Airship Wallet Studio. The addition of these mobile marketing channels allow marketers to reach all of their mobile customers with coupons, loyalty cards, gift cards, and more—going beyond a brand’s app to establish a persistent presence that engages consumers over time to grow loyalty and sales.
According to industry estimates, the number of mobile coupon users will nearly double to more than one billion by 2019. “In the next couple of years, Forrester expects mobile wallets to take off significantly, becoming a new marketing channel where marketers will mix their offline and online marketing efforts… marketing leaders will benefit from mobile wallets if they tie together loyalty programs, coupons, product discovery, gift cards, and promotions to create powerful and new brand experiences in the mobile moments of their customers.” (The Future Of Mobile Wallets Lies Beyond Payments, Forrester Research, Inc., 2/9/2015).
Twilio MMS and SMS enable businesses to use standard and toll-free phone numbers, and short codes, to easily and inexpensively communicate with all mobile customers. These messages can contain links and images to Urban Airship digital wallet campaigns that can be saved to Apple Passbook and Google Wallet. Urban Airship’s Wallet Studio makes the entire process of launching large-scale digital wallet programs easy, including a simple drag-and-drop interface to design and preview passes, automatic porting of Apple Passbook campaigns to Google Wallet cards or vice versa, and real-time pass updates featuring new offers, loyalty points earned, gift card balances, or other customer information.
Wallet Studio offers out-of-the-box design templates for coupons, loyalty cards, gift cards, event tickets, boarding passes, and membership cards. Passes and cards are also time- and location-aware, complete with expiration alerts, to appear onscreen at the most appropriate moment to capture consumers’ attention. In addition, a brand’s digital wallet campaigns can be delivered through Urban Airship’s push notifications and in-app messaging services to its app users. Wallet Studio provides detailed analytics leading services for push notifications, in-app messaging, SMS and MMS reports to allow businesses to measure program performance and optimize the results of their digital wallet initiatives.
“Urban Airship and Twilio are two companies powering some of the world’s most successful communications experiences and mobile apps,” said Mike Musson, senior vice president, strategy & business development, Urban Airship. “With the rapidly accelerating momentum around mobile payments largely driven by consumers’ desire for value-added services like coupons and loyalty rewards, our work with Twilio makes it easier than ever for businesses to go beyond apps and launch effective digital wallet campaigns.”
“We’re excited to collaborate with Urban Airship for its enterprise-scale digital wallet capabilities which will enable our joint customers to easily and inexpensively extend their customer engagement efforts and leverage sophisticated capabilities offered by Apple Passbook and Google Wallet,” said Arthur Johnson, vice president of corporate and businesses development, Twilio.
About Urban Airship
Urban Airship is leading the movement of mobile innovators. Mobile strategies must extend beyond app acquisition or risk leaving 70 percent of users behind within 30 days after the download. Urban Airship helps brands build high-value relationships from the moment of download, increasing engagement 4X and retention 2X to turn users into loyal brand advocates. The Urban Airship Mobile Engagement Platform arms companies with the broadest set of possibilities for creating rich, interactive experiences that drive new levels of reach, relevance and immediacy with all mobile audiences. Thousands of companies and some of the most demanding brands in retail, media & entertainment, sports and travel & hospitality, trust Urban Airship to deliver the mobile moments that matter to their customers and their business. For more information, visit www.urbanairship.com and follow us on Twitter @urbanairship.
About Twilio
Twilio makes communications easy and powerful. With Twilio’s platform, businesses can make communications more relevant and contextual by integrating real-time communication capabilities directly into their software applications. We are re-inventing the $1.6 trillion communications market, taking it from its 140 year legacy in hardware to its future in software. Our platform has nearly 700,000 registered developers and is used in more than one million unique software applications. Industry disruptors like Uber, Trulia, Box and Zendesk and enterprises like Coca-Cola Enterprises, Walmart, Home Depot, Intuit and Alaska Airlines trust Twilio to power and innovate their communications at global scale. Founded in 2008, Twilio is privately-held and has over 400 employees with offices in San Francisco, Mountain View, New York City, London, Munich, Dublin, Tallinn Estonia and Bogota Colombia. The company has raised over $110M from leading investors such as Bessemer, Redpoint and Union Square.