Urban Airship and Gimbal Form Strategic Partnership to Accelerate “In the Moment” Mobile Engagement
Combination of global market leaders gives brands the confidence and precision to deploy beacon and geofenced mobile experiences at scale
SAN DIEGO and PORTLAND, Ore., – October 1, 2014 – Urban Airship, the leader in Mobile Relationship Management, and Gimbal, the leader in location and proximity mobile engagement, today announced a preferred partnership designed to accelerate “in the moment” mobile engagement, where physical environments and digital experiences come together with rich user context. Combining the companies’ expertise and market-leading solutions for mobile engagement and location-targeting allows marketers to send highly relevant mobile messages based on users’ specific context such as where they are, where they’ve been, what they like and how they want to engage with their surroundings.
Together, the companies offer the only solution that provides both real-time and historical location data to spark rich mobile messaging experiences for spaces as big as continents to geofenced stores down to aisle end-caps with a proximity beacon. Gimbal will bring even more precise, real-time location data to trigger message campaigns based on arrival, departure and dwell times from custom geofenced areas and Gimbal proximity beacons with Apple’s iBeacon technology. Marketers will also have access to location history targeting for insight into where consumers have been, offering more opportunities to leverage location data in mobile engagement efforts and fast-tracking marketers’ efforts.
Marketers can leverage the valuable location profile data provided by Gimbal in the Urban Airship targeting engine to automate personalized messaging experiences based on where the customer is in their shopper journey, using conditional automation rules and any combination of segmentation attributes such as user preferences, in-app behaviors, and clicks to push action buttons and deep-linked landing pages. This added contextual insight for highly targeted messaging boosts response rates four to seven times greater than non-targeted messages.
Marketers will be able to build messaging campaigns that take advantage of the latest mobile OS enhancements including interactive notifications, message center widgets and digital wallets, as well as A/B testing and conversion tracking to measure performance and iteratively improve results with every user click.
Gimbal’s enterprise-level security and network management capabilities for beacon and geofence deployments join Urban Airship’s highly scalable messaging architecture—capable of sending 100,000 messages per second to locations across an enterprise-wide chain—to offer a complete enterprise-class solution that is battle-tested by the world’s largest brands. In addition, brands with physical locations can better understand indoor traffic patterns using Gimbal proximity beacons and new data points and tools for analytics.
“People have their devices on them and in-hand wherever they go, which makes bringing the physical and digital worlds together a new and exciting frontier,” said Brent Hieggelke, CMO, Urban Airship. “With several joint large-scale engagements already under our belt, we’re excited to formalize our relationship and bring together the two companies that dominate the core technologies necessary to streamline ‘in the moment’ mobile engagement and maximize its opportunity.”
“Gimbal’s expertise in macro and micro location combined with Urban Airship’s powerful and flexible mobile engagement platform will support virtually any type of organization’s location-based mobile marketing initiatives,” said Rocco Fabiano, CEO of Gimbal, Inc. “Together, we’ll raise the bar in terms of the ease and effectiveness with which brands can pursue location-based mobile engagement initiatives.”
To learn more about Gimbal and Urban Airship’s joint solution register for an upcoming webinar.
“Using Urban Airship and Gimbal together for the 2014 US Open not only worked seamlessly, but offered us sophistication to provide the ideal mobile experience for tennis fans and learn more about foot traffic at Flushing Meadows,” said Brian Ryerson, Manager Digital Strategy, USTA. “As one example, rich messages sent via beacon-triggered push alerts and inbox feature allowed us to position part of our global mobile app specifically to the on-site fan while not interrupting the experience for those not on-site. The messages allowed our mobile app to become a true ‘day guide’ for everything happening around the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Another example, using geo-location and rich media we were able to monetize push and the in-app messaging to drive sponsor goals and promote great on-site user experience.”
About Gimbal, Inc.
Gimbal, Inc. is connecting brands, venues, events and retailers with their customers in exciting new ways by providing leading-edge mobile technologies and solutions. With advanced geofencing, the world's largest deployment of industry-leading Bluetooth Smart beacons, location-based engagement, analytics, unmatched security features and privacy controls, the Gimbal platform helps drive mobile app engagement and loyalty. Visit www.gimbal.com for more information.
About Urban Airship
Urban Airship enables brands to build relationships with their constantly connected customers through Mobile Relationship Management. Its solutions streamline the creation, delivery and management of highly targeted cross-platform mobile push messages, in-app messages, landing pages, Apple Passbook passes and Google Wallet cards. With billions of messages and tens of thousands of passes delivered each month, Urban Airship’s technology sparks exceptional consumer experiences, drives app engagement and increases customer loyalty and lifetime value for the world’s largest retail, media & entertainment, sports and travel & hospitality brands. For more information, visit www.urbanairship.com and follow us on Twitter @urbanairship.