Get started with In-app channel gs-in-app

On this page: Get started with the In-app messaging channel in Adobe Journey Optimizer to engage app users with notifications that promote features, offers, and onboarding.

In-app messages are notifications that can be sent to users within your app, guiding them to specific points of interest. These notifications can be used for different purposes, such as promoting new features, presenting special offers, or facilitating user onboarding. By leveraging In-app messages, you can effectively engage with your audience and steer them towards important aspects of your application.

Use Journey Optimizer to create In-app notifications, and configure experience options, including the message layout and display, text, and button options.

Use cases

In-app messages work best when you want to guide or influence users while they are already engaged with your app, taking advantage of that moment of active attention.

Benefit
Why
Example use cases
High user engagement
Reaches users while they are actively in an app session
Feature announcements, onboarding tips
Contextually relevant triggers
Can be triggered based on in-app behavior or location
Highlighting a feature right after a user visits a related screen
Real-time delivery
No dependency on push tokens or external delivery services
Time-sensitive prompts shown during the current session
No dependency on external channels
Works entirely within the app, independent of opt-in status for other channels
Reaching users who have opted out of push notifications
Better conversion potential
Delivered at a moment of active attention, increasing response rates
Upsell or cross-sell offers, survey prompts
Customization & segmentation
Layout, text, and buttons can be tailored to specific audiences
Personalized onboarding flows for different user segments
Non-intrusive design
Can be designed to complement rather than interrupt the user experience
Banners or modals that align with the app’s UI

When not to use

In-app messages depend on an active session, so they are not suited to every scenario. Consider another channel in the following situations:

  • The user is not actively using the app, since the message will never be displayed
  • The message is a critical or time-sensitive issue that requires reaching users outside the app, such as an outage or security alert
  • The communication is regulatory or legal and requires a read confirmation that in-app messages cannot provide
  • The goal is account reactivation or a win-back campaign for inactive users who are unlikely to open the app
  • The message is a high-volume transactional update, such as an order confirmation, that is better suited to email or SMS
  • Overuse could lead to banner blindness, where users start ignoring messages that appear too often
  • Users may be offline or without app connectivity when the message is meant to be delivered

Additional resources

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