Using Precomputed Segments to Engage Users with Real-time Content

Something happens when the World Cup or the Olympics roll in every four years. Or when the Superbowl or some other championship game is on. Viewers flock to their TV sets and of course, their apps! The excitement of a live event and the anticipation of the outcome are contagious – making viewers come back for more.
Watching shows such as live sporting events, breaking news, or the Emmys is all about experiencing time-sensitive content in the moment – even if you aren’t physically there.
The global video streaming market is estimated to be a $70 billion industry by 2021¹. It is no wonder that the media industry leads the pack in competing for eyeballs. And live content gives them an opportunity to engage audiences and share key cultural moments that not all industries can offer.
Promoting content just as it happens is one of the most genuine ways to excite your audience and make them look forward to moments that they shouldn’t miss. Invariably, apps get a massive boost in engagement with live content as users turn to their apps more often even if they’ve been inactive.
Oftentimes the difference between a winning engagement strategy and the rest can be a matter of seconds. If a sports score update reaches users even a minute late, the enjoyment of the game suffers. Worse, a competing app may have beaten you to the punch and declared the winner while your notification is delayed.

Tools of the Trade

While most app publishers understand the importance of live user engagement, it’s challenging to get the right tools in place to effectively engage an audience watching live content.
Let’s say you want to reach your inactive users when their favorite team scores a goal so they can come back to your app and relive the glory of that moment. What are the things you need to be fully prepared to create immersive experiences in the moment?

1. Get the Right Data: You need to know who you want to reach since you don’t want to get in the way of users who are already active. You create segments of users who have not visited the app recently or those who are interested in the game based on their past behavior and who won’t view live score updates as interruptions.
2. Plan for the Expected and the Unexpected: While you can’t foresee every possible scenario, you can identify most likely scenarios in which you would like to send out a communication. You also need to have the creative, choice of channel, and other moving parts figured out from a brand and legal standpoint.
3. A Robust Engagement Tool: Next, you need an engagement platform that can scale effortlessly in real-time to help you put this communication together in a matter of seconds and ensure that it reaches the right audience segment based on their preferences in #1 above.
4. Don’t Be Too Little, Too Late: Finally, you need a tool that will help you accomplish all this at lightning speed and before any other app gets there.

Use Precomputed Segments for Effective Delivery of Live Content

When you send a campaign based on past behavior or other attributes such as demographics and geographics, CleverTap computes the segment each time to give you the freshest set of users qualifying for the segment. However, a past behavior computation might take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes depending on the size and complexity of the segment. And in a scenario with live content, those few moments could change everything.
That’s where precomputed segments comes in handy. You can identify key audience segments that you would like to engage during a live event and CleverTap will have these computed at periodic intervals throughout the day so that when it’s time for you to send breaking news, live game updates, or announce who won the Emmys, you can reach your target audience at just the right moment – without any lag.

Here are some campaign strategies that are working:

1. Engage inactive users: Using CleverTap’s automated segmentation, you can easily identify users that have been inactive and are at the risk of churn based on past behavior, browsing history, and time of consumption. When you mark these for precomputing, you can craft personalized engagement campaigns to deliver time-sensitive content which can be a great way to get these users to revisit your app and start seeing value in your offering again.
2. Get new users to opt in:Live content is also a great opportunity to identify the type of content that gets new users most excited and have them opt-in to alerts or announcements to keep them engaged. This is especially effective in case of competing apps on the same device where the propensity to opt-in to alerts is higher for messages that are delivered first. For example, when you identify the genre, type of content (short form/long form), and time of the day that new users are most interested in, you can use precomputed segments to share the highlights of an ongoing soccer match or announce the launch of a much-awaited show.
3. Encourage champion users to share content: What better way to grow your viewer base than to have existing users advocate content on your app? Using precomputed segments, you can motivate your most active users to share live events with their friends and family so they can share the excitement as it happens. This also helps more people get involved in real time and keeps your champion users armed with fresh content.

Conclusion

Time-sensitive content offers a huge opportunity for brands to stay relevant while using marketing strategies that build long-term brand value. Check out our user docs to learn more about precomputed segments and identify ways in which you can continue to grow your audience in 2019.