Ask any British shopper where to find the coolest personalized greeting cards online, and the answer will likely be Funky Pigeon. Since its start in 2008, the brand has experienced remarkable growth, with tens of thousands of personalized cards and gifts available via its website and app. And when we say personalized, we mean it. You can add your own photos, write heartfelt messages, and even include inside jokes to create a truly unique gift.
As an innovative brand, Funky Pigeon knows it needs to continue investing in customer experience and is always exploring new ways to engage its mobile audience. That’s why, during the pandemic, when competition was particularly fierce, Funky Pigeon rolled up its sleeves and got creative. During this challenging time, they harnessed the power of MessageGears and in-app messaging to achieve an impressive 15% engagement rate.
Read on to learn how they did it.
A remarkable 15% engagement rate
Knocking the industry average of 7.4% out of the park.
Less reliance on developer resources
Marketing autonomy and far less reliance on the tech team.
Contextually relevant content
Delivering real-time relevant messaging to the right people at precisely the right moments.
Campaign scalability
A sophisticated system that could easily scale to meet the demands of their diverse audience segments.
The Problem
Funky Pigeon is one of the UK’s most recognized brands. But, they faced a challenging situation during the pandemic when competition reached a whole new level. They needed a smart and time-sensitive solution to keep their innovation engine running and support their growth.
The brand holds personalization close to its heart—it’s the very essence of who they are. Recognizing this, they knew they needed to continue optimizing the digital experience for its users if they were to stay ahead of the curve. The problem is they needed a solution that didn’t over-rely on their development team.
Campaign Scalability
In the fast-paced world of e-commerce, things change at lightning speed. Funky Pigeon couldn’t afford to be stuck in the slow lane, crafting and launching campaigns that took days or even weeks to launch.
“We needed an agile mobile marketing solution that could meet our ever-shifting requirements. In e-commerce, changes happen rapidly, so we couldn’t afford to spend time building and executing campaigns the way we did with our previous supplier.” – Luke Axcell, CRM Lifecycle Manager at Funky Pigeon
What they needed was a smart solution that could pull off real-time campaigns based on user behavior. And given their diverse audience segments, scalability was crucial.
Relevant Recommendations
Within Funky Pigeon’s extensive array of product categories lies a unique challenge. Instead of being driven by individual items, customer purchases are typically tied to specific occasions. This behavior makes it difficult to predict when users will develop an affinity for particular product categories. 
Funky Pigeon needed greater insights into the effectiveness of product recommendations so they could serve up tailored experiences tied to the special occasions that are most important to their customers.
Automating Personalization
To drive revenue and increase customer lifetime value (CLV), Funky Pigeon needed to deliver messaging that was perfectly timed and contextually relevant to each user.
For instance, if a user had recently explored a particular category on the mobile app but didn’t complete a purchase within the following 24 hours, Funky Pigeon wanted to re-engage the user with a tailored in-app message during their next session in the app.
The goal was simple: to send messages that created genuine connections, turning one-time shoppers into devoted fans and occasional browsers into lifelong customers.
The Solution
Funky Pigeon found its solution in thoughtful and strategic in-app messaging. They harnessed the power of MessageGears’ advanced retargeting techniques to deliver content to users that seamlessly aligned with their recent browsing behavior. Taking user experience to the next level, they used deep linking to take users directly to the relevant section of the app based on their specific product or category interests.
For example, a user browses 90th birthday cards on Funky Pigeon’s website, but life gets in the way, and they leave without making a purchase. Two days later, they open the mobile app and begin browsing cards, likely trying to locate the same product category they were previously eyeing. They receive an in-app notification reminding them about their recent interest in 90th birthday cards. When the user taps on the message, they land on the specific section of the app where those birthday cards live, making their journey smooth, personalized, and convenient.
That’s the power of data-driven deep linking—understanding precisely what the user wants in any moment of their journey and making their path to it effortless and memorable.
The marketing team didn’t want to overdo it and understood the fine line between engagement and inundation. So, they created a rule to avoid the risk of spamming users with other similar active campaigns. If a user made a purchase within the previous week or received an abandoned cart notification in the last 24 hours, the rule would eliminate those users from receiving simultaneous campaigns.
“MessageGears transforms how we personalize in real-time. We automate sending in-app messages to users after they view a specific product or category, instantly deep linking them to the relevant section of the app.” – Luke Axcell, CRM Lifecycle Manager at Funky Pigeon
Using MessageGears, Funky Pigeon moved beyond generic segmentation by capturing individual user actions to deliver 1:1 personalized content in (actual) real time. And the process was automated, meaning the marketing and development teams had more time to focus their energy on crafting even better customer experiences.
The Results
Engagement
Funky Pigeon achieved a remarkable engagement rate of 15%, which demonstrated the effectiveness of their personalized in-app messaging strategy. They didn’t just send messages to all their users; they sent relevant messages to an engaged audience segment at opportune moments in their buyer journey.
This approach meant users received content that resonated with their interests and behavior. This relevance was key in achieving such positive engagement. Whether it was those enticing birthday cards or the perfect anniversary gift, Funky Pigeon knew what each user wanted, and they delivered it flawlessly.
Scalability
Scalability was another win. With the combination of advanced triggering, data-driven personalization, and automation, Funky Pigeon had a sophisticated system that could easily scale to meet the demands of their diverse audience segments. No matter how unpredictable consumer trends were, they were ready to respond with precision.
Funky Pigeon’s results spoke volumes. They achieved an outstanding engagement rate, delivered spot-on messaging, reduced development workload, and established a scalable solution that kept them at the forefront of their industry. It wasn’t just a campaign but a triumph of strategy, technology, and customer-centricity.
“We wanted a solution that was flexible, sophisticated, and scalable in a way that was simple to use and understand. We found all of that and more in MessageGears.”
MessageGears is delighted to partner with Funky Pigeon to help them scale their operations and achieve their engagement goals. Read more of our client success stories.
