By Zoha Peerbhoy | June 2025
It’s 2025, and everywhere you look, people are hunched over their phones. Every time there’s a notification, people reach out (or, in most cases, swipe down) to check it almost as a reflex. It’s no wonder that businesses are focusing on mobile engagement now more than ever.
App notifications keep us posted about offers and updates and everything in between. But we now have so many apps, and constantly receive so many notifications, that the minute we receive generic notifications like “We miss you!” our eyes glaze over.
Businesses may send frequent app notifications to drive engagement, but it’s important to know how consumers perceive them and how they respond. Especially if they receive a deluge of notifications from multiple apps that aren’t even relevant to them.
This is why personalization is now so important. Mobile users expect more than convenience; they want experiences that feel tailored for them. Effective mobile engagement can play a crucial role in driving engagement and retaining customers.
Why Mass Marketing Doesn’t Work Anymore
There used to be a time when receiving notifications where we were addressed by name and receiving a birthday coupon was enough to make us feel like valued customers. But we’ve now come a long way from this approach. Today’s mobile-first consumers, especially Gen Z and Gen Alpha, are not only tech-savvy, but they’re also experience-savvy. When people can easily tell that a message is mass-produced, they tune out.
According to Richa Choubey, Analyst at QKS Group, “As customer attention fragments and digital expectations rise, personalization becomes not just a functional add-on but a core enabler of sustained engagement and competitive differentiation.”
A 2025 study published in the Journal of Participatory Medicine (Jiang et al.) found that using a personalized mobile design can significantly boost user retention and perceived app usefulness.
For instance, Netflix doesn’t send the same email to everyone, just like how Spotify doesn’t offer one playlist for all. These apps listen to our behaviors before speaking.
What Personalization Looks Like
At one point, personalization looked like an email/message starting with “Hi, First name.” Today, effective mobile personalization constitutes a combination of behavioral data, real-time triggers, and contextual awareness to determine what the user sees and when.
Here’s what’s happening beneath the surface:
- Behavior tracking: Observing what users click, skip, and revisit.
- Dynamic content: The app home screen display can shift based on time, preferences, or location.
- Trigger-based messaging: Push notifications and in-app prompts that respond to real user milestones or stumbles.
Real Brands, Real Wins
Personalization isn’t a theory. It’s why some apps feel like a concierge while others feel like spam. Like Richa says, “Platforms that operationalize personalization as a continuous, intelligence-led engagement strategy rather than limiting it to campaign-based triggers, are redefining what loyalty means in a mobile-first world.”
Here are some brands that show how effective mobile engagement can be:
Nike Run Club
The Nike Run Club app recommends workouts based on past activity, weather, and even your energy level, which is measured through wearables.
Starbucks
The Starbucks app sends personalized rewards based on location, time of day, and seasonal cravings, like a pumpkin spice latte in autumn or peppermint mocha during the winter.
Duolingo
Duolingo, popular among children and adults alike, knows when to guilt you, tease you, or cheer you on because it uses emotional intelligence in its daily nudges.
The effect speaks for itself. Sky-high engagement, better retention, and users that actually look forward to app notifications.
The Role of Automation and the Need for Human Involvement
It’s a no-brainer that to achieve mobile engagement for all kinds of users with different preferences, behaviors, and interests, automation and AI would be required.
Richa from QKS Group states “Personalization in mobile engagement automation platforms has matured from static, rule-based segmentation to a dynamic, AI-driven capability that enables real-time micro-targeting across the customer journey.
Modern platforms no longer rely solely on predefined cohorts; instead, they continuously learn from behavioral signals, contextual inputs, and predictive analytics to create hyper-relevant, individualized experiences across channels.”
Since businesses can’t manually personalize for millions of users, they need tools like Customer Data Platforms (CDPs), push orchestration engines, and generative AI to design intelligent engagement flows that adapt in real-time, sending the right message, at the right time, in the right tone, with minimal effort.
Automation can make mobile engagement a breeze, like sending a push notification to check out a flash sale, or exit-intent popups that offer discounts or free shipping as incentives to prevent cart abandonment.
However, it is possible to go overboard. Data collection is one thing, but how it is used is another matter. Personalization should bring some value and be relevant. Customers who receive too many notifications may find it annoying or even invasive. They should be able to easily opt out if they no longer wish to receive marketing messages, just like they should know how their data is being used. Transparency and privacy are important to prevent trust erosion.
Human involvement is also important. Human judgment is crucial while designing customer journeys, particularly for considering ethics, psychology, and brand tone. They also understand what works, what would fail, and why, especially because they’re customers too. So they know how they respond when they receive personalized recommendations.
AI Agents and Emotional Fluency
As personalization evolves, the next wave is adaptive intelligence. The focus will be on providing empathetic personalization at every touchpoint. Apps will soon be capable of:
- Learning your preferences, mood, and friction points
- Adjusting tone and visuals based on emotional state
- Guiding you across channels, not just within the app
Traditional Vs. Personalized Approach
| Traditional | Personalization |
| “Here’s 20% off!” | “You left these in your cart. Here’s 20%.” |
| Same push notifications for all | Timed push notifications based on app use |
| Weekly email blast | Weekly summary based on your actual behavior |
| One-size app UX | Dynamic home screen experience |
To Sum Up
It is important that businesses move away from treating users like a crowd.
Treating customers like individuals and listening, responding, and adapting to their behaviors and preferences will help drive customer loyalty.
Particularly because when mobile experiences feel personal, users stop swiping past and start leaning in.
To learn more about mobile engagement automation, click here.