Independent Report Includes Push Notifications as Part of Its "New Messaging Mandate"

PORTLAND, Ore. and SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 10, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Urban Airship, the leading platform provider for messaging to mobile devices, was included in a report by Forrester Research, Inc. today titled "The New Messaging Mandate." The report recommends best practices for mobile marketers seeking to do a better job at integrated messaging and communications to their customers via mobile. For the first time, an independent analyst firm recognizes push notifications in their report and notes that "technology (such as push notifications} can now realistically deliver on the promise of integrated messaging… with improved efficiency, scale, and reliability."

Coincidentally, the report is coming out just as Urban Airship is seeing its 10 billionth push notification since the company launched two years ago. The velocity of growth in the push notifications space will continue as more companies adopt this emerging marketing channel.

According to the Forrester report, released on January 9, 2012, "The increased complexity of managing messaging across channels will demand automation. But automating every part of the process at once isn't realistic." Forrester recommends "…companies start by automating campaign flows based on business rules," noting that "…it's impossible to manually manage sequenced, multichannel messages for millions of customers. Instead, implement systems that trigger messages through specific channels when particular conditions are met. For instance, several teams in the National Hockey League work with Urban Airship to automate push notifications through mobile apps. The timely messages are pushed to fans based on business rules that factor in geolocation, season ticket holder status, favorite team and players, and live game action."

"Forrester has a great history in anointing significant technologies at the right time, and having them include push notifications in this report is very telling," said Brent Hieggelke, CMO of Urban Airship.  "Mobile messaging is becoming the most real-time, customer focused channel, but it is just really getting started, and push notifications are playing a very significant role."

Last week Urban Airship hit a new milestone, having now served over 10 billion-push notifications on behalf of the thousands of customers using its high performance push services platform. Just last August, Urban announced its 5 billionth push, which indicates how quickly push has become a vital part of the marketing mix for thousands of app developers.

"As mobile marketers become more sophisticated about the ways to reach consumers, we are increasingly seeing innovative companies adopting push messaging as a key customer engagement strategy", said Scott Kveton, CEO, Urban Airship. "10 billion push notifications brings us into a messaging league few others have reached, and we are really excited to join the ranks of the other companies in a report like this."

About Urban Airship
Urban Airship powers the world's most successful mobile apps. Providing breakthrough technology, Urban Airship makes mobile marketing far more engaging, effective, and efficient. Top brands depend on Urban Airship to ensure their mobile app initiatives are scalable and profitable. Dictionary.com, Groupon, Warner Bros., Weather Channel and Yahoo! are just a few of the thousands of companies that utilize Urban Airship's innovative platform to reach and engage target audiences and increase app revenue streams through push notification, rich messaging, in-app purchase, subscriptions and data tracking. The company's investors include Founder's Co-op, Foundry Group, Intel Capital, salesforce.com, True Ventures and Verizon. Urban Airship is headquartered in Portland, Oregon with offices in San Francisco. For more information, visit www.urbanairship.com and follow us on Twitter @urbanairship.

SOURCE Urban Airship