Leanplum confirms that the use of emojis in marketing messages boosts engagement.
If you were wondering if emoji usage in mobile marketing messages works, according to a new report called “Unlocking Engagement & Growth with Emojis”, from mobile engagement platform Leanplum, there’s a good chance that it might. The company’s data from their study reveals that emojis significantly impact mobile usage and engagement as well as aid in retention when used in push notifications and emails.
Leanplum analyzed 300 million emails and push notifications worldwide.
In their study, which is a sequel to their 2017 emoji trends report, Leanplum analyzed 300 million emails and push notifications from worldwide data over the course of a full year, from June 1, 2017 – June 1, 2018.
The report discovered that emoji usage in mobile marketing continues to increase and also further confirms beyond its report last year, that emoji engagement and popularity is ever on the rise.
Consumers like emoji usage in mobile marketing.
Yesterday (July 17) was World Emoji Day, which is the unofficial holiday for the global celebration of emojis. Considering there’s a day designated to celebrate emojis, new emojis are released all the time for mobile, and there’s even a movie based on these small digital expressive icons, it’s not hard to believe that mobile marketers could successfully use them to appeal to consumers.
In fact, key findings from Leanplum’s latest mobile marketing trends report showed that both the average number of emojis that were used per message and the percentage of messages that included a minimum of one emoji, doubled in the past year.
What’s more, emails that contained emojis are opened 66% more by recipients compared to emails that do not have emojis.
As for push notification, those that contained emojis are opened a whopping 254% more compared to push notifications that don’t have them. This is three times higher than what Leanplum discovered in their 2017 emoji trends report.
The mobile engagement platform also noted in its report that apps that use emojis have 26% fewer uninstalls. In other words, beyond boosting in-the-moment engagement, emojis also help contribute to long-term user retention.
“As Leanplum’s latest study reveals, emojis continue to be an impactful marketing tool for driving mobile growth — emoji usage in mobile messages doubled this year, and user engagement tripled as a response to these delightful 
campaigns,” said SVP of Global Marketing at Leanplum, Joyce Solano, as reported by MarTech Series.
Moreover, accordinig to Solano, emoji usage in mobile marketing “Convey emotion and personality from brands, which help marketers deliver in-the-moment engagement and build long-lasting user retention,” Solano added.