How Adobe Analytics Now Works With WeChat
If your brand has anything to do with China, perhaps you’ve used WeChat – or at least heard of it. WeChat is one of the world’s largest standalone mobile apps: a messaging, social media and mobile payment app, it has been described as China’s “super app” due to its enclosed, all-in-one ecosystem.
It is the de facto social app in China with more than 1 billion monthly active users. To put that into perspective, WeChat accounts for 34% of total mobile traffic in China, while Facebook accounts for 14% of mobile traffic in North America. An average user spends 30% of their daily online time in WeChat using a variety of services including messaging, voice and video calls, social posts, news, games, payments and commerce.
Source: CAICT WeChat Economic and Social Impact Report 2017.
WeChat mini programs
In 2017 WeChat added a ground-breaking feature called ‘Mini Programs’ (_小程序 o_r ‘xiaochengxu’ in Chinese), which are small applications that function like a native mobile app but are launched within the WeChat app. This has enabled brands to provide content and services with a fully branded user experience to WeChat’s billion-plus users through rich WeChat services.
With WeChat Mini Programs, brands can create services and shopping apps so users can share a favourite product to friends in social posts, order food with a scan of a QR code through a restaurant’s “table and pay”, and even split bills with friends with WeChat Pay. Mini Programs also allow customers to play social games and interact with friends.
There are already over 2.3 million Mini Programs in more than 230 categories. Brands with Mini Programs include sporting goods retailer Nike, fast-food chain McDonalds, and cosmetics retailer Estee Lauder, among others.
WeChat is arguably the most important digital touchpoint in China. As such, it has become paramount for brands to understand and optimise their customer experience and engagement, as well as other touchpoints throughout the customer journey.
Fig 1. Brands that have launched Mini Program apps include Uniqlo, Estee Lauder and BMW.
Adobe Experience Platform Mobile SDK Enhancements for WeChat
Recently, Adobe launched the latest version of the Adobe Experience Platform Mobile SDK. This release includes functionality that enables the use of Adobe Analytics to measure and analyse behaviour within WeChat Mini Program apps.
Deploying the Adobe Experience Cloud Platform Mobile SDK will allow clients to capture a full range of behavioural and lifecycle metrics from WeChat Mini Programs apps. Capabilities such as Workspace can help clients develop meaningful and actionable insights.
Adobe Analytics can help provide insights from WeChat for issues such as:
- Which customer sets are engaged in WeChat Mini Programs compared with other channels such as the company’s website?
- Which functions are used most often in Mini Programs? Which are less popular? What makes some features more popular and among which user segments?
- What other touchpoints do customers use in conjunction with WeChat Mini Programs to complete the customer journey? What part of the journey does the Mini Program help most?
- What are the segment relationships among the customers who use the Mini Programs? How can we provide experience to different segments to increase engagement?
- What is the fallout and cohort pattern for the Mini Program, and how can we improve the customer experience to reduce fallout and increase return visits?
Fig. 2 Adobe Analytics collects WeChat Mini Program actions in real-time.
Adobe Analytics is the first global analytics platform to enable native support of WeChat and WeChat Mini Programs. Together with the China Performance Optimisation for Adobe Analytics which was launched earlier this year and other specific localised offerings and integrations, Adobe is leading the way in providing the best digital experience solutions in China.
Expanding into China? See how Adobe can help your business deliver personalised experiences.