Fishbrain Drives Win-Backs and Conversions With Expertly-Timed, Personalized Messaging

Back when we published our first Fishbrain case study, this leading fishing app lived on the screens of 11 million users—that number has since risen over 27% to a whopping 14 million. Founded in Stockholm in 2012, Fishbrain combines social networking and utility to create a mobile app experience unlike any other in the fishing niche.

Their splash page is home to an engaging social feed where anglers post photos paired with text and geotags to highlight their latest catches. Users can also browse fishing spots locally and around the world, privately log their catches, and utilize Fishbrain’s trademarked “BiteTime” feature, which anticipates fishing conditions based on an algorithm that takes weather, location, and user reports into consideration.

Aside from Fishbrain’s Pro subscription tier, which unlocks an array of features, the app drives revenue through their eCommerce section, enabling users to browse equipment not just by category, but also by species of fish.

Personalizing the Customer Journey

The social component is Fishbrain’s key differentiator—every time a user logs on, the first thing they encounter is content that others have uploaded, which includes fishing highlights locally, regionally, and beyond. It’s critical to the community-building aspect of the app that users interact with one another’s content, and, ideally, upload their own. Based on the user's previous exploration of fishing gear, Fishbrain sends out personalized product recommendations to each individual. The social and eCommerce elements of the user experience exist symbiotically for this reason.

Before switching to Braze, Fishbrain had no way of personalizing their communication with users or any way to gain insight into how they were interacting with the website. Now, Fishbrain uses Braze Canvas, our customer journey management tool, Content Cards, a persistent and flexible in-app messaging channel, and Connected Content, one of our dynamic content personalization tools, to create relevant, valuable messaging. These campaigns have improved subscription conversion rates among free users and increased retention from users who subscribe to their Pro tier. When a customer is on a subscription trial but cancels before becoming a paying customer, Fishbrain uses custom attributes to send valuable messages to win them back. They also strategically personalize messaging showcasing the Pro tier features a user hasn’t yet used in an attempt to persuade them to convert. Furthermore, they use Decision Splits within Braze Canvas to separate segments for each part of the customer flow and determine how many days a user has remaining in their trial to ensure they send the appropriate email or in-app messaging before the trial ends.

Prior to Braze, Fishbrain’s third-party email tool sent these emails automatically with no option to customize them whatsoever—they weren’t even able to incorporate their own HTML. Fast forward to now: Fishbrain has built segmented, personalized, visually-striking campaigns within Braze to make an impactful impression each time they reach out to users.

Fishbrain Results: Strategic Messaging, Increased Revenue

By segmenting users, personalizing messaging, and marketing eCommerce products based on user data, Fishbrain saw a 7.4% uptick in paid-feature adoption, a 3% increase in win-back subscriptions, and a time savings of 50% on campaigns, with no developer support needed. The company employed the Braze platforms daily to revitalize communication with their users, overhauling in-app messaging, in-browser messaging, push notifications, and emails throughout the customer journey.

Key Takeaways

• The more personalized, the better—data-driven messaging generates higher conversion and retention rates.
• eCommerce sales rise when we present users with products relevant to what we know about their interests and needs.
• Timing is everything. It’s critical not only to blast the right message, but also to do so at a strategically-timed stage in the customer flow.

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