What 124 marketing leaders from $10M+ ARR companies are doing to win customers on mobile — and why mobile-first is becoming the new default.
Today, only 30.6% of marketers still run email as their primary channel — meaning nearly 7 in 10 teams have already elevated mobile to primary or co-primary status. 22.6% say mobile is primary and email supplements, 38.7% say mobile and email are roughly equal, and another 7.3% are actively shifting. For the email-first holdouts, the direction of travel is unmistakable: 89.5% say they're either actively planning or exploring a shift to mobile-first in the next 12 months.
We ran a re-engagement flow using WhatsApp as the primary channel. It feels more personal than email or SMS, so people actually read it. Open rate: ~85–90%, conversion lift: ~8–10%.
We ran an SMS + push re-engagement campaign with personalized offers and timed reminders. ~35% open rate, 12% conversion lift, and improved 30-day retention by ~8%.
The teams that have shifted are reporting real, measurable lift — and the teams that haven't shifted yet are the exception, not the rule. The question for 2026 isn't whether mobile deserves a larger role in the lifecycle — it's how quickly teams can shift investment, tooling, and strategy to match where their customers already are.
Enter your email to unlock the rest of the report — including the channel-by-channel performance data, real campaign breakdowns, and the orchestration gap holding teams back.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. By submitting, you agree to receive occasional research from Customer.io.
SMS still anchors mobile messaging for most teams — 86.3% actively use it — but it's no longer the only game in town. WhatsApp is now in active use at 72.6% of teams, second only to SMS. In-app messaging sits at 70.2%, push notifications at 55.6%, and emerging channels like RCS (16.9%) and LINE (12.9%) are quickly moving from "what's that?" to "we're piloting it." The pilot pipeline confirms the expansion: 91.9% of marketers say they're likely to pilot WhatsApp, RCS, or LINE in the next 12 months, including 50.8% who say they're very likely.
But the more important shift is what these channels are being used for. When teams using WhatsApp, RCS, and LINE were asked about use cases, the #1 answer was customer support and two-way conversations (64.2%) — ahead of promotional campaigns (53.2%) and transactional notifications (46.8%). These newer channels are being used as something fundamentally different: a two-way, relationship-based surface.
Five campaigns respondents called their most effective
Individual data points — one per respondent, spanning SaaS, Fintech, and Construction.
Transactional WhatsApp automation for real-time status and delivery updates — moved order comms off email entirely.
Onboarding flow with triggered tips and reminders over the first week. Better early retention — iterated on since.
Behavior-triggered in-app messages timed around user actions like drop-offs or inactivity.
Re-engagement campaign with personalized offers and timed reminders. ~35% open rate, ~8% lift in 30-day retention.
"Feels more personal than email or SMS, so people actually read it." ~8–10% conversion lift on re-engagement flow.
What marketers told us is coming next
Top five themes among 124 open-ended responses to: "What's the biggest change you expect to make to your mobile messaging strategy in the next 12 months?"
The mobile stack is broadening, not consolidating — and the new channels are changing what mobile is for. WhatsApp is in active use at 72.6% of teams, and for teams live with WhatsApp, RCS, or LINE, 91.8% say performance has met or exceeded expectations — including 54.2% who say it exceeded them. In 2026, the question isn't "should we add another mobile channel?" — it's "which ones, and how do we orchestrate them together?"
More channels, more data, and more customer expectations — but most teams are still stitching it together by hand. Only 1 in 3 marketers (35.5%) have a documented playbook or decision framework for deciding which message goes on which channel. Nearly half (46.8%) operate on general guidelines and gut feel. The personalization story looks similar: only 17.8% of teams have reached individualized, 1:1 personalization.
My biggest frustration is how fragmented everything feels — conversations split across multiple apps. I end up missing messages or replying late because I forget to check one.
Over the next 12 months, we're deepening personalization in in-app messaging with real-time behavioral data and predictive triggers — moving from one-off campaigns to automated, journey-based messaging.
Channel sprawl is outrunning orchestration maturity. 64.5% of marketers lack a documented cross-channel playbook. 82.2% haven't reached 1:1 personalization. And the #1 blocker isn't ambition or budget — it's data quality. The teams winning on mobile aren't the ones running the most channels. They're the ones with unified customer data, real-time behavioral triggers, and a single orchestration layer that can decide the right channel in the moment. That's the gap this report's data keeps pointing to — and it's the gap Customer.io is built to close.
Original survey of marketing leaders actively managing mobile messaging programs at companies with $10M+ in annual revenue. Industries: SaaS, E-commerce, Fintech, Healthcare, Financial Services, Construction, Manufacturing, and Retail. Global: North America, EMEA, and APAC. All percentages are calculated from unique respondents per question. Multi-select questions (noted throughout) do not sum to 100%.
Customer.io unifies SMS, push, in-app, WhatsApp, and email in a single platform — with the real-time data, behavioral triggers, and cross-channel orchestration today's marketing teams need.
See Customer.io in Action →