Research Report · April 2026

The mobile-first messaging playbook

What 124 marketing leaders from $10M+ ARR companies are doing to win customers on mobile — and why mobile-first is becoming the new default.

Based on original research with marketing managers, directors, and VPs across SaaS, E-commerce, Fintech, and beyond.

Mobile-first is no longer a bet — it's the plan. Nearly 70% of marketers say mobile now matches or beats email as their primary channel, and 94.6% of teams that have already shifted to mobile-first say it outperforms email-first. The next 12 months aren't about whether to invest in mobile — they're about which channels to pilot, how to orchestrate them together, and how to move beyond transactional broadcasts into the two-way, relationship-based experiences customers now expect.

94.6%

of teams that shifted to mobile-first say it outperforms email-first approaches

91.9%

plan to pilot WhatsApp, RCS, or LINE within the next 12 months

91.8%

of teams live with WhatsApp, RCS, or LINE say performance has met or exceeded expectations

Mobile-first isn't a gamble. It's a performance story.

Mobile is now primary. Nearly 7 in 10 marketers (69.4%) say mobile matches or beats email as their primary channel — only 30.6% still run email-first. And for the teams that have already shifted to mobile-first, 94.6% say it's outperforming their old email-first approach. Zero say it's worse.

Where marketers stand today: mobile vs. email

Share of respondents by current team approach (n=124)

Survey question"Which statement best describes your team's approach?"

Mobile-first teams are seeing real lift

Performance vs. email-first, among teams that have shifted (n=37)

Survey question"For teams that have gone mobile-first or shifted toward it: how has performance compared to email-first?"

Email-first teams are getting off the fence

Likelihood of shifting to a mobile-first approach in the next 12 months, among teams currently running email-first (n=38)

Survey question"How likely is your team to shift to a mobile-first approach in the next 12 months?"

Where mobile-first is actually winning

Use cases where marketers report mobile-first outperforms email · multi-select (n=124)

Survey question (multi-select)"In which use cases does mobile-first outperform email-first? (Select all that apply)"

Key Insight

Mobile-first is now a performance story, not a trend piece.

Among teams that have already shifted, 35.1% report a 25%+ lift in engagement or conversion, and another 59.5% see a 10–25% lift. The lift isn't concentrated in one place — promotional, transactional, loyalty, support, and onboarding flows are all being won on mobile. Combined with 89.5% of email-first teams planning to move, 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.

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%.

— Senior Director, Growth Marketing · SaaS

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%.

— Manager, Lifecycle / CRM Marketing · SaaS

The mobile stack is broadening — and changing what mobile is for

SMS still anchors mobile messaging for most teams — but it's no longer the only game in town. WhatsApp is now the second most-used channel at 72.6%, in-app messaging is already live at 70.2% of teams, and 91.9% of marketers plan to pilot WhatsApp, RCS, or LINE in the next 12 months. More importantly: these newer channels aren't being used the way SMS has been. They're pulling mobile from one-way broadcast toward two-way, relationship-based conversations.

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Mobile channels in active use

% of marketers currently using each channel · multi-select (n=124)

Survey question (multi-select)"Which mobile messaging channels does your team currently use? (Select all that apply)"

Which channel drives the most impact?

Single channel selected as top performer (n=124)

Survey question"Which mobile channel drives the most impact for your business today?"

WhatsApp, RCS & LINE: the 12-month pilot pipeline

Likelihood of piloting one of these channels in the next 12 months (n=124)

Survey question"How likely are you to pilot one of these in the next 12 months?"

Early adopters are getting results

Performance vs. expectations, among marketers who've launched WhatsApp, RCS, or LINE (n=109)

Survey question"How has performance compared to your expectations?"

What teams are actually using WhatsApp, RCS & LINE for

Top use cases for these channels · multi-select (n=109 using or exploring these channels)

Survey question (multi-select)"What are you using WhatsApp, RCS, or LINE for? (Select all that apply)"

The Important Contrast

These newer channels are being used as something fundamentally different.

Look at what sits at the top of this list vs. how SMS has traditionally been used. For WhatsApp, RCS, and LINE, the #1 use case is customer support and two-way conversations (64.2%) — ahead of promotional campaigns (53.2%) and transactional notifications (46.8%). SMS has historically been a transactional and one-way promotional channel. These newer channels are being used as something fundamentally different: a two-way, relationship-based surface. That's a meaningful reframe of what "mobile messaging" means in 2026.

In-app & rich push: from broadcast to relationship

In-app and richer push experiences marketers have in production today — increasingly used as two-way, relationship-building surfaces, not one-way broadcast. Multi-select (n=124)

Survey question (multi-select)"Which in-app and rich push experiences do you have in production? (Select all that apply)"

Playbook in Practice

Five campaigns respondents called their most effective

Each card is one respondent's self-reported campaign from the past year — individual data points, not synthesized averages. Together the five span SaaS, Fintech, and Construction, and mix single-channel, multi-channel, promotional, and transactional plays.

85–90%

Open rate

Re-engagement flow using WhatsApp as the primary channel. "Feels more personal than email or SMS, so people actually read it." ~8–10% conversion lift.

Senior Director, Growth Marketing · SaaS

Push + SMS

+20%

Activation lift

Onboarding flow for new users with triggered tips and reminders over the first week. Drove a ~20% lift in activation plus better early retention — iterated on since.

Senior Director, General Marketing · Fintech

In-app

70%

Open rate · +20–25% conv

Behavior-triggered in-app messages for onboarding and re-engagement — timed around user actions like drop-offs or inactivity. Noticeable early-retention improvement.

Manager, Lifecycle / CRM Marketing · Fintech

SMS + Push

+12%

Conversion lift

Re-engagement campaign with personalized offers and timed reminders across SMS and push. ~35% open rate and a ~8% lift in 30-day retention.

Manager, Lifecycle / CRM Marketing · SaaS

95%

Open rate

Transactional WhatsApp automation for real-time status and delivery updates — moved order communications off email entirely. Significantly improved team coordination too.

Manager, Growth Marketing · Construction

Where Marketers Are Heading

The five shifts marketers told us are coming next

We asked all 124 respondents: "What's the biggest change you expect to make to your mobile messaging strategy in the next 12 months?" These are the five most-cited themes in their answers. The remaining responses described smaller themes or company-specific plans — so the shares below don't sum to 100%.

#1 Most-Cited

AI & conversational messaging

20% of respondents

"Moving from one-way broadcast SMS marketing to conversational AI-powered rich communication services."

WhatsApp expansion

14% of respondents

"Massive investment in WhatsApp Flows — for everything from appointment booking to insurance claims and full e-commerce checkouts."

Real-time personalization & journeys

7% of respondents

"Deepening personalization in in-app messaging by using more real-time behavioral data and predictive triggers."

Cross-channel orchestration

4% of respondents

"Integrating AI-driven automation and centralized multi-channel dashboards for streamlined operations."

RCS adoption

3% of respondents

"Shifting focus to RCS messaging, leveraging rich media and interactive content to boost engagement and conversions."

Key Insight

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-app and rich push are being used for onboarding walkthroughs (47.6%), surveys and NPS (36.3%), and richer push media (33.1%) — not one-way broadcast. In 2026, the question isn't "should we add another mobile channel?" — it's "which ones, and how do we orchestrate them together?"

We expect to deploy action-oriented agents. WhatsApp as core infrastructure — massive investment in WhatsApp Flows for everything from appointment booking to insurance claims and full e-commerce checkouts.

— Senior Director, General Marketing · SaaS

The biggest shift in mobile messaging strategy is the transition from one-way broadcast SMS to AI-powered, rich conversational messaging, driven primarily by the maturation of RCS and two-way conversational AI.

— Manager, General Marketing · Construction

Channel sprawl is outrunning orchestration maturity

More channels, more data, and more expectation from customers — but most teams are still stitching it together by hand. Only 1 in 3 marketers have a documented cross-channel playbook. Only 17.8% have reached 1:1 personalization. And the #1 blocker holding everyone back isn't ambition or budget — it's data quality and the fact that channels, tools, and customer data don't talk to each other.

How teams decide which message goes on which channel

Multi-channel orchestration approach (n=124)

Survey question"When running a multi-channel campaign (for example, email + SMS + push), how do you decide which message goes on which channel?"

Personalization reality check

Level of personalization marketers are achieving on mobile today (n=124)

Survey question"What level of personalization are you achieving on mobile today?"

What's actually getting in the way

Biggest mobile messaging challenges · multi-select (n=124)

Survey question (multi-select)"What are your biggest mobile messaging challenges? (Select all that apply)"

The messiest part of orchestrating across channels

Single biggest pain point cited by marketers running multi-channel campaigns (n=124)

Survey question"What's the messiest part of orchestrating across channels?"

What's blocking better personalization

Biggest barrier to mobile personalization (n=124)

Survey question"What's the biggest barrier to better personalization on mobile?"

Voice of the Marketer

The five frustrations mobile teams keep coming back to

We asked all 124 respondents: "What is your biggest frustration with your current mobile messaging setup?" These are the five most-cited patterns — each one a direct symptom of the orchestration gap. The remaining responses were unique to specific setups or too brief to cluster, so the shares below don't sum to 100%.

#1 Most-Cited

Deliverability & reliability

16% of respondents

"The biggest frustration is the verification and integration required to ensure those messages actually arrive and provide a good experience."

#2 (Tied)

Fragmentation across apps & channels

8% of respondents

"Managing multiple platforms is tiring; I dislike fragmented conversations and the lack of unified cross-app messaging."

#2 (Tied)

Integration & sync gaps

8% of respondents

"My biggest frustration is message overload and lack of seamless integration across platforms."

Cost & budget pressure

5% of respondents

"The cost is a bit of a frustration — especially as we try to expand across more channels."

Message overload & relevance

3% of respondents

"The biggest frustration is when messages are sent out in an irrelevant fashion."

Key Insight

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 to better personalization is data quality — cited by 38.7% of respondents. A Mailchimp here, an SMS platform there, a separate push tool somewhere else: the stack sprawls and the customer experience fragments with it. 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.

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.

— Senior Director, Growth Marketing · SaaS

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.

— Manager, Lifecycle / CRM Marketing · Fintech

Built for the Mobile-First Era

Where the mobile-first playbook comes to life

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 to move beyond email-first. One platform, one view of the customer, one orchestration layer deciding the right channel in the right moment. Whether you're upgrading off a sprawl of single-point tools, piloting RCS, scaling WhatsApp, or rebuilding your lifecycle program around mobile, Customer.io is where the strategy comes to life.

See Customer.io in Action →

Methodology

About this research

This report is based on an original survey of marketing leaders actively managing mobile messaging programs at companies with $10M+ in annual revenue, fielded in April 2026.

124

Completed responses

Manager+

Minimum seniority

$10M+

Minimum company ARR

Apr 2026

Fielding period

Respondents by marketing function

Survey question"Which best describes your current role and level? (Single select)"

Respondents by industry

Survey question"What best describes your company?"

Respondents by region

Survey question"Where are you based?"

A note on percentages: All percentages in this report are calculated from unique respondents, not total mentions. Single-select questions sum to 100%. Multi-select questions (clearly labeled) do not sum to 100% because respondents could choose more than one option. Where a chart's base (n) differs from the full sample of 124, it is noted on the chart — typically because a question was only shown to a relevant subset (e.g., performance vs. email-first was only asked of teams that had gone mobile-first).