Have yous been looking for new and innovative ways to enhance your in-app messaging campaigns? Something fun, engaging, and memorable?

We have some corking news:
Swrve now supports blithe images (GIFs) for in-app messages.
Since the format is so popular, it fabricated sense to include the option of calculation a GIF to a message right from within the Swrve dashboard. We and so automatically download the content to your users’ devices—it’south that simple.

Employ GIFs as your message groundwork, a layer of content, or a button to help drive calls to action, and personalize your GIFs with user properties to create unique experiences for each user.

GIFs are a valuable tool for marketers—they capture users’ attending, add together variation to your messaging efforts, express your brand’south phonation and personality, and convey a message more than clearly.

What is a GIF?

At the simplest level, a GIF is a digital image format like to JPEGs and PNG files. While you lot can apply GIFs for still pictures, their popularity stems from their
power to support animations. These animated GIFs concord multiple images that automatically announced ane after some other, typically on an endless loop.

GIFs offer emotional weight and context in a world of non-verbal advice and are universal in today’s digital linguistic communication.

GIFs: A Brief History

In 1987, a team of CompuServe developers needed a way to compress images with minimal data loss. The solution was GIFs (Graphics Interchange Format)—a simple,
flexible file format for lower-resolution pictures.

As web pattern evolved during the early on 2000s, the emergence of Flash animation, JavaScript, and other more sophisticated tools for transmitting video and images online outstripped the GIF’southward usefulness.

By 2004, all of the patents on licensing for the GIF had expired, and the format entered the public domain. A smartphone-boosted demand for a more lightweight substitute for Flash animation brought the GIF back in a significant way.

The first ever GIF

With the growing accessibility of editing software similar Photoshop and the rising of video creators, followed by the rapid adoption of social media and smartphones,
the GIF emerged as a miracle.

Today, GIFs play a huge role in modern internet culture. Their immovability and flexibility throughout the internet’s evolution take allowed them to go the internet’s chief purveyor of memes and looping animations.

Using GIFs in Your Messaging Campaigns

GIFs are incredibly versatile. They work considering they’re simple—no audio, merely video, and some with text over the graphic. They are creative without investing hours of design time, and entire libraries of GIFs past talented creators exist at your fingertips.

Just before you get-go calculation GIFs to every single in-app messaging campaign, permit’s look at the types of campaigns where they work best.

Injecting Emotion and Conveying a Particular Tone

A GIF in the right place can tell a story, drive a bespeak across, and convey a particular emotion that all assistance build long-term connections with your audience. The key to getting them right is ensuring they are relevant to your brand voice and relatable to your audience.

In marketing, GIFs are
perfect for communicating humor, excitement, joy, and urgency, which sometimes text or images neglect to transfer. With the express space of a mobile screen, users can sometimes misinterpret text, so a GIF helps with whatever misunderstandings virtually tone or meaning.


Content:

Boom! Yous [user achievement] this month. Skilful job!


Call to activity:

View All Transactions


Trigger:

After month end when the user is next in the app.


GIF:

This US Office archetype

Whether you want a GIF that’s sentimental to appreciate your customers, empathetic to show back up for a crusade, or funny to add together personality to your brand, yous’ll find ane that accurately expresses the emotion you desire to channel.

Delivering Feature Tutorials

Add together a GIF to your feature tutorial campaign to quickly show users how to go the most from your app. A brusque how-to visualization of a characteristic tin can remove the demand for lengthy steps or text-heavy explainers.

Since GIFs loop automatically, users can review the steps without taking action and dismiss the bulletin when they are satisfied they empathize. And considering animation is more engaging than static images or text, you’ll likely see
college feature adoption rates.

Below, Dropbox uses a GIF to show users how to create Google Docs from the platform’s dashboard. Equally the feature is easy to utilise, the brusque animation is enough for users to grasp how to use information technology. For lengthier or more than complicated processes, create a multi-screen campaign with a GIF to illustrate i step on each screen.


Content:

A clarification of the characteristic you are announcing to the user.


Phone call to action:

Ok, got information technology.


Trigger:

When a user is doing something in the app where the feature would help them achieve a goal or enhance their experience in that moment.


GIF:

A step-by-step walkthrough of how to use the feature.

Product Tours and Onboarding

Use GIFs as part of your onboarding procedure to brandish clear and informative animations of how your production works. Adding elementary or fun animations tin make a monotonous onboarding experience more engaging and encourage users to stick around for the entire bout.


Content:

A tooltip pointing to a feature on the user’south screen with a brief description of its functionality.


Call to action:

‘Next’ and always include a dismiss option.


Trigger:

As part of the user’s first app session or when they are on a screen with features they oasis’t used yet.

Raise Your Graphics

Animated images don’t have to be circuitous. Add together as few as i or ii simple blithe elements to an otherwise static epitome or illustration to completely change the impact of your campaign.


Content:

Your favorite [product name] is back on the menu. Order alee now and earn double points ☕️


Call to action:

Order For Pickup.


Trigger:

When a user is in the proximity of your store.


GIF:

The product mentioned in your copy.

Bring a product to life, emphasize the action you want users to take, or accept inspiration from Cinemagraphs and subtly move i element of an image in a continuous loop.

An example of a Cinemagraph

A trivial move is sometimes all y’all need to garner attention, intrigue users, and add a new level of life to your messaging.

Create a Carousel

Use a GIF every bit a simple hack to create a carousel of products without requiring the users to take action. Remind users near items they take in their cart or wish list, promote your acme sale items, announce new products, and more than.


Content:

Kate, you accept some items sitting in your cart. Order before midnight tonight and go free shipping.


Call to activity:

Go to Checkout


Trigger:

When a user has items in their shopping cart for more than than seven days and is browsing your product catalog.

Getting Started

GIFs add together real touch to your messaging campaigns, particularly in an era where nosotros’re less receptive to advertizing. But remember—any visuals you use in your marketing should
supplement and expand on text, non supervene upon or dominate information technology.
Make sure your GIFs and other visuals are relevant to your message. Recall light and creative.

For more on incorporating animated GIFs into your in-app messaging campaigns using Swrve, see In-app messages.

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