Pathao Adds Dimension and Boosts Engagement by Swapping Banners for Stories

Founded in 2015, Pathao is among the fastest-growing tech startups in Asia and has dedicated itself to creating digital solutions that connect businesses and people through on-demand necessities. With an eye toward accelerating and establishing digital Bangladesh, Pathao provides an all-in-one app solution for ride-sharing, food delivery, and e-commerce courier services. With so much on offer, Pathao wanted to make sure that their audience communication methods were just as forward-thinking and versatile as their company vision.

Challenge #1: Banners Disrupt Design Flow

Banners are a classic touchpoint of internet communication, but unfortunately, that also means that an audience can be affected by banner blindness, meaning that users are used to ignoring them, and their effectiveness decreases over time. Aside from these diminishing returns, when translated to an app format, where space is even more of a premium than on a website, banners can disrupt the design flow of the app causing user frustration and overwhelm.

Challenge #2: Low Engagement with Special Offers

Pathao was looking for a better and dynamic way to communicate visually with their users in the app. They saw that circular visual elements work better and create more engagements than rectangular ones. So, they were looking for a good solution to reduce app pop-ups.

Based on their analytics, Pathao knew that banners weren’t capturing much engagement and were looking for a better, more enticing solution. 

Challenge #3: Reaching the Right Audience in the Right Place

Like many companies, Pathao knows that maintaining an existing audience is more cost-effective than acquiring new users, but they had difficulty reaching their active users to help them take advantage of special offers and deals. Pathao was looking for a way to re-engage its audience by boosting promo code usage and participation in special offers and deals.

And then they found Storyly.

Solution #1: Stories Seamlessly Enrich App Design

Especially when compared to banners, Stories offer a top-tier design experience through mobile-native content. Stories are immersive, distraction-free, and ideal for in-app communications with users. Without disrupting the feel of the app, Stories are able to grab users’ attention and help make them aware of new features, special offers, and any news Pathao may want to share. 

Solution #2: Providing App Engagement Opportunities with Stories

By integrating Stories into their app, Pathao was able to reach their audience with new deals at a glance with eye-catching full-screen designs, including tappable CTAs helped to further drive conversion and many more users took advantage of the discounts and offers!

Solution #3: In-app Stories Drive Audience Re-engagement and Boost Retention

By changing their in-app messaging format to Stories, Pathao increased the use of special offers and promo codes within the app and drive higher conversion rates. When these messages are focused on an existing audience that is already invested in the app rather than used in ads, they can increase lifetime customer value, boost retention, and enhance the user experience. 

Results

Pathao’s users were delighted by the Story format and responded to special offers at a significant rate than the rate of banner ads! Stories provided a fresh yet familiar update to the Pathao app that gave users more options for interactivity, helped them take advantage of more deals, and deepen their brand investment.