The first NN4M platform release of 2019 has landed! Our latest update brings a range of new features and functionality that will improve the user experience, increase conversion and ensure our clients apps are always a step ahead.

So what’s new?

Introducing A/B Testing to App Commerce

Staying true to being the most advanced app commerce platform, NN4M is the first to add A/B testing functionality. One of the most powerful techniques for increasing conversion and revenue, A/B testing ensures you are delivering a user experience that is consistently tried and tested.

Through the NN4M platform you can test just about anything, from turning features on/off, changing animation lengths, to changing module behaviour, colours and page layouts. The ability to show different variations to user groups creates actionable data that adds an element of science to your app strategy.

The addition of A/B testing functionality also gives our clients greater ability and influence to make decisions regarding what users go in to certain test groups. This type of control is not available with other third-party A/B testing platforms. It also means there are no additional third-party SDKs required for A/B testing functionality and once enabled, there is no additional development work for tests to be deployed.

Opening the door to greater relevance and engagement

As recent industry trends highlight, the reach of Push Messaging is becoming considerably greater than email marketing. That’s why it is more important than ever to take advantage of your app’s Push capabilities. As part of this release we have improved our segmentation functionality to include the ability to merge two segments together. Import segments from a CRM solution or create them though the NN4M platform then simply merge multiple segments together using different conditions.The addition of segmentation merging will help to ensure the correct user groups are targeted with the content that is relevant to them and their experiences; increasing app engagement overall. Combined with our inbox-only functionality, which allows for targeted, rich content to be delivered to users who to choose opt-in and those who also optout of Push messaging, creates a truly powerful marketing channel.

Life is better with Gifs

Gifs have been part of the NN4M platform for some time. However, as part of the latest release, we have updated our image processing framework and banner management so that animated images appear a lot smoother in our apps.

New home screen framework

From a UI/UX perspective nothing has changed, as with every part of an app, we still create unique, bespoke and industryleading home screen designs. What has changed is the way we develop the home screen. So, what does this mean? Well we can now re-use elements easily from other areas of the app on the home screen and vice-versa. This alone creates a more cohesive design approach and will save development time meaning quicker launch and app updates. The new framework also means we have more control over the home screen views themselves; creating a smoother, cleaner home screen experience with the opportunity for nice transitions and animations.

Other under-the-hood improvements

Choosing the right time to update our development tools is always a tricky decision, as we aim to balance product maturity with stability, feature requirements and the needs of particular projects. This quarter we have updated our iOS development environments to Xcode 10 and swift 4.2. The later puts all our apps in the best place to benefit from native swift support which Apple will release later this year.

Updating to Xcode 10 provides native iOS 12 support as well as:

• • Moving away from UI scale up to support native resolution on XS Max and XR.
  • Access to Siri Shortcuts to allow for the creation of voice based actions that will run tasks. For example, using a voice based action to check for
    the latest order status.
  • ARKit 2 – the improved augmented reality SDK – opens up new
    possibilities to create AR experiences within commerce apps.
  • Enhanced push notifications, allowing for new detail layouts with the Pushnotifications on the location/message centre.

What’s next?

This year we are changing the way we do platform releases. Instead of delivering
a detailed roadmap at the start of the year – that may not fit with industry trends
and key learnings as we move through the year – we are instead listening to our
client’s needs and defining our platform releases quarterly. We hope this new
way of updating our platform will ensure we are always delivering new features
and functionality that truly matter.

What to expect from our Q2 platform release

The key headlines to expect from our Q2 release are:

• A re-designed and improved CMS
• Image support in Push Messaging
• Enhanced Push reporting
• Morelytics data export
• A/B test support in Push
• Auto-play video module support for homescreen and PLP/PDP
• Further A/B testing enhancements