A little while ago, we wrote a series of articles looking at Micro-moments and how successful brands will have to begin catering to users who experience these micro-moments:

‘Micro-Moments are when consumers reach for their smartphones in a moment of intent when they want or need something at that very moment.’

A little hypothetical: walking down the street and someone sees your billboard. This person then wants to know as much about your product as they can in that moment. In that micro-moment, one of the best ways to ensure that you can hook your customer is to provide them with a Progressive Web App.

PWAs

What is a Progressive Web App (PWA)?

The shortest way we can describe them is “a website that behaves like an app”. More specifically, it’s an app that’s created through the same technology as a website. There is more to it than one thing that’s like another, though. A way to look at PWAs is by thinking you get two in one. There are countless benefits to having a dynamic web app available for your audience and we’d like to highlight a few of them for you:

Quick, fast and speedy!

Much like native apps, PWAs are designed with minimal load times. In a world where users want demand results as soon as possible, brands now have the chance to give it to them.

Load time is often one of the key factors in a high bounce rate for mobile sites, but with a focus on speed and immediacy, PWAs can help reduce this. For example, Twitter’s PWA helped to reduce their bounce rate by 20%.

Exposure

The first question that you may ask: how can I get users to download this app? Well, the obvious way is by having a high search engine ranking (PWAs will often appear higher in the ranks due to their speed). Another option is the same way you get users to download any app, through a store. PWAs are currently available in the Windows and Play store, just like native apps but the difference maker, though, is that they are available to put there at a much lower cost.

So once you have the app on your user’s phone, what is there to do except to wait for them to convert?

App-like tendencies

In terms of e-commerce, with your store available on the PWA, you have the option to send a push notification to users who have left your app with a full basket. Utilising push notifications can help to increase your re-engagement and ultimately drive up conversion rates. Jumia, a leading e-commerce website in Africa, have taken advantage of the push feature and seen 9 times as many conversions from previously abandoned carts.

Best of both worlds

Apps can be expensive to build and maintain; websites less so. So what if you could build an app using the same code and principles as a website? That’s what you get with PWAs; a cheaper but more dynamic alternative.

By no means “new” to the world of development and marketing, Progressive Web Apps are soon to become the next big thing. They have a very bright future, especially in regards to e-commerce. Fingo believe that a PWA has the potential to take almost any brand to a new level and is something we are very bullish on for 2019.

If you’d like to discuss whether a PWA is right for you please get in touch via our enquiry form or give us a call on 01372 749 200.