Mobile has become a key shopping and browsing experience for the majority of consumers worldwide: A 2025 study found that mobile users generated nearly 80% of all retail traffic. While mobile-optimized websites and responsive design are now table stakes for ecommerce, mobile marketing takes customer experience a step further by creating interactions that can occur only in a mobile environment.

Mobile marketing includes everything from mobile app experiences and push notifications to text message marketing, mobile-friendly emails, and playful stunt campaigns using phone cameras and QR codes. Learn more about how to incorporate mobile-facing techniques into your broader marketing strategy and better engage customers, with real-life examples of mobile marketing in action.

What is mobile marketing?

Mobile marketing refers to any marketing strategy or campaign designed and optimized for mobile devices and smartphone users. It relies on technology like push notifications, location-based targeting, in-app messaging, virtual and augmented reality, and short message service (SMS) outreach to create immediate and highly personalized marketing messages and experiences for customers. 

Types of mobile marketing

Depending on your goals for individual campaigns or a mobile marketing strategy, choose from these mobile marketing techniques:

• Social media marketing.Social media marketing is a form of mobile marketing since people primarily consume content on social media platforms via mobile devices. Campaigns designed for mobile-first platforms like Instagram or TikTok are a proven way to build both brand awareness and brand affinity.

• SMS marketing. Text message or SMS marketing means messaging customers directly on their phones. It allows you to notify them of flash sales, solicit feedback about recent purchases, or update them on shipping or waitlist status. You can usually schedule SMS marketing on the same platform as your marketing emails, or you can use a third-party service like Postscript.

• WhatsApp marketing. Like SMS marketing, WhatsApp marketing allows brands to message customers with order updates and other marketing communications. Because of the direct, conversational nature of the platform, a presence on WhatsApp also functions as a customer service line, allowing you to address questions or requests quickly. All you need is a WhatsApp business account to get started. 

• Mobile-optimized email marketing. Emails specifically designed to be engaging for mobile users, with large-format images, simple calls- to action, and personalized messaging, are an effective way to engage with your target audience.

• Push notifications. Push notifications are app-based communications that can pop up on customers’ devices even when they’re not using the app. Push notifications can allow for media-rich content, like GIFs and other visuals. Customers must opt in to receive push notifications, but they can be especially useful—and engaging—if your target audience doesn’t reliably open other forms of communication, like emails.

• In-app marketing. In-app marketing keeps customers engaged after download, using targeted messages within the brand’s own mobile app to reach customers, driving repeat purchases. 

• Location-based marketing.Location-based marketing techniques like geofencing and beaconing use signals like GPS, Wi-Fi, or cell data to send mobile messages when a customer enters a predefined geographic zone, such as proximity to a store.

• Augmented and virtual reality.Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) campaigns build interactive marketing experiences, games, and challenges to help your customers better visualize your product by melding it with their personal environment—whether they want to know if a pair of sunglasses is the right shape for their face or if a couch will fit in their living room. 

Successful mobile marketing examples

• Keenz: SMS marketing
• Goodr: Augmented reality
• Clevr Blends: Mobile-optimized email marketing
• Shop: Push notifications
• 19 Crimes: Augmented reality
• Cocolab: Social media marketing
• Graza: SMS marketing

Looking for inspiration for your mobile marketing efforts? Here are a few real-world examples of mobile marketing campaigns and techniques in action.

Keenz: SMS marketing

Stroller wagon company Keenz recently took to their SMS marketing channel to announce a new partnership with a complementary brand: Crafted Gates, which creates retractable fabric gates. It paired the message with a carousel of images, straight to the phones of its busy customer base.

Goodr: Augmented reality

Whether or not that snazzy pair of sunnies will work for your face is tricky to know without actually wearing them, a pain point when shopping for clothes and accessories online. Many fashion retailers, like Goodr Sunglasses, aim to solve this problem—and prevent returns, exchanges, and dissatisfied customers—with mobile try-on experiences using augmented reality. All mobile users have to do is enable camera access on their mobile device to try on as many styles as they’d like; once they find a good fit, they can save or share the image, purchase, or return to the product detail page to learn more.

Clevr Blends: Mobile-optimized email marketing

Superfood latte and tea company Clevr Blends’ mobile-optimized email campaign features an attention-grabbing headline and high-resolution image stacks, with all the pertinent details (a sampler bag of Chai and free shipping) and a clear call to action (CTA) button above the fold. Clevr’s mobile-first email designs make the most of a single column layout, with text-to-image ratios that favor bright visuals and simplified directives and descriptions over longer strings of copy.

Shop App: Push notifications

Shop, the dedicated Shop Pay app that allows customers to buy directly from their favorite brands in one location, uses push notifications not only to notify users of completed purchases and shipping notifications, but to make personalized store recommendations based on past purchases. In the case of the holiday wishlist prompt above, it also encourages proactive browsing. 

19 Crimes: Augmented reality

AR and VR mobile marketing campaigns can be purely functional, like making sure a product will fit or look right in your space, but brands can also use them for unparalleled, buzzy storytelling. California wine brand 19 Crimes, for example, developed an AR-driven mobile experience that allowed customers to bring their labels to life by simply scanning the bottle with a phone’s camera. Each featured criminal gave a short monologue about the crime they committed—a true-crime accompaniment for each varietal that enhanced the customer’s experience of the beverage.

Cocolab: Social media marketing

Social media marketing is one of the most accessible forms of mobile marketing. By establishing a presence on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, or even LinkedIn—wherever your customers like to hang out—you can build brand awareness, brand affinity, and provide valuable information that goes beyond what’s already on the product page. 

Dental hygiene brand Cocolab regularly posts behind-the-scenes content alongside product drops and company news in the brand’s signature playful, light-hearted tone. For example, this Instagram Reel highlights how co-founder Dr. Chrystle balances life as both a business owner and mother. 

Graza: SMS marketing

For olive oil brand Graza, SMS marketing is an opportunity to showcase the brand’s signature bold personality and conversational, enthusiastic, very-online brand voice. Initial messages include nods to the brand’s nickname for loyal customers (“Grazoids”) and a link to the site blog to get newcomers up to speed on product uses, adding to a sense of inclusivity. There’s also an initial prompt to save their contact information, a product shot to cement the brand’s colors and distinct blends, and a direct call to action to buy, alongside a promo code. The order and number of messages are similar to a welcome email flow, and customers get an instant sense of the brand’s voice, as well as multiple opportunities to engage and shop. 

Best practices for mobile marketing

• Use mobile-first design
• Combine creativity with usefulness
• Optimize timing

Effective mobile-first marketing can facilitate effortless customer action and communication. Here are a few tips to help your efforts be successful:

Use mobile-first design

Mobile-first marketing comes with its own design considerations, like an emphasis on user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design to make it easy and appealing for customers to chat and shop on the device most commonly in their hands. The cornerstone of both UX and UI is responsive design, which automatically adjusts the format of your website and emails for mobile devices.

Avoid inundating customers with pop-up offers and prompts too quickly: While it’s common practice to welcome new visitors with a discount in exchange for an email or phone number, these boxes take up most of the screen space on mobile, and can make for a frustrating and overwhelming initial impression.

Instead, build in more time before surfacing offers or marketing messaging. For example, the site-wide discount at cookware brand Our Place only appears after shoppers have had a chance to browse the full collection. When it does pop up, it doesn’t obscure the entire screen and features a prominent “X” to close it quickly.

Combine creativity with usefulness

Mobile marketing campaigns that offer a truly unique or splashy experience through technology like AR may help you create brand buzz and virality, but resist jumping on mobile marketing trends without a strategic rationale. Make sure each creative marketing move aligns with your brand identity, speaks to a measurable goal—like click-throughs, follows, opens, code redemptions, or purchases—and legitimately solves a customer problem or caters to their needs in another helpful way. 

Optimize message timing

When and how often you send mobile messages to your customers can mean the difference between high levels of engagement and a campaign perceived as spam. 

When planning or optimizing your cadence for mobile messages, follow these general guidelines:

• Observe when repetition or cadence causes desired actions from your audience and when it causes drop-offs, then adjust accordingly. 

• Use mobile messaging software to analyze when your customers are most likely to be on their phones, then schedule your sends for these hours.

• Be strategic about the time of day you send messages. For example, a coffee brand might find it more valuable to contact customers in the morning versus at night.