Growing the superapp with seamless anywhere-to-app user journeys: Why AirAsia prioritized user experience

Overview

• As AirAsia looked to promote their recently launched mobile app, the airasia Superapp, they grappled with users’ established web environment habits.
• Providing a seamless web-to-app user experience while directing users to migrate from the web to the app posed a challenge.
• AirAsia implemented AppsFlyer’s Customer Experience and Deep Linking suite, including Smart Banners, in their web-to-app strategy. This enabled them to effortlessly guide users to download the app and/or deep-link to specific content within the app, significantly improving web-to-app conversions and flight booking rates.

Background

AirAsia, the largest airline in Malaysia, serves more than 165 destinations in 25 countries and carries over 24 million passengers worldwide. It has bases in Bangkok, Jakarta, and Manila, with Thai AirAsia, Indonesia AirAsia, and Philippines AirAsia as affiliates. 

In 2020, AirAsia launched the airasia Superapp, expanding its business to e-hailing, food and parcel delivery, hotel booking, transportation services, duty-free sales, Islamic products and services, insurance, and more. The app comprises three main pillars: AirAsia Travel for flights and partner airlines, AirAsia Delivers for eCommerce and grocery services, and AirAsia Money for financial products. The app has over 47 million installs and a global reach, with 14 million users from Malaysia alone.

Challenge

AirAsia offered a range of services, such as flight booking, hotel reservations, travel insurance, eCommerce, and food delivery, but each had different capabilities and user interfaces. This inconsistency in user experience prompted the team to develop Superapp, a single app that would unify the user journey. 

In addition to integrating AirAsia’s own services, they aimed to bolster user engagement and loyalty by incorporating third-party services — such as food journals and ride-hailing options — via APIs, making the Superapp an indispensable tool for users. Ultimately, AirAsia’s goal with the Superapp was to have complete control over every aspect of the user experience to drive higher engagement.

Despite their goal to increase Superapp’s adoption, the team observed that a significant number of both new and existing customers still preferred using the AirAsia website for browsing travel deals and making bookings. This presented a challenge for the team: they needed to identify and eliminate friction points to facilitate a seamless transition from the website to the app.

Given that customers use different devices and operating systems, migrating them from the web to the app presented another challenge in maintaining AirAsia’s desired customer experience. The team needed to ensure that every user was redirected to the appropriate store for their device or operating system. Preserving a seamless user experience, without compromising user data or progress during this transition, proved to be a demanding task. Additionally, to further optimize the process, the team needed to be able to measure the performance of these migrated users and gauge the effectiveness of the channels employed for user migration. 

Solution

The team was able to drive web-to-app conversions at scale by using AppsFlyer’s Customer Experience and Deep Linking suite, powered by the OneLink technology, and Smart Banners. AppsFlyer Smart Banners serve as a sticky banner on mobile websites: these direct existing app users to designated locations in the app, or take new users to the relevant app store prior to taking them to their desired in-app content.

The airasia Superapp team deployed Smart Banners across various mobile web pages. These banners featured messages tailored to the landing pages, with attractive promo codes to drive installs. In addition, they were intelligently designed to detect the user’s device and operating system, directing users to relevant app stores for a frictionless download experience. Interestingly, as airasia Superapp offers various services including flights, hotels, rides, and food, the team has also used Smart Banners to experiment with cross-services promo codes to encourage cross-selling.

With AppsFlyer’s Smart Banners, we no longer have to wonder if our web traffic is converting to app users. The ability to measure migrated users from web to app has been a game-changer for us. Now that we have access to concrete data showing how our web-to-app integration is driving business growth, we are able to make data-driven decisions with a lot more confidence.

– Yen Huan Tai – Growth & Digital Marketing Manager, AirAsia

AppsFlyer’s Measurement Suite provided vital data around the set of users who migrated from web-to-app, such as account sign-ups, conversion rates, and engagement levels. AirAsia used this data to assess the performance of Smart Banners across different channels, optimizing their web-to-app strategies for maximum effectiveness. So, the approach not only enhanced user experience and reduced drop-offs along the inbound journey, but also bolstered overall user engagement in the long run.

The Superapp team also used the Customer Experience and Deep Linking suite to craft smooth, contextualized email-to-app journeys especially for their post-booking emails, promotional campaigns and remarketing emails. When email recipients clicked on the call to action in marketing emails, OneLink-powered links directed them to specific content within the Superapp. Using OneLink like this allowed AirAsia to activate email as another robust channel for expanding the app’s user base.

Results

The airasia Superapp achieved a 5% increase in total installs by using Smart Banners, seamlessly guiding users from the web to the app while providing customized landing page offers. Implementing OneLinks in emails also played a significant role in bringing existing app users back into the app, contributing to more than 15% of total installs. 

Additionally, through the implementation of the Customer Experience and Deep Linking suite, the Superapp team achieved a remarkable 19% improvement in flight booking rates compared to organic users. This improvement was achieved by simplifying the user journey to the app, and notably boosting click-to-install conversions and post-install engagement.

Picture this: you’re browsing the web, searching for the perfect flight to your dream destination. Suddenly, a banner ad catches your eye, enticing you to click and learn more. You click, and instead of being taken to a clunky website, you’re transported seamlessly to our airasia Superapp, where you can browse and book your flight with ease. This is what we have enabled for our customers with AppsFlyer — no wonder the app is now the highest performing channel, yielding so far a 5% uplift in total installs.

Yen Huan Tai – Growth & Digital Marketing Manager, AirAsia

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