With thousands of new mobile games released each year, retaining users requires more than flashy graphics and a compelling gameplay loop. Personalized messaging has become a literal game-changer for gaming apps, helping them build stronger bonds with players, keeping them engaged for longer, and turning them into devoted fans.

Drawing insights from successful gaming (and gaming-adjacent) giants, we’ve assembled some unique examples to help you harness personalized messaging to its fullest potential and help you stay atop the MAU leaderboards.

1. Segment Your Players and Speak Their Language

Personalization begins with user segmentation. Gaming apps often attract a diverse audience with varying levels of skill, engagement, and preferences. If you are to accurately drive each of these player groups in the right direction (deeper into your gameplay loop), you must meet them where they are. By segmenting users into categories (casual players, competitive gamers, high-value spenders, etc.) you begin to craft messages that resonate with each group.

How Behavioral Data Informs Custom Campaigns

Beach Bum Games leveraged targeted push notifications to re-engage inactive players and motivate active ones to extend their sessions. By analyzing player behavior, they identified when users were most likely to drop off and sent timely reminders with relevant incentives, such as in-game rewards or progress updates.

Prior to implementing audience segmentation with OneSignal, Beach Bum’s Gin Rummy game never exceeded a 1% CTR (click-through rate) for push notifications. Their newly segmented campaign, on the other hand, earned an impressive 12% CTR.

Why it Works:

Tailoring messages to specific player groups ensures relevance and reduces the chances of churn. For instance, casual players may respond well to friendly nudges like “Come back and claim your daily bonus!” while competitive gamers may be intrigued by challenges such as “New leaderboard rewards await!”

2. Gamify the Messaging Experience

Gaming apps are already built around the core concepts of streaks and rewards. While your messaging campaigns may operate independently from these levers within your game, they really should be aligned in a way that makes players feel as if the game itself is reaching out to them — not just another marketing department looking for engagement.

When you gamify the messaging experience you create a more immersive experience for your players and you make interactions feel like an extension of the game itself.

Introducing Progress-Oriented Notifications

For games that require users to complete daily missions to receive bonuses, creating an automated Journey to keep players engaged can make a massive impact — especially if these users are prone to abandoning their session immediately after completing a mission or task.

To address this exact challenge, Beach Bum Games configured a multi-step messaging Journey that reminded recently inactive players to return to the app and collect their prize.

This campaign not only achieved a 6.5% conversion rate, but the addition of custom messaging journeys Beach Bum Games to target future messaging based on individual players’ in-game activity and trigger notifications at the opportune moment for each player (including players across different time zones.)

To learn more about how Beach Bum Games retains their players and achieved a whopping 140% increase in paid user activation in just 10 days, check out the full case study.

Why it Works:

Gamified notifications tap into users’ intrinsic motivation to complete tasks and earn rewards, encouraging them to stay longer during their sessions, return after sessions conclude, and get that fix of dopamine they’re ultimately after in the first place. This strategy keeps players engaged and fosters a sense of accomplishment, which increases retention over time.

3. Harness Real-Time Engagement to Drive Participation

Too often, mobile marketers attribute churn to the wrong messaging, design choices, or some other aesthetic minutia, completely overlooking the bigger picture. Timing typically dictates the difference between a passing glance at a notification and a genuinely engaged user.

Real-time messaging allows you to connect with players during your app’s most critical moments, such as live events, challenges, or collaborative gameplay.

Highlighting Time-Sensitive Opportunities

As a sports betting app that relies heavily on gamification, Betmate is no stranger to working with timely updates and reminders to fuel user participation. Their ability to leverage multiple messaging channels and keep users in the know at key events has driven audience loyalty, which at its core is a direct reflection of the trust they’ve built with users at every touchpoint:

Specifically, Betmate used Data Tags to organize, target, and automate their campaigns based on real-time user behavior. Even a seemingly small addition, such as a simple “user_name” Data Tag, can have a significant impact—a CTR increase of 130%, to be exact. Remember, the devil is always in the details.

Betmate took automatic segmentation a step further, using Data Tags to nurture two critical conversion points: user ID verification and first deposits. The ability to categorize users based on ID verification and deposit status empowered the Betmate team to target, nudge, and ultimately reduce friction with users through cross-channel journeys.

After implementing these Journeys, Betmate saw an 11% boost in users who verified their ID and a 30% jump in new user deposits.

Why it Works:

Real-time messages create a sense of urgency and exclusivity, encouraging players to act quickly. This is especially effective in games or apps with live events, where missing out on opportunities can lead to some serious FOMO (fear of missing out).

For a deeper look at how 10 psychological principles can directly impact your mobile engagement strategy, we recommend checking out this Mobile Marketing Psychology Guide to truly get into the heads of your users.

4. Personalize Onboarding with Behavior-Based Flows

First impressions matter, especially in mobile gaming, the mecca of “on-a-whim” downloads and uninstalls. A personalized onboarding experience sets the tone for long-term engagement, rather than leaving in-game momentum solely at the mercy of your users’ fleeting attention spans.

To see how to create a mobile onboarding experience that sets your users up for long-term success (and across all channels), this Mobile User Onboarding Guide is for you!

Injecting Incentives in Welcome Messages

Acquisition costs aren’t getting any lower, forcing apps to get creative when it comes to spreading the word about what they’re offering. To support its organic growth goals, Betmate leverages referral journeys based on specific customer events. For example, when a user inputs a specific promo code or enters the app based on a particular signup offer, that user’s onboarding Journey will reflect that experience.

To read deeper into their story (and find out how they achieved a 600% increase in monthly active users) read the full Betmate case study.

Why it Works:

Behavior-based flows ensure that each user’s onboarding experience feels tailored to their actions and motivations, making them more likely to feel connected to your app. By acknowledging individual preferences and rewarding specific behaviors, you create a sense of value that drives deeper engagement and minimizes drop-off during the critical early stages.

5. Use Context-Aware Messaging for Immersive Experiences

Context-aware messaging integrates seamlessly into the user’s gaming experience, making notifications feel like a natural part of the game world. The goal here is to send messages that directly tie into the player’s current progress or challenges, making notifications feel like an essential part of the game rather than an external or generic prompt.

Connecting Messages to Gameplay Scenarios

For certain quest-based games, Beach Bum had previously relied on guessing a user’s active quest based on their level, sending generic quest-related encouragement. While this is better than nothing, without the ability to segment users by quest type, they couldn’t personalize messages or ensure they were sent at the right time.

Using OneSignal, they introduced a “Quest_ID” Data Tag which enabled them to address individual player goals and deliver personalized recommendations based on specific player progress.

By removing the guesswork and creating a desire-action alignment within their messaging, Beach Bum saw a 250% increase in the average CTR for quest-related messages.

Why it Works:

Context-aware notifications enhance immersion by addressing the player’s immediate needs within the game. This approach not only drives contextual engagement but also opens opportunities for in-game monetization.

OneSignal: Your Partner in Gaming App Retention

By learning from success stories like Beach Bum Games and Betmate, gaming apps can implement powerful messaging strategies that speak directly to their users’ preferences, needs, and emotions.

To learn more about how these apps leveraged segmented campaigns, real-time updates, and gamified notifications, we encourage you to explore the following OneSignal resources:

When you’re ready to adopt these personalization strategies for your app, try OneSignal out for free to get a feel for just how easy it is to get started and turn casual players into loyal advocates.

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