Every mobile app wants its users to experience a highly targeted, dynamic stream of rich content within the app without interrupting the user journey. The answer to that? Content cards (also known as widgets).

What is a content card/widget?

Content cards serve as a channel within your app, to interact with users in a manner that seamlessly blends into the overall experience, providing a native user experience.

They offer the ability to pin cards, dismiss cards, API-driven delivery, and Connected Content.

A few different ways content cards might show up in a mobile app:

• A single card placed natively in the app
• A carousel of cards that users can swipe through
• A m x n grid of widget cards to showcase multiple verticals at once

Use cases for content cards/widgets

Content cards can be used for various campaigns including asking users to refer others, showcasing new product launches, nudging users to renew subscriptions., and more.

New product launch (single card format)

Using content cards, apps can gently prompt and motivate users towards maximizing impact of their product launch.

For example, Scripbox tested new offerings with their user base by launching a "financial plan" feature (the card in blue) using widgets. This agile approach allowed them to swiftly test user appeal of the new offering.

Festive sales and promotion (carousel format)

Content cards can be used to showcase promotional messages and festive offers on your homepage, as a carousel. Personalized promotions can capture attention by pulling in content tailored to each customer's past purchases.

For example, the Nykaa app has a carousel content card placement highlighting offers of various products according to the user’s purchase history.

Account upgrade/upsell (single card)

Content cards can encourage users to upgrade their accounts, providing a gentle nudge towards the enhanced features and benefits of an upgraded subscription.

For example, IndMoney has placed a content card for its potential investing users to upgrade to a “Free Universal a/c”.

Challenges faced while creating content cards

Developers need to build the core mobile app. They don't really have the time to keep adding and changing content cards (placements, designs, text, etc).

On top of that, every new experiment with a content card or a widget takes 2 weeks to build, another 2 weeks to make the app release, and another month or so to understand whether it has achieved the desired impact.

Plotline enables the creation of content cards/widgets, fully no-code

Plotline helps product and marketing teams in high-growth consumer companies create and deploy widgets that match your design theme. This can be in the form of single card widgets or carousel widgets, or even stories.

You’ll be able to rapidly decrease the time to go live, enabling you to execute multiple experiments inside our app.

Apart from content cards, you can use other UI elements like tooltips, stories, spotlights, PiP videos, etc., to engage your users effectively.

In case you want to deploy widgets, stories and more in your mobile app, start your free trial with us.