The practice of retiring old modems and swapping for new ones to bring a higher quality Internet experience to subscribers has been a recurring necessity for ISPs. In December of 2019, one of PerfTech’s large ISP customers launched an in-browser message campaign to encourage subscribers to self-install new, upgraded modems that had been preshipped free of charge. Because of the large number of subscribers affected, the campaign was designed to occur in separate cycles over a number of months. Each cycle represented a subgroup of subscribers and included a sequence of 3 in-browser messages. Each of the 3 messages was delivered for about 5 days, with an approximate 7-day interval between them.

The verbiage of each message was progressively more urgent. The messages included a cut-off date after which Internet service would be interrupted, and a link to online install instructions (which had also been included in the modem shipment) if needed. The first 2 messages included an “OK Thanks” response button; the 3rd message included the link, a phone number for the ISP’s support line, and a bold-faced warning of the looming cut-off date, but no response button as the ISP preferred a call-in to emphasize the urgency.

As the first 6 of up to 9 scheduled cycles of the campaign have completed, we are able to track the online response rates of the first 2 messages of each cycle as follows:

Online Response Rates
Cycle Message 1 Message 2
1 58.6% 63.0%
2 63.7% 60.2%
3 57.1% 61.6%
4 59.6% 60.6%
5 58.1% 57.2%
6 58.2% 52.8%

Note that message response rates were fairly consistent from cycle to cycle, landing between about 53%-63%.

In addition to response rates to the messages themselves, we were able to track the reduction in the number of message recipients within each cycle who remained on the list from Message 1 to Message 2, and then the further overall reduction upon Message 3. Presumably, this reduction represents the number of recipients who took action to self-install between in-browser reminders. Those results follow:

Recipient Reduction Rates after Each Message
Cycle from Msg 1 to Msg 2 total from Msg 1 to Msg 3
1 down 59.3% down 77.1%
2 down 67.8% down 81.0%
3 down 62.0% down 76.7%
4 down 40.9% down 57.4%
5 down 49.0% down 74.1%
6 down 67.5% down 81.9%

While some cycles were slightly more effective than others, all but one showed a reduction in the number of recipients at about 75% or higher, meaning 75% or more subscribers in each cycle had performed the requested modem install. In addition, further positive action surely occurred through call-in responses after the receipt of Message 3.

Note that this campaign is ongoing and the results of additional cycles will be reported here when available.