Differently Framed Blast Messages to Re-engage Sleeper Users
KEN -19 -1473Last modified on October 29th, 2025 at 12:03 pm
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Abstract
PxD operates the MoA-INFO platform in collaboration with Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture to provide free agricultural recommendations to farmers via SMS. As of April 2019, some 135,000 (37%) of the MoA-INFO platform users had sent only one message to the platform (either "FARM" or "SHAMBA", to register on the platform) and had then never responded to any MoA-INFO messages. In the 30 days before the experiment, 58% of registered platform users had not sent any messages to the platform. We call these users, who complete the registration survey but never send any more messages to the platform, “sleepers”.
PxD tested whether five messages framed in various ways re-engaged sleepers with the platform content. Compared to the four other messages, the message that directly showed the menu, to make it easy for the user to select content, resulted in a statistically significant higher response rate and prompted twice the number of users to access the content. -
Status
Completed
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Start date
Q2 Apr 2019
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End date
Q2 Apr 2019
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Experiment Location
Kenya
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Partner Organization
Kenya Ministry of Agriculture
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Agricultural season
Long Rains
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Experiment type
A/B test
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Sample frame / target population
MoA-INFO Platform Users (farmers) who have not recently engaged with the platform
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Sample size
50,000
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Outcome type
Service engagement
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Mode of data collection
PxD administrative data
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Research question(s)/hypotheses
What message is most effective to re-engage users registered on the MoA-INFO platform who have not responded to messages?
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Research theme
Communication technology, Message framing
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Research design notes
A sample of 50,000 platform users were randomized to receive one of the following messages:
V1 Information: “Hello from MoA-INFO the Ministry of Agriculture information service. Send MENU to 40130 now for free information on maize, beans, potatoes and Fall Armyworm.”
V2 Make it easy: “Hello from MoA-INFO. This service is free. Please select a topic you would like to know about: A. Maize B. Beans C. Irish Potato D. Fall Armyworm (FAW)”
V3 Targeted/Reaching out: “Hi. We have noticed that you have not used the Ministry of Agriculture’s free information service in a while. Send MENU to 40130 to start now!”
V4 Eye catching: “Do you want to improve your crop yields? Send MENU to 40130 now to access the Ministry of Agriculture’s free information service.”
V5 New content: “Hi. MoA-INFO has just added new information on pests and diseases for maize, beans and Irish potatoes. Send MENU to 40130 now to learn more!”
We measured the propensity of these users to access content using the MoA-INFO menu.
Note on sleeper users:
All the sleeper users had completed the registration survey. Before February 2019, by sending the keyword “FARM” or “SHAMBA”, the user auto-progressed through the registration. After February 2019, a user was still considered registered even if they only sent in the keyword. The user would have received a number of invitations to join the platform’s cropping series messages; the number depended on when the user registered. Users who joined before February 2019 received maize cropping series messages for the short rainy season 2018. Almost every registered platform user (99.03% of the registered users) received a message from the platform in the month before 23 April 2019. This would most likely have been an invitation to receive a cropping series. -
Results
The "V2 Make it easy" version of the re-engagement message, where users were simply taken into the menu, gained the highest content access rate at 3.52%. This response rate was nearly three times higher than the control group average of 1.22%, which was based on the combined access rates of the other four message variations—"V1 Information" (1.08%), "V3 Targeted" (1.56%), "V4 Eye catching" (1.17%), and "V5 New content" (1.06%). The difference in access rates between V2 and the next best-performing message (V3) was substantial, with V2 prompting more than double the user engagement that V3 prompted. These statistically significant results indicate that simplifying the access flow by taking users directly into content is a particularly effective strategy for increasing engagement.