How badges are used in Popular Apps - Use cases

Suneeta Munjuluri
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10m Read
Best Practices
Suneeta Munjuluri
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10m Read
August 11, 2024
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How Top Companies are Using Badges


Badges offer several key opportunities for mobile applications. Badges are very useful for product managers and growth marketers to carry out feature launches, project discounts, and sales without obstructing users’ flow.

In the previous blog, we looked at basic aspects of badges and ways they could influence app engagement levels. Let’s go into some actual cases for inspiration. Let us dive into the amazing world of the highest rated apps and their use of badges for the purpose of increasing user engage. These are important benchmarks that you could model when designing your badge strategies.

Enhanced Engagement

Badges are the simplest form of app engagement. They really catch the eye of the users without disrupting their actual flow. Badges are one of the most effective means to make users interact with the features of your app. It makes badges really useful because you don’t need to ask for user input, which tends to drive people out of your app.

Swiggy's Recipe for User Engagement: The Power of Badges

Badges are very effectively utilized by Swiggy to engage users and invite them to play around with different features on the app.

Engaging users in the game of mobile app dynamics. Badges have been used by Swiggy which is an effective and silent tool for it.

Why Badges Matter:

  1. Conversion: Often seen on the Instamart icon, a badge that shows that the delivery can be received in 10 minutes, encourages users to order grocery items from Instamart for quick and easy deliveries. This leads to increased orders and conversions.
screenshot of swiggy homepage with various badges
  1. Exploration: “New Restaurant Discover” labels encourage people to look out for new restaurants.
  2. Loyalty: Badges like 20% OFF on food and delivery help users quickly discover such benefits of using Swiggy. This in turn encourages users to keep coming back for more such offers and discounts regularly.
  3. Gamification: Food delivery becomes an interesting game with the help of streaks, accomplishments, and leveling-up rewards.

With its badge scheme, Swiggy gently ushers users into using their app while making it more rewarding.

swiggy homepage showing 20% discount badge

Alert Mechanism

Badges act as attention grabbers, letting your users know when they have something important happening in their app. Badges, for instance, could signal the arrival of new messages, unread alerts, and ongoing tasks. This makes sure that users can see important updates and drive actions, for instance, in sending messages or attending to unresolved ones faster.

Gmail: Achieving Inbox Zen with Badges!

Let's talk about how Gmail uses badges to keep us organized and motivated:

Unread Mails Number Badge: Users are alerted about the number of unread mails in their inbox using a badge.

This prompts the users to click and read the messages.

 gmail using number badge to show unread emails

Badges on Tabs: Gmail also uses Numbered badges to alert about the number of new emails in a particular tab. This badge also alerts users about the number of new emails they have received in a particular category.

gmail promotions tab with badge to show unread mails

These badges are your digital assistants, simplifying email management and boosting productivity. Your Gmail badges are your path to an organized digital workspace!

Encourage Exploration

New feature discovery and more: Mobile applications can leverage badges to push users towards using other aspects of the application. For example, you could attach badges to untapped menu items, freshly released products, and undiscovered app features. This incentivizes users to find and use these features, leading to a better user experience of the app as a whole and more general usability.

Instagram Makes Users Interact with New Features using Badges

Instagram — One of the most popular images and video-sharing apps, utilizes badges as call-to-action buttons driving more engagement and interactions within the app. It uses badges to let users know they can download the new threads app, verify their accounts, or read/respond to unread messages.

Instagram effectively uses various badges to enhance user engagement:

  • Verified badges for authenticity.
  • Insights badges for business accounts.
  • Notification badges keep users engaged.
text badge to point out new feature
instagram using text badge to show its new app threads.

Gamification

These badges would make the whole user experience more like a game, and get people coming back to interact with your app all the time.

Achievement Unlocked: Duolingo's Badge Mastery

Language-learning app, Duolingo, uses badges as rewards to finish lessons and meet the daily exercise targets. Streaks, achievements, and leveling-up rewards — all create a gaming environment that drives users to keep coming back.

The best feature for increasing user engagement in Duolingo is the badges system.

Why is it effective?

Gamification:It turns out that Duolingo has turned language learning into a game, where learners aspire to complete the lessons and obtain the badges. Duolingo combines learning badges with In-app badges to level up the gamification game.

duolingo using badges as daily rewards.

Streaks: This system uses streak badges—daily rewards that motivate users from one day to another for fear of losing their gains.

Achievements: We also want to be recognized with badges representing that we finished a class and reached certain milestones.

duolingo using badges to show progress

Retention: The gamification approach is user-centric, making users develop an attachment leading them into a habit of using it daily.

Learn from Duolingo's success: Gamifying; Recognizing Achievements, User Engagement.

duolingo using new badges to show the new unlocked stories.

Unlocking Success with Badges: Dream11's Winning Strategy!

Think fantasy sports, think Dream11. Dream11, India’s number 1 fantasy gaming app, uses badges to remind users about their reward points, to notify them about new and upcoming challenges, and to show the gifts they have a chance of winning.

Nudge is not a simple ornament for badges on mobile apps. Take Dream11 as an example:

Rewards badges: Dream11 uses in-app badges which include images to showcase the rewards that could be earned.

Informative badges: To create an immersive gaming environment, Dream11 uses badges to give more information about the happening game, so that more users join the game.

The badges in dream11 make the user continue using it hence making it an addictive activity. It is how they have turned fantasy sports into a fun and interesting game of skill.

 dream 11 using image badges to show rewards

Increase Customer Loyalty

It is an ideal way to promote Flash Sales and Deal and drive conversions among customers. One of the main USPs of Badges, as compared to any other in-app nudges, is that several badges can be used in a single view without making the users feel overwhelmed.

Learn from Starbucks to Upsell

In the competitive world of coffee and customer loyalty, Starbucks continues to stand out with a brilliant twist. They don't just reward loyalty; they master the art of upselling through in-app badges.

Elevating Rewards: Starbucks knows the way to their customers' hearts is through their taste buds. Here's how they creatively link badges to upselling their store products.

Customers who make a purchase at Starbucks get reward points in ‘stars’.

As they collect more stars they get more discounts. These are easily available on the Starbucks app. Starbucks uses in-app badges to elevate the rewards that customers can enjoy, thereby creating amazing results.

With each reward, Starbucks transforms its customers into adventurers exploring its menu and store offerings.

Results Brewing Up:- Increased Upselling Opportunities

  • Elevated Average Transaction Value.
  • Enhanced Brand Affinity and Customer Loyalty Takeaway: Badges are strategic tools that guide customers to explore and appreciate Starbucks' rich array of products. From coffee blends to pastries and merchandise, badges create a delightful journey of discovery.
 starbucks using star badge to point out new and upcoming features.

Conclusion

The innovative means by which top apps apply their badges have been examined, revealing how these tiny visual cues may greatly affect user engagement as well as retention. With this understanding in place, let’s dive into how exactly badges operate in some different domains. These include fintech, gaming, e-commerce, and hyperlocal apps.

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How badges are used in Popular Apps - Use cases

Discover case studies of effective use of badges in top-ranking mobile applications for increasing user involvement. Understand how Badges help improve conversions, explorations, gamification and customer loyalty in companies like Swiggy, Gmail, Instagram, Duolingo, Dream 11, and Starbucks.

Suneeta Munjuluri

How Top Companies are Using Badges


Badges offer several key opportunities for mobile applications. Badges are very useful for product managers and growth marketers to carry out feature launches, project discounts, and sales without obstructing users’ flow.

In the previous blog, we looked at basic aspects of badges and ways they could influence app engagement levels. Let’s go into some actual cases for inspiration. Let us dive into the amazing world of the highest rated apps and their use of badges for the purpose of increasing user engage. These are important benchmarks that you could model when designing your badge strategies.

Enhanced Engagement

Badges are the simplest form of app engagement. They really catch the eye of the users without disrupting their actual flow. Badges are one of the most effective means to make users interact with the features of your app. It makes badges really useful because you don’t need to ask for user input, which tends to drive people out of your app.

Swiggy's Recipe for User Engagement: The Power of Badges

Badges are very effectively utilized by Swiggy to engage users and invite them to play around with different features on the app.

Engaging users in the game of mobile app dynamics. Badges have been used by Swiggy which is an effective and silent tool for it.

Why Badges Matter:

  1. Conversion: Often seen on the Instamart icon, a badge that shows that the delivery can be received in 10 minutes, encourages users to order grocery items from Instamart for quick and easy deliveries. This leads to increased orders and conversions.
screenshot of swiggy homepage with various badges
  1. Exploration: “New Restaurant Discover” labels encourage people to look out for new restaurants.
  2. Loyalty: Badges like 20% OFF on food and delivery help users quickly discover such benefits of using Swiggy. This in turn encourages users to keep coming back for more such offers and discounts regularly.
  3. Gamification: Food delivery becomes an interesting game with the help of streaks, accomplishments, and leveling-up rewards.

With its badge scheme, Swiggy gently ushers users into using their app while making it more rewarding.

swiggy homepage showing 20% discount badge

Alert Mechanism

Badges act as attention grabbers, letting your users know when they have something important happening in their app. Badges, for instance, could signal the arrival of new messages, unread alerts, and ongoing tasks. This makes sure that users can see important updates and drive actions, for instance, in sending messages or attending to unresolved ones faster.

Gmail: Achieving Inbox Zen with Badges!

Let's talk about how Gmail uses badges to keep us organized and motivated:

Unread Mails Number Badge: Users are alerted about the number of unread mails in their inbox using a badge.

This prompts the users to click and read the messages.

 gmail using number badge to show unread emails

Badges on Tabs: Gmail also uses Numbered badges to alert about the number of new emails in a particular tab. This badge also alerts users about the number of new emails they have received in a particular category.

gmail promotions tab with badge to show unread mails

These badges are your digital assistants, simplifying email management and boosting productivity. Your Gmail badges are your path to an organized digital workspace!

Encourage Exploration

New feature discovery and more: Mobile applications can leverage badges to push users towards using other aspects of the application. For example, you could attach badges to untapped menu items, freshly released products, and undiscovered app features. This incentivizes users to find and use these features, leading to a better user experience of the app as a whole and more general usability.

Instagram Makes Users Interact with New Features using Badges

Instagram — One of the most popular images and video-sharing apps, utilizes badges as call-to-action buttons driving more engagement and interactions within the app. It uses badges to let users know they can download the new threads app, verify their accounts, or read/respond to unread messages.

Instagram effectively uses various badges to enhance user engagement:

  • Verified badges for authenticity.
  • Insights badges for business accounts.
  • Notification badges keep users engaged.
text badge to point out new feature
instagram using text badge to show its new app threads.

Gamification

These badges would make the whole user experience more like a game, and get people coming back to interact with your app all the time.

Achievement Unlocked: Duolingo's Badge Mastery

Language-learning app, Duolingo, uses badges as rewards to finish lessons and meet the daily exercise targets. Streaks, achievements, and leveling-up rewards — all create a gaming environment that drives users to keep coming back.

The best feature for increasing user engagement in Duolingo is the badges system.

Why is it effective?

Gamification:It turns out that Duolingo has turned language learning into a game, where learners aspire to complete the lessons and obtain the badges. Duolingo combines learning badges with In-app badges to level up the gamification game.

duolingo using badges as daily rewards.

Streaks: This system uses streak badges—daily rewards that motivate users from one day to another for fear of losing their gains.

Achievements: We also want to be recognized with badges representing that we finished a class and reached certain milestones.

duolingo using badges to show progress

Retention: The gamification approach is user-centric, making users develop an attachment leading them into a habit of using it daily.

Learn from Duolingo's success: Gamifying; Recognizing Achievements, User Engagement.

duolingo using new badges to show the new unlocked stories.

Unlocking Success with Badges: Dream11's Winning Strategy!

Think fantasy sports, think Dream11. Dream11, India’s number 1 fantasy gaming app, uses badges to remind users about their reward points, to notify them about new and upcoming challenges, and to show the gifts they have a chance of winning.

Nudge is not a simple ornament for badges on mobile apps. Take Dream11 as an example:

Rewards badges: Dream11 uses in-app badges which include images to showcase the rewards that could be earned.

Informative badges: To create an immersive gaming environment, Dream11 uses badges to give more information about the happening game, so that more users join the game.

The badges in dream11 make the user continue using it hence making it an addictive activity. It is how they have turned fantasy sports into a fun and interesting game of skill.

 dream 11 using image badges to show rewards

Increase Customer Loyalty

It is an ideal way to promote Flash Sales and Deal and drive conversions among customers. One of the main USPs of Badges, as compared to any other in-app nudges, is that several badges can be used in a single view without making the users feel overwhelmed.

Learn from Starbucks to Upsell

In the competitive world of coffee and customer loyalty, Starbucks continues to stand out with a brilliant twist. They don't just reward loyalty; they master the art of upselling through in-app badges.

Elevating Rewards: Starbucks knows the way to their customers' hearts is through their taste buds. Here's how they creatively link badges to upselling their store products.

Customers who make a purchase at Starbucks get reward points in ‘stars’.

As they collect more stars they get more discounts. These are easily available on the Starbucks app. Starbucks uses in-app badges to elevate the rewards that customers can enjoy, thereby creating amazing results.

With each reward, Starbucks transforms its customers into adventurers exploring its menu and store offerings.

Results Brewing Up:- Increased Upselling Opportunities

  • Elevated Average Transaction Value.
  • Enhanced Brand Affinity and Customer Loyalty Takeaway: Badges are strategic tools that guide customers to explore and appreciate Starbucks' rich array of products. From coffee blends to pastries and merchandise, badges create a delightful journey of discovery.
 starbucks using star badge to point out new and upcoming features.

Conclusion

The innovative means by which top apps apply their badges have been examined, revealing how these tiny visual cues may greatly affect user engagement as well as retention. With this understanding in place, let’s dive into how exactly badges operate in some different domains. These include fintech, gaming, e-commerce, and hyperlocal apps.

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