In-App Messaging Template for Product Growth

Fewer than you think. Most products should have 5-10 active messages total, not 30. Each message competes for attention. The fewer active messages, the higher the interaction rate of each. Start with onboarding messages and one feature adoption campaign. Add more only when you have capacity to measure and optimize them.

Use modals only when the message is critical and the user must acknowledge it: security alerts, breaking changes, first-run onboarding steps. For feature announcements and adoption nudges, use banners, tooltips, or slideouts. The [Product Analytics Handbook](/analytics-guide) shows that modal overuse correlates with increased tooltip and banner dismissal rates.

Good targeting requires three signals: user segment (role, plan, tenure), behavioral trigger (what they just did or did not do), and context (which page they are on, what time it is). A message targeted at "Pro plan users on the reports page who have not created a custom report" will outperform "All users" targeting every time.

Tooltips and contextual prompts: 20-40%. Banners: 10-20%. Slideouts: 15-25%. Modals: 40-60% (because users must dismiss them). If any message is below 5%, remove it. It is training users to ignore all messages. The [retention rate glossary entry](/glossary/retention-rate) shows how messaging quality affects long-term retention.

Global frequency caps override campaign-level settings. If your global cap is 3 messages per session and the user qualifies for messages from 2 campaigns, only the 3 highest-priority messages are shown. Use a priority system: onboarding messages always win over feature adoption, which always wins over promotions. ---