Do we follow up too quickly when the user doesn’t show up?

I work on a lot different digital health apps that depend on the user capturing data either daily or near-daily. Users may be supposed to input their meals, weight, blood pressure, mood, or other Key Metric.

As far as I can tell, it’s typical to follow up the day after a missed event, and then a day or two again after that; a digital yoohoo to help out our fickle, forgetful minds.

I’m wondering if we need that second attempt and whether it’s actually hurting more than helping. Essentially, beyond one reminder, does messaging the user annoy them, making them less likely to return?

My hypothesis is that users who don’t show up may just need a bit of time to sort something that’s going on in their life that’s upended their typical behavior somehow and that we’d actually be better positioned to have that second follow-up delayed to about a week or so after the first follow-up.   But there might be a better approach, I'm not sure.

This is why we test.

This is why we use ML.