Mobile push notifications best practices: Create inspiration, not interruption
Ever received a mobile push notification that led you to delete an app?
What about a push notification that genuinely adds value to your life, alerting you to an interesting update or providing an important reminder?
Most people have had both of these experiences with push notifications.
According to research, over 40% of people interact with the app within an hour of getting a notification. What matters to mobile push notification creators is how they interact.
Read on to learn what app push notifications mean for your business, types of mobile push notifications and how to use them to drive users back to your app time and time again.
What are push notifications?
Push notifications are messages that pop up on your home or lock screen — messages sent by applications to users when they’re not engaging with the app.
The purpose of app push notifications is to facilitate engagement. A good mobile push campaign can retain app users, increase app engagement and boost in-app sales.
Benefits of app push notifications:
- Push personalised messages
- Drive traffic to your website or App
- Boost users’ activity — mobile push notifications have a 50% higher open rate than email with a seven-times higher click rate
- Promote your products or services to increase sales
- Create attention to a cause (fundraising, for example)
- Drive your App users to other marketing channels or touchpoints
Want to make mobile push notifications a part of your omnichannel marketing strategy? Schedule a consultation with a product expert here.
Mobile push notifications boost app engagement and drive revenue
- Push notifications boost app engagement by up to 88%
- 65% of users return to an app within 30 days when push notifications are enabled
- 48% of mobile app users made an in-store purchase after receiving a push notification triggered by profile data
- Push notification personalisation improves reaction rates by up to 400%
What type of push notification is right for your brand?
Retention push notifications
- Goal: Re-engage low-activity users
- Examples: Abandoned cart, special re-engagement promotions and risk-of-churn notifications
Update push notifications
- Goal: Highlight new or interesting in-app features to drive engagement
- Examples: Update notifications, style changes or new ways to engage users to check out
Transactional push notifications
- Goal: Provide requests or reminders of the necessary transactional information
- Examples: Payment confirmation, information update requirements and payment reminders
Repeating push notifications
- Goal: Set to send out at a continuous frequency with various types of messages
- Examples: Weekly reminders and news notifications
Promotional push notifications
- Goal: Upsell and reinforce brand identity
- Examples: Notification of flash sales or live events
What’s the difference between push notifications and in-app notifications?
Push notifications are messages that users can view without opening the app. They usually see them from the lock screen.
In-app notifications are messages that users receive within the application after opening it.
Mobile push notification best practices
The key to a good app push campaign is that each notification must be relevant, well-timed, and personalised, leaving recipients with a clear next step.
1. Prompt users to enable push notifications
Prompt users to enable push notifications at the right time and with the right message. Invite them to enable push notifications when they first download the app. Explain what they will get out of push notifications, and what they can expect from them and keep those promises.
Data is key to making sure you send a relevant message and catch users at the right moment.
2. Get the timing and frequency right
It’s important to get both the timing and frequency of your push notifications correct. Otherwise, you may overburden users until they turn off the notifications altogether.
Be sure to use relevant timing. There’s nothing more annoying than receiving a reminder to complete an in-app lesson at 23:00 on a Saturday or to log breakfast at dinnertime.
Generally speaking, send-timing on push notifications can either be immediate, time-based or data-based.
- Immediate: All targeted users will receive this notification immediately upon send-out, no matter where they are in the world. This would be useful for time-sensitive information, such as a flash sale or an ongoing live-streamed event.
- Time-zone-based: These are set to send out at the same time across time zones so all targeted users will, for example, receive a happy-hour notification from a restaurant app when the clock strikes 17:00 in their location.
- Data-based: These are sent out automatically at the right time for the user in question, based on the data you have about their usage habits.
- According to the Business of Apps, the best day, with the best push reaction rate, is Tuesday.
3. Personalise, personalise, personalise
Personalization is crucial for driving conversions.
Brands that personalise their push notifications can expect to see a boost in open rates of up to 400%.
This is because personalisation allows brands to build stronger relationships with their users by sending targeted messages that resonate with them and encourage engagement.
Your push notifications should be attention-grabbing. The goal is to make people drop what they’re doing and engage with your app (or to remind them to do so later).
Use colloquial language and emojis (increases open rates by 20%), or even rich media such as video or images, to draw them into your app.
4. Optimise based on data and insights
A/B test, segment your audience, and test and segment again. Collect that data and use it to improve your messaging and your timing.
Are mobile push notifications part of your marketing automation strategy?
Look around. There’s a smartphone in almost every pocket.
We use them for search, shopping, gaming, watching films, as a payment solution and, of course, to stay connected with other people.
With the 24/7 accessibility following our attachment to the smartphone, Mobile push notifications are a highly effective way to keep your users active and loyal to your business — especially if you’re pushing personalised messages based on user behaviour and preferences.
With Agillic’s Omnichannel Marketing Automation platform, you can start using app push notifications from day one. Why? Because everything our platform does is customer-centric.
That means one customer, one set of personalisation rules.
This way, you can easily apply and reuse your personalisation rules and content across all channels. You create content for the mobile push notifications similar to how you create content for other channels and push out personalised messages based on the individual user’s behaviour and preferences.
And you can do it all without learning to code. Our mobile push notifications channel is as intuitive as it is powerful for driving engagement and sales.
Click here to learn more about app push notifications and how your brand can use them to increase revenue, reduce churn and maximise ROI.
