A while back we talked about some proven ways to create Push Notifications that would highly engage your users.
But after publishing that blog, we received a lot of requests from our users asking us exactly the ‘right frequency’ of push notifications they should send to double down on their efforts without scaring the users away?
So, in this blog we are going to tell you exactly how often should you send out push notifications.
(TL;DR — The answer is: just one!)
The ideal frequency of push notifications to engage users differs from brand to brand. For example, if you run a news app, you should send 3–4 notifications each day to share relevant breaking news. On the other hand, if you have a fitness brand, sending push notifications once a week is a good way to remind users of their fitness goals.
There is no ‘one size, fits all’ method to Push notifications. According to a Pushcrew report, you must not be sending more than one notification a day irrespective of the nichè of your business.
The study says, the average click rate on your first notification of the day is 9.17% and keeps decreasing with every additional notification that you send on the same day. Which means, if you are looking for clicks then you must send only one notification in a day. You can send multiple notifications for more page views. The cumulative clicks on all your notifications will help but it increases the chances of you annoying your users and may lead to a decreased click rate in the long run.
This also means you need to carefully implement push notifications to get optimum results and you need to get it right in the first attempt every day, which will be the most crucial attempt.
But How?
Push notifications work best when the message is relevant to the receiver and the timing is right.
How do I make sure that the message is relevant?
To answer that question, there are three additional questions Pushcrew came up with that you should ask yourself before hitting that send button —
1) Is the push notification something your customer asked for?
Through a preference center, customers tell you when they want to hear from you, how often, and about what.
Starbucks lets their users choose what notifications they would like to get notified about through their preference center.
If they ask for alerts about every sale, breaking news story, or game in progress — you have your answer.
2) Is the communication expected?
Customers will appreciate push message confirmations of a reservation or product shipment, and they might also expect to hear from you on a regular (say, weekly) basis. Send Push notifications based on their expected cadence so your message is not perceived as an interruption.
3) Is this message helpful to your customer?
How does your app provide utility, benefit or delight to the customer?
When a push notification serves your customer, you’ve got the green light. When the push is self-serving, such as a promotional message a customer didn’t request, tread lightly and push sparingly or you may loose excess to sending them anything, forever.
Answering these three questions alone will help you figure out if the message that you have carefully crafted for your customer is relevant to them or not.
How do I make sure that my timing is right?
According to Localytics, after reviewing 100 million push messages, they came to a conclusion that Thursday is the best day to generate clicks and the best time is 10AM-1PM, with an average click rate of 15%.
It was just a little over a year ago when Friday had the highest click rate and the afternoon was the best time to send a push message. Not only must you test to find out the best timing for your push notifications, you also must continuously learn about your audience and adapt over time.
The mobile world changes at the speed of light — testing is the key to keeping up with consumers. Be it playing with the content, design or timing of your push notifications.
Good Luck with your pushes! Let me know if figuring out the relevancy and right timing for your push notifications worked wonders for you!
