Push notifications: types, services, settings

Push notifications are short messages that carry some message. They are mobile and desktop. Both options are popular. Marketers have long chosen Push notifications to send notifications about promotions and discounts.

Creating such messages is easy. The main thing is to determine the goal (what you need it for), develop a text, and connect a specific service. And to make your notifications more effective, you can “conjure” the offer a little more.

What is a push notification?

Push notifications transmit information in which messages open on top of all browser tabs on a PC or smartphone. It is now one of the most widely used technologies for communicating with users. Pop-up messages usually include important information about promotions, events, and updates.

Key elements of push notifications:

• title;
• illustrations;
• main text;
• links.

The items listed above are optional. For example, push notifications may not include text or illustrations.

It is less stressful for users to receive push notifications than ad windows, which are often difficult to close. The pop-up message displays a preview of the main text and an image. By clicking on it, the user quickly navigates to important information of interest to him.

The main characteristic of push notifications is that they are instantaneous. Unlike SMS messages, they are not stored and, therefore, unsuitable for sending access codes.

What do marketers use push notifications for?

• Increase in sales;
• reminding the visitor of the online store about the “abandoned” basket;
• providing information about new entries;
• promotion of promotions, notification of discounts;
• A reminder of an upcoming event, etc.

Pros and cons of such notifications

Advantages:

• Users view push notifications far more frequently than banners for various services, including contextual advertising. A compact pop-up window contains minimal text and an eye-catching picture so the recipient understands the essence of the notification a short time before the window closes.
• Push notifications are among the budget promotion channels available. After installing the module on the company’s website, notifications are sent completely free of charge. When using specialized services, the payment amount will be minimal (depending on the number of subscribers).
• Relevant information Push notifications are received only by subscribers who have confirmed their consent to the newsletter. In other words, your information goes exclusively to the interested audience.

Minuses:

• Users are irritated by the instant opening of a pop-up window when entering a site page, accompanied by a sound signal, and only sometimes convenient settings for closing a message.
• They can work directly on web resources where the HTTPS protocol is installed. In other cases, push notifications must be configured on third-party services that send messages through their domain.
• Push notifications are directly tied to an open browser on a PC or mobile phone application. The recipient cannot see specific information when the web browser closes or the smartphone is turned off when sending messages.
• After clearing cookies and updating or reinstalling the operating system, the user will no longer receive push notifications until he resubscribes.
• The number of characters allowed in push notifications is limited. They should be as short and catchy as possible so that the user wants to open a message with important information. The maximum text size for such notifications is 125 characters.
• Push notifications are displayed briefly before disappearing and not being saved anywhere. The “visibility” of messages lasts from a few seconds to a couple of minutes. If the user accidentally closes the notification that interests him before he has time to study, useful information will be lost forever.

Types of push notifications

• System pushes are automated messages sent by operating systems, mobile applications, and computer programs informing users of updates and other changes.
• Mobile app notifications. Almost every smartphone owner knows what push notifications are on the phone. These are short messages that come from installed apps. The user must first confirm their consent to the display to receive them. You can do this in the application settings. One of the goals of mobile push notifications is to motivate the user to use a particular application more actively.
• Web pushes. Such notifications are shown to users who have given appropriate permission to certain sites. The request to demonstrate push messages appears in the form of a pop-up window when you open the site page in the browser. The user is offered “Allow” and “Block.” By clicking on the permission button, a person receives the status of a web push subscriber from an Internet resource. Notifications will appear in the lower-right corner of the desktop. The site owner controls the frequency of such posts. You can opt out of push notifications using your browser settings.

Types of push notifications

Let’s take a look at the four most common types of push notifications:

• Transaction messages In such notifications, users receive information on financial matters related to a particular service or application. So, banking utilities can report payments, withdrawals, or money transfers from an account. Stores notify customers that their purchase has been paid for, and online resources notify customers of the automatic withdrawal of funds from their credit card to renew their subscription, etc.
• Advertising push notifications are well-known to everyone. These pop-ups appear when you receive push notifications about discounts, promotions, or sales. Such messages are sent to all customers during the period the marketer chooses (usually before the start of the promotion).
• Personalized push notifications are sent only to certain groups of customers. For example, they can be received by users who have just downloaded the application. In this case, the message will include a greeting and a text that motivates you to place your first order. In turn, regular customers can receive a notification of a “personal” offer.
• Notifications with an offer to rate a product, service, visited store, application, etc. This is a popular tool for interacting with the target audience and is aimed at business development. Companies may ask customers to rate a product or service in a store sometime after purchasing.

How to Create a Push Notification

The push notification service falls under the category of dedicated marketing tools. To ensure its effectiveness, several conditions must be met.

• Conduct target audience research and segmentation. Create push notifications for different consumer groups with different texts.
• Predict when your business’s customers are most likely to respond to messages. An office worker whose work day starts early in the morning should refrain from sending a notification at night.
• It is important to think through all the details so that the recipient immediately realizes the value of the notification. The uniqueness of the offer is a strong motivating factor to make a deal.
• Usernames must be added to push notifications. Personal messages attract attention well, and opening them is always more pleasant.
• Make sure that subscribers have a choice of what kind of messages they want to receive. The ability to unsubscribe from receiving certain information is a significant advantage of push notifications compared to SMS mailings.
• Use a minimal set of words to provide important information to the recipient. The number of characters limits push notifications, but using the maximum allowed text length is not mandatory. In this case, brevity is important, so you need to write only to the point.

The technical side of developing and configuring push notifications does not cause any particular difficulties. Specialized services will help to cope with this.

Services for sending push notifications

OneSignal

The service allows you to create and send push notifications for free; you need to subscribe. Both web and mobile notifications are available here. Even though OneSignal is an English-language resource, working with it is easy. For all types of mailings, here are detailed descriptions with a demo view of the functions.

Benefits of OneSignal:

• There are three types of mailings: global, trigger, and group.
• The service supports mobile push notifications for different platforms, including Android, iOS, and Windows Phone.
• There is access to the HTTPS protocol.
• It is possible to analyze mailing statistics.

In general, the functionality of the OneSignal service is limited. There are no options for connecting multi-threaded mail or viewing the history of notifications. The service does not provide templates for automated notifications. Users cannot customize subscription requests or message threads.

LetReach

You can use one of three pricing plans to set up and send push notifications in the LetReach app. They differ in the number of domains used and the availability of additional tools (for example, you can use the settings for AdoB testing messages). Consider the tariff plans for this service:

• Standard (price from $15/month). This tariff plan provides the ability to send notifications to Chrome, Safari, and Mozilla browsers and mobile gadgets. There is a distribution of notifications based on their characteristics, geolocation, and segmented targeting. Clients receive real-time notifications. Users can disable push notifications with one click.
• The Pro plan starts at $60 per month. In addition to the tools of the “standard” tariff plan, it becomes possible to remove the service’s branding, automate marketing actions, and conduct A/B testing.
• You must pay $ 175 per month for the Elite package. In this plan, you can customize branding and have access to retargeting and e-commerce modules.

SendPulse

You can configure messaging for Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Yandex here. Browser browsers. The main features that the SendPulse service offers are:

• Editing subscription requests. Before setting up push notifications on this service, you can set the type of request, the place where the pop-up window appears on the monitor, and the display time (directly when the visitor enters the site or after a certain time after clicking on a specific link or icon).
• Automation of notification distribution. The service tools enable you to set up automatic notifications based on RSS feeds and create a series of browser pushes for new subscribers.
• Segmentation and personalization of messages. It is possible to configure segmentation by browser types and regional characteristics. You can personalize messages using the customer’s email address and first and last name.
• Notification testing. To increase the CTR of mailings, users can access A and B testing tools for two and three test groups.

Push.Expert

Push.Expert works with almost all popular web browsers: Internet Explorer, Yandex Browser, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc. The service provides:

• Six tariff packages that differ in the allowable number of notifications
• Free access to analytical calculations is included in all tariff plans.
• Various push notification settings are available, including adding your logo, creating a welcome message, and editing the notification subscription block (changing the text block, setting the appearance time, and so on).

The above services have a simple interface and do not cause problems in operation. Each has a documentation tab for downloading the script and instructions for installing it on the site. An understandable constructor is used for message settings, in which you can enter a title in the appropriate fields, text, and a logo. When available, a set of variables is used to personalize notifications.

10 Tips for Creating Effective Push Notifications

1. Use ideograms and emoticons. If you do not overdo it with emojis, they help attract visitors’ attention. Testing shows that this element works for most of the audience. It is critical to do it sparingly so the notification does not turn into hookah or nail salon posts.
2. Texts should be kept as brief as possible. You need to learn to convey the essence of the message and form interest in a potential client from the first words.
3. Always consider the context. Use pleasant events and informational occasions (for example, various holidays).
4. Only send out a few push notifications. A potential client should not get tired of you. If he gets tired of receiving hundreds of messages, he will disable push notifications.
5. Use reliable services to set up push notifications. The delay in sending messages and their “loss” will negatively affect the business.
6. Include custom buttons in push notifications that allow users to interact with your app without opening it. For example, you can set the “Buy” icon so the client can open the checkout form without getting confused in different program sections.
7. Use push notifications that open without visiting the app. This will allow you to avoid restrictions on the number of characters and add eye-catching visual elements (for example, photos and videos of the product).
8. Use deep linking to redirect the visitor to a specific section of the application. Often, developers still set links to the home page of their resource in push notifications. In this case, the user cannot immediately figure out what to do and closes the application.
9. Get creative. In some situations, a blank push can be more effective at attracting attention than text with information about discounts. Use memes, gifs of cats, and other popular elements of popular culture in your messages.
10. Use the power of artificial intelligence to make your push notifications more relevant based on the analysis of the behavioral factors of the target audience.

In this article, we talked about what push messages are, how to enable push notifications, and how to set them up for the benefit of your business. You must correctly apply this knowledge and think over a strategy for working with this tool.