What is a Push Notification?

By all means, if you’ve got a mobile application, then you need to know what Push Notification is. Of course, some of you may already know what a push notification is and how it works. But, are you effectively using them to your advantage? Basically, Push Notifications are a great marketing tool for anyone with a mobile app because they help you stay in contact with your users.

That said, in order to stay ahead, just make sure that you follow this strategy carefully to the end. You’ll learn quite a lot in terms of how you can utilize these tools to get more customers and even increase your conversion rates. Not forgetting, if you go overboard and use this method too often, it can cause users to mute your Push Notifications.

Obviously, having customers run away from your web-related business is something you’ll want to avoid at all costs. In that case, for those of you that aren’t sure what push notifications are and don’t know how to use them, I’m here to help. That’s why I created this guide.

Not to mention, as an industry expert, I’ll explain everything you need to know about push notifications. That way you’ll know how to use them to improve your existing mobile application. Let’s dive in. But first, let’s define what this tool is.

What Is Push Notification?

A Push Notification is a form of a message that pops up on a mobile device. App publishers can send them at any time; users don’t have to be in the app or using their devices to receive them. They can do a lot of things; for example, they can show the latest sports scores, get a user to take any action, such as downloading a coupon or let a user know about an event, such as a flash sale.

In short, a Push Notification looks like SMS text messages and mobile alerts, but they only reach users who have installed your app. Each mobile platform has support for push notifications. Like — iOS, Android, Fire OS, Windows, and BlackBerry all have their own services. Below is the History of Push Notification that you should know about.

June 2009: Apple launches Apple Push Notification Service (APNs), the first push service.
May 2010: Google released its own service, Google Cloud to Device Messaging (C2DM).
May 2013: Google introduces “rich notifications”. Rich notifications can contain images, as well as action buttons. Action buttons let users take immediate action from a notification. For example, the user can play a song, open the app, or see more information.
September 2014: Apple added interactive buttons. These buttons allow users to send a response right away to the app publisher. Shortly after, Apple extended push notifications to the Apple Watch.

Read and Learn more about What is a Push Notification. And Why It Matters?

Why is Push Notification useful?

First, a Push Notification provides convenience and value to app users.

For example, users can receive:

Sports scores and news right on their lock screen
Utility messages like traffic, weather, and ski snow reports
Flight check-in, change, and connection information

Secondly, for app publishers, push notifications are a way to speak directly to a user. They don’t get caught in spam filters, or forgotten in an inbox — click-through rates can be twice as high as email.

In addition, they can also remind users to use an app, whether the app is open or not.

They can also be used to drive actions, such as:

Promoting products or offers to increase sales
Improving customer experience
Converting unknown app users to known customers
Sending transactional receipts right away
Driving users to other marketing channels, such as social networks

How does Push Notification work?

Some of the actors in sending a push notification include:

Operating system push notification service (OSPNS). Each mobile operating system (OS), including iOS, Android, Fire OS, Windows, and BlackBerry, has its own service.
App publisher. The app publisher enables their app with an OSPNS. Then, the publisher uploads the app to the app store.
Client app. This is an OS-specific app, installed on a user’s device. It receives incoming notifications.

1. Adding to an app

The app publisher registers with the OS push notification service.
The OS service provides an application programming interface (API) to the app publisher. The API is a way for the app to communicate with the service.
The app publisher adds the SDK to the app. The SDK is a code library specific to the OS’ push notification service.
The app publisher uploads the app to the app store.

2. User activation

The user visits an OS app store, downloads and then installs an app.
The user opens the app. Unique identifiers (IDs) for both the app and the device, are registered with the OS push notification service.
The unique identifiers are passed back to the app from the OS push notification service. They are also sent to the app publisher.
The app publisher receives and stores these registration details, including the unique identifiers.

3. Sending

The app publisher composes a manual message through a message composer user interface. Or, the publisher sets up an automated message to be sent via the API.
The publisher defines the audience to whom the push notification will be sent.
The publisher determines whether the message should be sent immediately or scheduled.

Push notifications can be targeted to segments of your user base, and even personalized for specific app users.

This is a major advantage when compared to SMS text messaging. However, they also require the management of user identification data. And they need some kind of interface for writing messages, targeting them and sending them.

4. Publication

Publishers can build this infrastructure themselves, or they can hire a vendor such as Urban Airship to provide it.

Increasingly, app publishers pay for these services instead of building them, so that they can focus on building a great app.

However, — building and maintaining a cross-platform push notification service takes significant resources and ongoing maintenance.

Platform vendors also provide capabilities such as:

Reporting
Scheduling
Mobile marketing automation
User attribute collection and segmentation
Data management
Security
Cross-platform support

5. Opting in

iOS apps require a user to grant permission for an app to send them to push notifications, while Android and Fire OS do not. Convincing users to opt-in is important for the success of apps on iOS.

The majority of iOS apps show a standard iOS alert when the app is first opened. A better approach is to show the value of opting in — for example, with a customized welcome series upon first open. And then again, — let the user opt-in later.

Median opt-in rates for iOS range from 58% for charity apps to 33% for games. High performing apps across all industry verticals (those in the 90th percentile) have opt-in rates above 50%.

As an example, travel, business, and charity app opt-in rates lead verticals with rates greater than 70%. That said, let’s look at how Rich Push Ads work below.

How Rich Push Ads Work

Users, that are allowed or subscribed to receive push notifications will see all your push ads. In most cases, Rich Push Ads contains a Title, Description, logo, and Image. When a user taps the push notification, he gets redirected to your app or website.

As an advertiser, push ads notifications are a very good idea for you. For one thing, you’ll deliver your ad message even when a subscriber is not using the website or the app. You’ll keep your customers connected, and not annoyed. As you deliver relevant and timely messages, hence have stronger conversions.

And, as I mentioned, they can be accessed on all devices while allowing for easy A/B testing by customizing creative images and ad content. They also provide statistics for campaign optimization right away. So, how does Rich Push Ads really work? Well, consider the following illustration.

With Rich Push Ads, you can easily run engaging Push Notification Campaigns in order to reach more target users and also get higher conversion rates. More so, with the help of clickable messages that are sent by an app or a website. For this reason, they allow you to effectively re-engage your users with customized content in real-time.

Native Push Notification Ad Format

With Froggy Ads, you can now Buy Native Push Notification Ads so easily — you’ll also be able to Buy Traffic From Only $0.003 Per Click as well.

Trusted by advertisers – more then 50k daily active campaigns

Native Push Notification Ad Format is designed to grab users’ attention by appearing on their desktop, tablet, or mobile screens. Now available for all countries in the world with internet connection. You’ll be happy to hear that the average pricing is 45% less than regular CPC (Cost Per Click) for native ads or banner ad clicks.

How a Push Notification Appears to Users

Mainly, users see a notification as a banner or pop-up alert as they are using their phone. This alert is shown no matter what the user is doing.

Basically, most mobile operating systems also show push notifications together in a single view. On iOS, Apple has a Notification Center. The Notification Center is organized in chronological order. Therefore, meaning users get to the Notification Center by swiping down from the top of the screen.

As an example, Android devices show unread messages on the lock screen. While on the other hand, iOS lets users customize push notifications at an individual app level. Users can turn sounds on or off, and pick the style that iOS uses to show a notification.

Equally important, users can also control the red “badge” showing the number of unread notifications on an app’s home screen icon. Android uses a standard banner approach that users cannot change at an OS level.

How do I Use location with Push Notification?

Important to realize, all mobile operating systems ask users for their permission to share location information. For instance, iOS presents an opt-in alert to users.

Not forgetting, Android offers location opt-in as part of the app’s permissions setup during installation.

With this in mind, publishers like jmexclusives can deliver more relevant messages by using location data combined with behavioral data.

Examples include:

A home improvement app sends offers for cooling units during a regional hot spell.
A specialty boutique invites users within 50 miles of an invite-only VIP trunk sale.
A national sporting goods chain invites local shoppers in for local pro athlete autographs.

Which is the Best Push Notification Strategy?

First, push notifications are a direct path of communication with users. App publishers should treat the ability to communicate with users via push notifications as a privilege, not a right. However, app publishers must provide value; if they don’t, push notifications will be ignored or turned off.

Secondly, some users will uninstall the app altogether. Not forgetting, analytics and measurement are important tools for improving your app’s performance. But it’s important to write compelling push notifications that are valuable to users and that drive action.

By all means, the messaging strategies and tactics need to be measured and tested. Strategies such as maximizing opt-in rates, ensuring new users are properly onboarded, and reducing app user churn rates are all key to an app’s success.

Other strategies include:

Matching up each user’s data across channels (web, mobile, store, etc.) to better understand user behavior
Making it easy for users to share content with their social networks
Encouraging users to opt-in by offering them incentives and examples of the value your notifications will provide

Want to learn more about how Push Notifications can help you connect with customers at each stage of the customer lifecycle? Well, you can Consult Us today, and Let’s Talk more in detail! We’ll customize everything for your business so that you’ll never worry again.

Resources;

Finally, I hope you’ve gathered enough information in regards to the Benefits of using a Push Notification.

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