With recent establishment of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and increasing awareness regarding cyber-security, it has shaken email marketing out of its hot seats. However, push notifications were waiting in the wings to pick up the slack for remarketing, building its way to being the new remarketing tool in 2019.
The lesser known fact is that push notifications have always been rising in the ranks of marketing power tools since 2014. Only in recent months, due to a new burst of AI-based push platforms, push notifications have become an unbeatable way to engage, re-engage, and retain customers.
As with all advertising efforts, using push notifications comes with a huge caveat – your push notifications MUST add value for the user, otherwise it becomes a negative force in your marketing efforts by prompting unsubscribes.
You need to see results from your push notifications, yes, but this is not done by simply spamming to anyone. More importantly, you need to be sending these notifications at the right time, with the right content, to the right user. Sounds tough? Well, AI is making that easier to achieve. And the click-through rates are irresistible.
So then, what exactly are Web Push Notifications or Browser Push Notifications?
Web push notifications also known as Browser push notifications, are notifications that can be sent to a user via desktop web and mobile web. These are alert style messages that slide in at the top or bottom right hand corner of a desktop screen, depending on the operating system, or appear on a mobile device in a manner nearly identical to push notifications delivered from apps. Web push notifications are delivered on a user’s desktop or mobile screen anytime they have their browser open — regardless of whether or not the user is on the website.
What are App Push Notifications?
An App push notification is 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.
Push notifications look 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 — iOS, Android, Fire OS, Windows and BlackBerry all have their own services.
The difference between web push notifications and app push notifications
All that’s required to send web push notifications is a website that has web push code installed in it. This means that brands that don’t have apps can leverage many of the benefits of web push notifications (eg: real-time, personalized, in-the-moment communications). App push notifications are sent via code installed in apps, that means they can only reach users who have installed the app.
How web push notifications work?
Any company with a website can send web push notifications after installing code (a web-based SDK) from a web push service on their website to enable them. No app is required. For users, clicking or tapping on a web push notification takes a visitor to whatever web page (URL) the brand has determined.
Web push notifications do not get caught in spam channels or overlooked in an inbox, and their CTRs can be twice as high as email. They can remind clients to utilize an app, regardless of whether the app is open or not. They can likewise be utilized to drive activities, for example,
• Promoting items or offers to build deals
• Improving client experience
• Converting potential customers to loyal customers
• Sending value-based receipts immediately
• Driving clients to other advertising channels, for example, social media network
How app push notification work?
To understand how app push notifications work in action, let’s get these basic terminologies right.
• Client app: The app which receives the push notification.
• App server: To be able to send push notification to the users who have installed your app, you have to create an app server. This server sends the message to the GCM (Google Cloud Messaging) which then transmits it to the client app.
To be able to receive push notifications, the app must be configured and registered with a Push Notification Service Provider. The most widely used service provider globally is GCM (Google Cloud Messaging), or FCM (Firebase Cloud Messaging), a Google-run entity. FCM is the advanced version of GCM with additional features. Then there is APNS run by Apple for iOS.
Web push notifications are not Web notifications (On site notifications):
Web notifications are also messages delivered to user’s desktop or device to re-engage him. But unlike web push notifications, here, the concerned web page should be open in the browser. If the user is active on some other tab, he won’t get messages from the concerned web page. Also, for web push notifications, the website doesn’t need to be SSL. It works fine for both SSL (https) and non-SSL (http) sites.
Advantages of using Push Notifications:
• Wide reach across internet users.
Both mobile app and web push notifications can target a large number of users. For instance, around 90% mobile users’ time is spent using various apps, which means that mobile app that send notifications have a chance to reach 9 out of 10 device users. Furthermore, considering the fact that web push notifications are now supported by Chrome, Safari and Firefox browsers, which takes up 73% of all market share, it means that web push notifications have the potential to reach 7 out 10 internet users. Basically, utilising web/ app push notifications can help your business reach a large audience, thereby increasing brand awareness.
• High conversion rates.
This is probably the most significant advantage of push notifications. Even though numbers differ depending on the type of industry, the click-through rates can go as high as 30% with web push and 40% with mobile app. As such, this shows that push notifications are considered to be high converting marketing tool that can significantly increase sales for online businesses. Depending on the traffic of your website, these statistics can translate into a direct line of communication with tens of thousands of customers within weeks or months. As the subscriber list is growing with time, web push notification becomes one of the primary ways to reach out to customers in an unobstructed way.
• Real-time communication.
Push notifications enable a chance of instant communication with customers and prospects. While emails takes some time to be delivered (not even speaking about being delivered to spam folders), push messages can reach clients instantly. And why does this matter? Take for example, you have a special promotion on your ecommerce store that ends today. By sending a short reminder about it to consumers, you can significantly increase your conversions, thereby illustrating how real time communication with clients can benefit you.
All in all, web/ app push notifications are growing in popularity and possess better benefits compared to other types of remarketing tools. As such, it is time to keep up with the trend and start sending out push notifications to your target market!
For other ways to motivate your consumers to engage with your business, you can read our other blogs here: Attracting Customers Through Facebook Store Visit Ads and Your Digital Marketing Strategy
