6 Tips when Implementing Push Notifications in your Mobile App

Using Push Notifications in your Mobile Application can increase your Weekly – Monthly – Quarterly active users and help to drive more business to well…  your business.  I mentioned in a previous post that Revenue per Mobile Application user is not necessarily the best indicator of the success or ROI for building your mobile application. Here are six (6) tips for providing the best user experience when using Push Notifications in your mobile application.

But first, what are Push Notifications and how are they different from in-application messages?  An In-application message is a message that is specific to the use of your mobile app, for example messages telling the user new version updates are available or messages confirming the completion of an action within the application.  A Push Notification is a targeted, purposeful message directed at the user, communicating interesting or useful information to the mobile app user potentially part of a marketing campaign.

Six (6) tips

1. 1. Have a Strategy:   Make sure that you have a strategy around sending Push Notifications.  The notifications should align with the goals for your marketing campaign.  Consistency is key.  If you are going to send out notifications send them at approximately the same time every day
   2. Timing is everything:   Don’t send notifications at night.  If you wake up a user with your notification, they are either going to delete your app because you woke them up, or they will clear and disable your notifications when they wake up.  Studies show the best time of day to send Push Notifications is late morning and early evening.  Unless that notification includes critical or important information for the user.  Examples of this might include flight updates, prescription status, stock notifications, etc.  Send those notifications at any time.  In general, always send notifications inside normal business hours for the best response rates.
   3. Personalized those notifications:   Users want to see messages that mean something to them, not some random message that is targeting an anonymous wide audience.  The notifications should be relevant to the reason why that user is even using your application.  Messages about stocks that they actually own, a booking or reservation.  The notification could be about an upcoming sale for a product that you know that the user is interested in.  You get the picture.  
   4. Be Brief:   This is a time where Less is More.  Don’t make users read through paragraphs to get the key message points that you are trying to get across.  Indicating the purpose for the notification in the first few words is a good way to be a responsible application provider and can pay off in the response rate for a specific notification.
   5. Opting Out:   Always provide a way for the user to “Opt-Out” of receiving your Push Notifications.  Nothing is more annoying than getting unsolicited emails that have no unsubscribe function at the bottom of the email text.  The same holds true for Push Notifications.  Depending on what the application is used for, users may not want to receive notifications.  Remember notifications are different than in-app messages.

Pay attention to Feedback:  If you are not paying attention to the analytics that you are collecting from those Push Notifications, then what is the point.  This data is a gold mine!  Is your messaging on point?  Are you getting the response that you expected / need?  Is this driving any business / new revenue?

Written by Bob Cody

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