How to Benefit from Web Push Notifications and Increase User Engagement

Web Push Notifications

So your website traffic is not what you expect it to be and all your efforts to drive in more traffic end up being in vain. You research and find out that web push notifications are effective and start using them.

After a couple of campaigns, you notice no significant difference. What to do next? 

Web push notifications are certainly effective for driving in more traffic, yet they are very hard to get right. This is why not many websites fully trust them.

Indeed, while mobile push notifications have established themselves as a robust mobile marketing channel, web push notifications still fall behind other digital marketing channels. 

People distrust web push notifications since they are unable to utilize them with their full potential.

Most of the time those notifications are annoying or completely irrelevant to the users’ needs. As a result, they end up being blocked without any further thought. 

On the other side of the spectrum, there are websites that generate tons of traffic and get high user engagement through push notifications.

Those websites base a big portion of their digital marketing strategy on web push notifications.

So, what is the reason for this drastic difference? Check out our eight tips to understand the essentials of getting the most out of web push notifications.

  • Web Push Notifications: Get Permission

Permission, in this case, is an opt-in button that the visitor clicks to receive notifications from the website. Typically, the button appears after the user enters your website.

Nonetheless, you can’t just put an opt-in button and wait for the visitors to turn on your notifications.

In order to ensure that more users give consent to receive your notifications, you need to set the button to appear at the right time.

Most websites fail here by asking to allow/block the notifications right after the website loads.

The point is that you need to give visitors a little time to understand what your website is and what it offers. Only then should you ask them to opt in. 

Also, be clear about the content they will receive. This a tough task considering that you face character limit.

If you manage to do both correct timing and clear ideas, it will triple your chances of attracting the users to opt in for your notifications. 

  • Send the Notifications at a Relevant Time

If you want your notifications to succeed, you shouldn’t send them at a random time during the day. Instead, you must carefully consider the timeframes that are likely to bring you more traffic.

For example, notifications in the morning or during a busy working hours are less likely to succeed.

On the contrary, the ones sent during lunchtimes or early in the evening where people are less busy have higher chances of getting clicks. 

Besides picking the right times of a day to send notifications, you also need to consider the time zones. Regardless of anything, your customers are most probably from different parts of the world.

Thus, you need to choose the right time based on the country where you send the notification. This is a critical point because you don’t want to wake someone up with your notification in the middle of the night. 

  • Localize the Language of Your Notifications

Similar to different time zones, if your website users are from different countries you should customize the content language as well.

Receiving content in their native language will increase their interest to a considerable degree. 

In case localizing the content in many languages is a hard task for you, there is a way out. You can identify the users’ browser language and send the notifications according to that.

This will simplify the task a lot. Once your notifications’ language is customized, it will have a positive impact on the incoming traffic by showing a personal approach to the visitors and building loyalty. 

  • Consider the Frequency of Notifications

People receive tons of information on a daily basis from various sources (e.g. social media, news websites, emails and so on). They don’t have too much time to pay attention to your push notifications on their computers.

Therefore, consider how often you want to send out your push messages not to lose visitors. 

If you send too many of them in a day, you’ll bore the users and make them unsubscribe from your messages. However, if you send them too rarely, they will forget about your website and lose interest in it.

Hence, pick an average frequency to ensure smooth experience with your messages. Typically, 1-3 notifications a day is a fair number. 

  • Keep the Text Component Short

Put yourself in the shoes of your audience receiving a push notification from you while being busy with something else. Once you do that, you’ll realize that they will only take a quick glance at your message.

Therefore, it needs to catch their eyes instantly to convince them to click through. 

In order to grab the users’ attention, keep the text components short, concise and on point.

Keep in mind that your audience most likely won’t bother to read a long notification when they are busy. Browsers have a 70-character limit for push notifications.

However, you don’t need to use all of that space to create an effective message. Typically, 6-10 words should be enough.

Besides the text limit, you should also consider the content. Use call-to-action phrases to motivate them to click on your message and go to your website.

Carefully pick each word to have the best result.

  • Personalize the Notifications

Let’s admit it, everyone likes to feel special. It is an extra touch that marketers do to increase customer engagement and brand loyalty. The same applies to websites and push notifications.

Personalize your messages to make your audience feel special and show that your website cares about their interests. 

Nowadays, most push notification providers can segment the audience by their browser’s language, location, browsing history and so on.

Those tools help to add that extra touch and get the most out of push notifications. This can increase your click rates to a considerable degree. 

  • Preview Each Notification More than Once

When designing a push notification, never be too confident that it looks exactly how you planned it to. Even if it seems to do, different browsers and operating systems may change the way they appear on the screens.

A notification may even not fit the same way in different screens and discredit the website’s reputation.

To avoid such inconveniences, preview each and every notification more than once before sending them out. This implies checking how the message fits for different browsers and operating systems.

This is a safety measure that you need to take not to lose visitors because of a careless mistake. 

  • Wrapping Up: Keep Track of Your Campaign Results

As much as this point seems obvious, most website editors keep track of their campaign results only for statistics.

However, there are numerous other cases where that immense amount of data can be useful. 

The statistical data is the ultimate source of information for more effective campaigns. It can show the users’ engagement for each post, thus showing their preference patterns.

Knowing what the audience likes the most, editors can target their future campaigns more precisely.

This, in turn, will increase the user engagement and overall traffic of the website.

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