10 tips for better Web Push Notifications

The last few years, we have seen a huge increase in web push notifications adoption. By working closely with several big brands and hundreds of developers, we've spotted a few things that can help you take full advantage of what web push notifications has to offer.

Here's what you can do to improve your web push implementation and start reaching more visitors.

1. Use Pre-Permission

With all the most recent changes in web browsers, we are encouraging our customers to adopt a two step prompting system when initially requesting users to allow web notifications. This will prevent your website from using a quieter permission prompt in certain browsers, from not working at all in other browsers and most importantly from being totally blocked by users.

Adding a pre-permission with Notificare is easy, instead of using our registerForNotifications() method, you can choose to adopt our two different opt-in methods. These two built-in options allow you provide this pre-permission without having to build it all yourself.

There is the launchWithFloatingButton() which will display a always-on button in your website where users can click to receive notifications when they think they are ready. Or if you prefer to be a bit more intrusive, you can use the launchWithAutoOnBoarding() which will prompt users with a modal window requesting users to accept notifications.

Both these methods will allow you to offer an extra step before your website requests the native prompt. By simply using a pre-permission method, you can see a considerable increase in the amount of subscriptions.

2. Pick the Right Moment to Opt-in

Independently if you are using our built-in auto launch method or prompting the native permission dialogue, picking the right moment to do so might be most crucial decision you'll have to make when implementing web push notifications. From what we've seen, the best moment to do this would be after a users signs up, likes a product or article, visits their account information page or when they click through a couple of pages.

3. Allow users to subscribe to topics

When implementing web push notifications or notifications in general, providing users with a mechanism to subscribe to certain types of messages is a great starting point to create successful campaigns. We have witnessed higher open rates in those websites that allow users to choose the type of messages they want to receive.

With our SDK, this is pretty easy to achieve by using what we call Tags. By simply allowing users to add or remove themselves from these tags, you will automatically categorize your audience. This not only allows you to send highly relevant messages but it also prevent potential opt-outs after your first campaign.

4. Consider Time Zones

If you are running a multi-domain website or you have a global audience, you will want to reach users at the right moment. No one wants to receive notifications when they are sleeping and the best way to achieve that is by taking into account the user's time zone. By scheduling messages using the browser's local time, we can guarantee that your message will reach users at the same time in any location around the world.

5. Add Images on the Lock Screen

Although this is not supported for all desktop users, your Android users will love it. We have seen up to 30% more conversions when customers use Lock Screen Images in their campaigns. This can be done, on a per message basis, via our dashboard or API.

6. Make it Sticky

Make your notifications more prominent for desktop users by delivering messages that require the users' interaction before being dismissed. This is something you can quickly turn ON and OFF in our message composer under the Options tab. Although you should be a bit conservative when using this option (to prevent user fatigue), you can easily achieve up to 2x more conversions.

7. Keep it Short

All your notifications should have a short message. Use up to 45 characters to make your point. Your open rate will significantly decrease the longer your message is. Keep your message on a 6-8 words range to achieve maximum conversion.

8. Implement a Message Inbox

Make all visitors count by implementing a message inbox. When using our SDK, implementing a list of messages and an unread count badge is pretty simple. Websites that implement such features enjoy up to 20% more open rates than the websites that do not. When your website implements a message inbox even those users with browsers that don't support web push notifications can see and interact with your messages.

9. Localize your Messages

Create multi-language campaigns by using our localized content feature. In one single message, you can target your users based on their browser's language and region combination. Additionally, you can even provide your own custom region and language combinations based on the domain they entered and language they selected. Delivering localized messages can increase your conversion and considerably reduce opt-outs.

10. Event-Driven Messages

Take full advantage of our platform by tapping into our Actionable Analytics. By default, our SDK will register certain events that will allow you to create a handful of interactions straight out of the box. A welcome message after a subscription is completed or an anti-churn message after a visit to your website is all possible by simply using our Automation add-on.

But you can take this even further by creating custom events for anything you can think of. Besides being able to measure and visualize all those KPIs your business cares about, you can also easily transform these into meaningful web push notifications. Great examples of that would be when users visit a page, like an article, add a product to the cart or complete an order. When you collect this kind of data it is pretty easy to transform these events into highly relevant messages.

Minimize the development time needed to create Product Scarcity, Shopping Cart Abandonment, Order Confirmation or any other type of campaign by harnessing the power of Actionable Analytics.

Ready to maximize your website?

Web Push Notifications can offer incredible new ways to maximize your website's ROI, increase traffic and take users directly to the place where they left off. If you want to see this in action, please book a demo with our Sales Team. We would love to demonstrate all these features today. Or if you prefer you can always contact our Support Team with any question you might have.