Earlier this month, the new updates from the iOS 16 operating system came to life during the WWDC 2022. Besides the innovative personalisation features, a big announcement made its breakthrough: Web Push Notifications on iOS will be a reality through Safari Beta 16.
So, what does that mean to you if you work in the marketing field?
The operating system has significant updates, mainly on how notifications will interact with users. With seamless communication in mind, iOS 16 unlocks a whole new level to reach potential customers. We are excited to announce that Safari Beta 16 will be able to support push notifications for web apps, extensions, API integrations, and so much more.
This great news means potential for the websites to increase their push notification subscriber base by 50-100% on average as almost 20% of overall web traffic comes from iOS on a global level and opt-in rate on mobile devices is 4 times higher than desktop.
Keep on reading if you want to learn more about the innovations that web push notifications on iOS 16 and iPadOS are bringing to the table.
A brief introduction to Web Push Notifications
Web push notification example / Frizbit
Often, web push notifications are confused with app push notifications, like those seen in the media and news industry. They might seem similar at first, however, in reality, they offer endless marketing possibilities to conduct retargeting displaying an open rate of 5% to 6% on desktop only.
Web push notifications are clickable alert-type messages sent by a website to the users navigating through it. After the user authorises them through a click, they will display on the user’s device screen, even if the user is not on the website any more.
What are many of its great advantages?
With web push notifications, you can:
Communicate with users in real-time without having a mobile app
Be present in a multi-device customer journey
Notify them even if they are not on your website
The user doesn’t need to register or fill any type of personal data
Comply with the latest privacy regulations as it doesn’t require third-party cookies
They are the latest and most powerful digital channel for websites to re-engage and communicate with subscribers while enhancing conversion funnels. They have the full capacity to bring your customers back.
Web push notifications and iOS operating systems
Pixabay / Pexels
After reviewing the relevance of web push notifications, let’s dive into the nitty-gritty of things. Let’s find out what it means that Apple has decided to support web push notifications on iOS 16 in 2023 on Safari browser.
At the beginning of this year, Apple started testing new functionalities regarding push API on its iOS 15.4 Beta. It was an unexpected update as after seven years, it was the first time to see changes on Safari on macOS. Now that the beta testing is concluded, we are excited to announce that push notifications support on iOS and iPadOS isn’t a long-time expectation any more. They are expected to be launched in early 2023.
So, how can we interpret the appearance of this new feature?
According to SemRush, web push notifications can have up to 80% of reach and CTR seven times higher than other traditional retargeting channels such as email marketing. This comes as no surprise, given that push notifications are widely preferred by users reporting x10 higher engagement. As we mentioned before, they are also in compliance with the privacy regulations, making it the perfect marketing tool.
With the announcement of the web push support on iOS 16, many are celebrating the long-awaited update. However, as expected with Apple’s history and privacy data, this too comes with a trick.
iOS is stepping up against its competitor with Web Push Notifications
Android vs Apple / Tada Images
Web push notifications have been existing on almost all operating systems (Windows, Linux even macOS on desktops and Android on mobiles) and almost all browsers (Chrome, Firefox, MS Edge, Safari, Opera, etc.). The only major operating system which didn’t enable web push notifications was iOS. It had been always an expectation for years that Apple would enable them on iOS, as it already had them enabled on macOS. As a result, Android had been the only mobile OS with web push notifications activated. That’s why the field of web push in mobile had been completely taken by Android by now. On the contrary, Apple had no participation in the mobile market share by not having this implementation. The fact that they have decided to go ahead with this implementation will mean big changes in the market.
Currently, Android is the one software that enables push notifications on web apps. This represents an additional way to communicate messages for web users who don’t prefer to install mobile apps.
This update sets a new direction for Apple in the tech and marketing industry. But would the company be able to step firmly against its biggest competitor?
Only time will tell whether this comes as another successful step by Apple or not. For now, although web push notifications support is a reality, it might not display to users as easily as we would want to.
Where’s the trick?
During the testing phase on iOS 15.4 beta, test users experimented with safari push notifications on mobile devices. Testers found out that the new feature is disabled by default, requiring the user to activate them through the settings tab.
Having said this, predictions expect this feature to function under a toggle basis with a new settings tab. They are expected to work not only on Safari on iOS but also on other browsers such as Chrome,Firefox, Opera etc.
Other marketing features unlocked in iOS 16
iPhone Screen / Wachiwit
Some more exciting features are coming around on iOS 16 for marketers. The main areas that are more appealing are the intake for the privacy of users, home screen and lock screen settings, and finally updates on Apple Pay.
As we know on iOS 15.4, the privacy settings were greatly targeted as part of the operating system updates. On iOS16, we can expect an increase in the protection of the data of users. This is given that Apple wants to minimise as much as possible the data needed by apps to function properly.
The biggest change on iOS 16 privacy settings is related to accessing private data. With the new update, companies won’t be able to retrieve the name that users give to their devices. It means that organisations will no longer be capable of sending notifications or advertisements using the first name gathered from devices.
Let’s move on with the second-biggest change. Apple is coming up with tailored options for the home screen and lock screen. The new release features suggestions on the home screen with pages, apps, and widgets relevant to the focus mode the user chooses.
New focus modes?
Yes, new modes for users to disconnect more frequently from their devices. And as a side effect, we will experience a restricted impact in the interactions of apps. This certainly complicates, even more, the digital marketing scenery of strategies using opt-in notifications.
Lastly, the other outstanding update Apple is performing on iOS 16 is their “buy now, pay later” feature for Apple Pay. Implementing payments through instalments comes as more optimistic news for eCommerce owners, especially after limiting the usage of ads. This update is expected to increase the average ticket size and conversion rates on mobiles.
What all of this means for your marketing campaigns
Apple Pay / CDPic
We have seen that Apple will continue to enhance the privacy of the data app developers can access from the app store. It is clear that reaching users in the traditional ways will only get more complex with time. Therefore, new technologies should be implemented.
On the bright side, there’s finally support for web push notifications on iOS and iPadOS. And it couldn’t come at a better timing, considering the cookieless future in marketing. This new step means for the websites to increase their subscriber base by 50-100% on average, as 18% of overall web traffic comes from iOS.
On the other hand, we have seen that Apple is taking firm steps to enhance consumers’ purchasing habits with mobile devices. If you run an eCommerce, this means you will be able to expand your audience and reach a higher ticket one coming from Apple users.
We are sure that Apple Pay and its instalment system will be beneficial for eCommerce stores by simplifying the purchase step. We are also optimistic that boosting this online purchase practice with push notifications can bring excellent results for business owners.
This is all from us with these iOS 16 updates and new features. Which one was the one you are looking forward to? Which one didn’t resonate with you and your business? Let us know in the comments down below!
The term affiliate marketing has become more popular over the years. It might even seem as if it is the jackpot only a few reckon. In this article, MyLead will reveal everything to be known about this hot topic, and why you should jump into this digital marketing immediately – if you haven’t already.
Affiliate marketing: the passive income source you need
If you’ve never heard of affiliate marketing before, you need to get on this digital marketing latest trend. This market has blown up in the last couple of years, and it’s predicted to grow by 10% every upcoming year. It’s time to get involved and figure out how to monetize your website, apps, and social media accounts effectively and legally.
Affiliate marketing is all about promoting an offer to your audience and making money when someone uses your recommendation. You sign in to an affiliate network and choose an offer you want to promote. Then, you generate a unique affiliate link and post it online. You can then promote it and get paid every time a user takes a particular action with it.
Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money online. You don’t need any investments, and you can do your work whenever you want. All you have to do to get started is sign in to a network and learn how to monetize your content online.
Getting started
Get the info
How to get started in affiliate marketing? Like in any other job, you need to know more about the subject. Read up on articles and blogs to learn all the tricks and tips and figure out what methods will work best for you. Some affiliate networks, like MyLead, offer you 24/7 support, ebooks, and tutorials, so there’s a lot to choose from.
Find a niche
A great way to promote your links with success is finding a niche audience who could be interested in a particular product or service. You’re looking for a group of people who share a specific interest or feature that makes them more likely to use your recommendations. You can either find a niche and then pick partner programs that match it or the other way around.
Internet users have different needs and preferences. Once you choose a group with a shared feature – it gets easier to shape your affiliate marketing campaign in a way that will reach them.
For example, if you know a lot about sports, you could look online for communities that love a specific sport discipline. Once you find them, do your research and determine what kind of products or services could interest them.
It could be a VOD platform to watch new games, sports equipment, or a website to place bets. If you promote these kinds of offers, your chances of making a profit will grow!
Tip: Choose a niche topic that you are passionate about! It will be easier to stay consistent and regularly post content.
Choose a partner program.
While choosing a partner program, consider what you know most about. If you feel comfortable with a topic, it will be easier to make creative content about it to attract an audience. Remember that unique texts, posts, videos, and graphics you make are much more likely to appeal to Internet users than direct links posted in random places.
Your audience is not the only thing you need to consider while choosing the best offer. It would be best to think about a payment model, which will work for your strategy. Affiliate networks usually have a few different models to choose from.
Some of the available models include:
CPS – your commission comes from every sale that is made with your affiliate link,
CPA – you get paid once a user takes a specific action (usually one that requires a payment)
CPL – money comes from every lead you make, so every time you get another client interested in a specific product, it could be filling out a form, registering on a particular platform, etc.
PPI – commission relies on the number of people who downloaded an app.
Every affiliate partner program has an assigned payment model with specific details. When choosing an offer, pay attention to that element, as it predominantly affects your profits.
The tools you’ll need
So, you know what audience you aim your campaigns at, and you’ve chosen a partner program that could interest them and make you profit. What’s the next step? Well, you need to figure out where to post your affiliate links!
Building your strategy is not a one-time action. Even when you’ve selected the platforms you want to use, you have to be flexible. The goal is to find a mix of tools that work best for you and your audience. Setting up a strategy is essential, but maybe an even more critical step is evaluating it and changing what needs to be changed for your campaign to be successful.
Social Media
The first essential step is using social media accounts. No matter who you are and where you come from, you probably have at least one of them. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest – you can use all those platforms in affiliate marketing with excellent results.
The tools that might come in handy are mainly programs that allow you to make your own content – texts, graphics, videos, etc. There are hundreds of them available online for free. If you post your affiliate link as an additional part of your posts, not the main component, it will seem less spammy to the users. You have to build trust, as everyone is more likely to take a recommendation from someone who seems reliable and informed.
Another thing you might need is link cloakers. This tool is used to fool social media platforms’ bots and prevent them from deleting your links. Real users get redirected straight to the site of the offer without having to take any extra steps. Not only that, but many link cloakers also have other functions – they analyze your traffic, block fake entries and take geo-marketing factors into account. Even though this tool is not free, it’s worthwhile and practical if you want to make money from affiliate marketing on social media.
Your website
If you have your own blog or a website, there are even more possibilities for you to make money with affiliate marketing. You can use tools like content lockers, which allow you to block a premium part of your content to the user until they take a certain action. If you’ve ever read an article online and been stopped by a message that you have to pay to read more – that’s a content locker. Some affiliate networks, like MyLead, give you access to make one of your own. There are a few types available, but they all work on both mobile and desktop devices and allow you to make more money on your campaign.
You can also use paid methods, like banner ads, to promote your link online. There are templates available in affiliate networks for you to use. They can be posted on your own website, or you can pay to have them displayed on other platforms. Of course, it will take away some of your profit, but it will also increase the chances of earning more money, so make sure you plan your finances well.
An example of a banner ad that you could use!
Apps
Affiliate marketing can also help you monetize your apps. If you own a mobile game or any other type of app, you can use tools such as Mobile Rewards. It’s made exclusively for mobile devices and allows your users to complete tasks and get benefits within your app in turn. The tasks can be connected to your affiliate account and make you profit! It’s a win-win situation. You earn money on an affiliate program, and your users get extra benefits that you can design! It can be an additional feature or a different level in a game – whatever your audience will enjoy most.
Imagine your user ‘dies’ in your mobile game, and they’re disappointed and frustrated that they didn’t manage to complete their level. In comes Mobile Rewards – they can complete a task and get a chance to continue the game.
Push Notifications
Most people do not use more than half of apps they have on their phones. Push notifications are a great way to remind people about your content. They look a lot like text messages, but shorter. Of course, the user has to give their consent for you to show them push notifications, but once they do, it’s a great way to keep users updated and involved in your offers.
You can set up your own push notifications for both mobile devices and websites once you’ve signed up to MyLead. In case of your push notifications not working, you can always rely on the support of experts, who will help you set everything up perfectly.
Web push notifications are messages sent through browsers. Besides the text, they can also include images and action buttons. What’s great about web push notifications is that they work as a retargeting channel but with added values:
No personal data from users required
Can reach users on both desktop and mobile
They have hyper-personalization capabilities
If you want to dive deeper on the functionality of this new channel, we recommend you check out our Complete Guide on Web Push Notifications. But in this blog post we are going to focus specifically on the types of web push notifications and how you can use and combine them to grow your online business, engage users and increase your revenue.
Types of Web Push Notifications
First of all, what you need to know is that there are two main categories of web push notifications: automated and time- based ones. This distinction is important because each of them have their own subcategories. So let’s get into it!
What are Automated Web Push Notifications?
Automated web push notifications are behaviour-based messages sent to users automatically after they perform a specific predefined action on the website. These notifications require the definition of a trigger event and exception event and a time frame to be sent.
For example, if someone adds a product to their shopping cart and leaves the site without completing a purchase, after the time you define, they will receive a web push notification reminding them about their abandoned cart and inviting them to go back and complete the purchase.
On the other hand, in the same scenario, if the user adds the product to their cart and completes the purchase, the notification won’t be sent. In simpler words:
Triggering event: product added to cart
Exception event: product purchased
Automated web push notifications campaigns only have to be configured one first time, then everything keeps running automatically. You just need to define the messages, for each one, the trigger and event scenarios and the timings.
Just like with emails, cart abandonment web push notifications are the most popular and common ones. However, you can have more than one message for each campaigns you create and it is possible to define as many triggering and exception scenarios as you desire to match your typical user journey:
1. Types of Automated Web Push Notifications
1.1 Welcome Notification
In order to subscribe to a web push notifications channel, users need to click on Allow in the otp-in prompt shown to them when they visit a site that has web push notifications enabled. Once they do, after a few seconds (we recommend 10 seconds), you can send a notification welcoming them!
In this case the trigger event would be “subscription received”. Normally, the welcome notification doesn’t have an exception event because it is sent rather quickly after the action taken by the user and it is always a good idea to seize the opportunity to make that first contact through this new channel.
You can express your gratitude to them for opting in and take the opportunity to redirect them to a specific page on your site like a new collection, a sales section or maybe the about page.
Another option is to offer them a discount coupon for their first purchase or invite them to join your newsletter. The welcome notification is a great way to introduce the channel to your new subscribers and let them know what they can expect from it.
1.2 Category Notification
In a very traditional user journey in an e-commerce site, the second step after landing in the home page would be to visit a category page. With automated web push notifications you can define a scenario accordingly.
If a user visits a category page and then leaves the site without taking any further action, a notification will be sent (after the time you decide) with a message related to the visited category.
In other words is doing category retargeting with a message that can include the complete name of the category, an image representing it and an appealing message that invites the user to come back and take another look.
In this automated scenario the triggering event would be “category viewed” and the exception event “product viewed”, which takes us to the next type of notification.
1.3 Product Notification
The product retargeting notification is sent to users when they visit a product page and then leave the site without doing anything else. In this case the triggering event would be “product viewed” and the exception event would correspond to the obvious next step which is “product added to cart”.
Since product pages have much more detailed and specific information, the product notification can include it making it a lot richer for the user. You can include product image, product name, product brand, price, size and even color if the case. These are all dynamic parameters taken directly from the website so you don’t have to do any manual work.
By making the notification as personalised as possible, you can highly increase the click through rate because it will be more relevant to the user that receives it.
1.4 Cart Abandonment Notification
The following stage in this journey would be to add the product to the shopping cart. The retargeting cart abandonment web push notification is sent to users that add a product to their carts and then leave the site without completing the purchase.
The triggering event would be “product added to cart” and the exception event “product purchased”. This means that the notification won’t be sent if the user goes through with the purchase.
The same as with Product Notifications, you can also include dynamic parameters to make the message as personalised as possible. For cart abandonment web push notifications is also a good strategy to include messages that appeal to a sense of urgency such as “last units”, “get it before we run out”, or “this is your last chance”.
Normally, click-through rates of cart abandonment notifications are the highest because, when users reach this stage of the funnel they already show a higher purchase intent than in other stages. If you design an appealing message you will get amazing results for sure.
1.5 Post-purchase Notification
You are probably already familiar with post-purchase emails. Well, there’s a web push notification version in which you can set an event that automatically sends a message to a customer some time after they made a purchase.
In this scenario, your imagination is the limit! You can send a notification asking for their opinion of the product they purchased and use it as a strategy to get more online reviews about your brand, for example. There’s also the option to announce a new collection, new arrival and invite them to come back and make a new purchase.
Post-purchase web push notifications are great to stay in touch with your customers after they have already converted by sending updates and information that could interest them. The main objective here is to stay in their top of mind and try to make them recurring customers.
1.6 Cross-sell Notification
Cross-sell campaigns are very popular and effective for e-commerce. These campaigns offer value to shoppers and can increase business’ revenue significantly. They consist of sending a message to a customer that finished a purchase, suggesting complementary products.
In this scenario the trigger would be “product purchased” and there wouldn’t be an exception event. To set up web push notification cross-sell campaigns you need to register and track information regarding the product the customer bought and time since the last purchase.
Combining this data you can create a hyper-personalised notification suggesting a product that complements the previous purchase. For example, if the shopper got a moisturizing day cream, you can suggest a moisturizing night cream from the same brand.
1.7 Back to Stock Notification
Back to stock announcements are very effective because they make reference to a very popular and on-demand product that customers are surely eager to get. If you run out of stock from a specific product, it’s safe to assume that there’s a lot of people waiting to buy it, so sending a notification letting them know that it’s available again is a great strategy.
You can send this message to all users that visited said product with a trigger event “back to stock” and an exception event “product purchased”. Keep in mind that, in order to be able to send back to stock web push notifications you need an additional integration process in your site through an API.
1.8 Price Drop Notification
The same as with back to stock, price drop web push notifications also require an extra step with integration with an API to get the info of when a product experiences a price drop.
The trigger event here would be “price drop” so the notifications get sent to all subscribers that visited said product page. These types of notifications also show great results because they are extremely relevant for users. Not only do they show information about a product they have expressed interest in, but they have the added value of the price drop making it much more attractive for them.
1.9 Lead Nurturing Notifications
Lead nurturing web push notification sequences are great for B2B. You can create a flow of messages that offer valuable information that helps prospects move down the funnel during their decision making process.
For example, you can send a first message sharing information about a special feature your product has 1 day after receiving the subscription. Then, 1 week later you can send a web push notification with a case study as an example of what you can do for your clients and 1 week later maybe a whitepaper with useful information about your product in different industries.
2. Types of Time-based Notifications
2.1 Manual Web Push Notifications
Also called bulk web push notifications, they are the notifications equivalent to email newsletters. These notifications are not automated, which means you have to set them up manually and they are sent to all of your subscribers database unless you segment manually as well.
Manual web push notifications are used to share time sensitive information like sales, special promotions or contests. You can use them to communicate any time you launch a product, for example, and they are excellent for special dates like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Keep in mind that bulk web push notifications are not behaviour based like the automated ones. This means that you need to be extra creative and careful with your copies and the images you add to make sure you park your audience’s interest with a great message.
One of the great benefits of these types of campaigns is that, since you can send them to all of your subscribers at once, they are amazing traffic generators to your site. If you like to plan ahead, you have the option to schedule them for a specific time and date or, in any other case, to send them as soon as you create them.
2.2 Recurring Web Push Notifications
Recurring web push notifications are great to ensure a permanent contact with your subscribers. You can set up 2 or 3 different generic messages to be sent automatically in a 30 day period inviting subscribers to visit your site again.
Since you can design a couple of different versions, they will be sent randomly to all your subscribers varying each month. For example, you can have a monthly notification with a message related to new arrivals and another one inviting users to visit your social media pages. Each month 50% of your subscribers will receive one of them and the other 50% the other one. You can have as many versions as you want and use Frizbit’s A/B testing features to choose the percentage of subscribers you want to send each one to.
Another option, if you sell a product that’s bought frequently like pet food for example, you can set up recurring web push notifications that work as a reminder for pet owners letting them know it’s time to buy again! Your subscribers will find it valuable because it would serve the purpose of a reminder of something that’s important to them and you’ll increase the chances of them purchasing from you again. It’s a win-win situation!
Recurring web push notifications correspond to the loyalty stage of the funnel.
General Comments
As we mentioned before, you can create as many scenarios as you want for your web push notifications campaigns. However, for optimal results we strongly recommend to set up at least the 4 main ones:
Welcome notifications
Category retargeting notifications
Product retargeting notifications
Cart abandonment notifications
You can create a sequence of automated notifications for each of them with a different message that’s sent after certain periods of time. For example:
The important thing is that you try and find the combination that works best for your online business regarding timings and amount of notifications for each campaign. While for one brand it would make sense to send 5 product retargeting notifications in one week, for another it might be better to only have a couple notifications in a 3 day period.
Web push notifications open a whole new world of possibilities when it comes to retargeting strategies and we would be delighted to show it to you. If you want to request a one trial month period with us, don’t hesitate to get in touch!
Is not rare to see frowns and hear negative comments when web push notifications are brought to the table as a new addition to a digital marketing strategy. Myths and strong-felt prejudices are common given the novelty of the channel and maybe a lack of understanding on how they work and the results they can provide for any digital business.
The truth is that web push notifications are one of the highest engaging digital marketing channels available for online businesses. Frizbit’s clients have achieved remarkable success with ROAS up to 36x and costs per session as low as 0,02€.
Given the fact that there still are way too many misconceptions about this new retargeting channel, we believe is time to address the issue and demystify the
Biggest Prejudices About Web Push Notifications
1. “Users don’t Want to Receive Web Push Notifications”
The first comment you might hear when mentioning web push notifications is“how many users actually click on allow?” and “users don’t accept them, nobody likes web push notifications” .
Well, we are here to tell you that’s just not true at all. A study revealed that web push notifications have an overall acceptance rate of 16,7% globally. Even though there are many factors that can affect the willingness of a user to click on “allow” when asked to subscribe, there’s no other channel that offers such a high opt-in rate.
Web push notifications have a x3 higher opt-in rate than emails. Keep in mind that users are not requested to share any type of personal information to subscribe, which is a huge factor taken in consideration when it comes to deciding to opt-in to any marketing channel.
There are other variables that also affect opt-in rates to web push notifications such as:
Device, whether mobile or desktop
Country
Business industry
Engagement with the brand
Users do find web push notifications helpful and valuable as long as you offer them highly personalized and relevant content. People don’t have an innate hate for web push notifications, they just don’t like to receive useless information at all times of the day. You just need to make sure you always send the right message, to the right person at the right time.
Which brings us to web push notifications myth number two.
2. “Web Push Notifications are Intrusive”
No, they are not. Nothing is intrusive by itself and the same goes for web push notifications. Of course a lot of people might be “scared” of this new channel because of bad practices some companies have pulled off in the past.
However, with platforms like Frizbit you have many tools at your disposal to make sure you use them at their best, with careful consideration to never annoy your subscribers. Features like “frequency cap” are specially designed for this purpose. When creating new campaigns you can specify how many notifications you want your subscribers to receive within a day to make sure you don’t drown them with messages.
We usually recommend a frequency cap of two notifications per day. With Frizbit you have two levels of frequency cap: global and per campaign. This way you guarantee that, for example, a subscriber gets an automated message related to a product viewed or added to cart if they were browsing your site, and a manual notification regarding a special offer, if the case.
Bottom line, making notifications intrusive or not is completely in your hands. You have full control over how many messages you send and how many messages a subscriber receives in a certain period of time. Make good use of it and you won’t have to worry about disturbing users, getting a bunch of opt-outs or giving bad reputation to web push notifications!
3. “Web Push Notifications are Difficult to Implement”
Many website owners get scared or intimidated when asked about the possibility of implementing web push notifications on their site with the misbelief of it being a cumbersome process.
However, web push notifications are very easy to implement and configure when working with the right provider. First of all it’s important to know that web push notifications can be implemented in any website.
Mainly, there are two ways to do it:
Via Google Tag Manager: this is by far the easiest way to implement web push notifications and most websites use GTM. All you have to do in this case is add the snippet as a tag. Frizbit can do all the work by accessing your GTM as an editor an in just one day, you can be collecting subscribers.
Directly adding it to the site: if for any reason you don’t work with Google Tag Manager, you can add the JavaScript snippet by copying and pasting it inside the <head></head> section of your website.
That’s for implementation. When it comes to setting up the campaigns, Frizbit offers ready-to-use templates designed for five different scenarios that follow a typical customer shopping journey in an e-commerce.
Of course, these templates are completely customizable to fit the language and brand philosophy. You can also add or remove steps from the sequence as you see fit, and you only have to set up the campaigns one first time. From that moment forward, everything will run by itself and you just have to see the results and adjust accordingly, if necessary.
4. “Web Push Notifications Have Low Conversion Rates”
Web push notifications affect the overall site’s conversion rate, globally, by having the power to bring back users that have already expressed interest in a product or service.
Let’s put an example: imagine a user goes to your site, browses a bit, finds a product he likes and adds it to the cart, but leaves with the intent of finishing the purchase in another time. One hour later that user gets a cart abandonment web push notification, he clicks on it and goes back to finish the purchase.
When the user starts the check-out process, it turns out that it is very complicated, confusing, the site asks for way too much personal information and the user ends up leaving without making the purchase.
In this scenario, the web push notification got a click and fulfilled its purpose of bringing the user back to the site to complete a purchase and recover an abandoned cart. However, when the user found himself in such a complicated checkout process, he left without buying, thus not converting. The conversion didn’t occur due to a UX problem, not because of the notification.
If you detect that your web push campaigns have low conversion rates, the problem might not be the notification at all. What’s important is that you contrast different variables to determine if there is a problem in any of the steps leading the user towards conversion.
Contrast your web push notification click-through rate with your website’s conversion rate and time spent on page to understand how users are behaviouring to determine where you are losing them and hypothesize about why.
5. “You Need to Develop an App to send Web Push Notifications”, “They Only Work on Desktop”
When people talk about push notifications, many automatically think of app push notifications. It is important to clarify that there are two different types of push notifications: web and app.
Web push notifications are sometimes also called browser-based. This is because they are sent to subscribers through their browsers when they go online and they are delivered to both desktop and mobile devices equally. App push notifications are sent to users through applications to their mobile devices only.
As we explained earlier, web push notifications are implemented on websites through a JavaScript snippet which makes them browser-based. This means that when users allow them and become subscribers, they will receive them the moment they open their browser, whether they navigate from desktop or mobile. There is no need to develop an app to be able to send web push notifications: all websites are eligible to do it.
6. “Web Push Notifications Affect User Experience Negatively”
Because web push notifications are still a fairly new retargeting channel, there are a lot of misconceptions about what they are and how they work. And one of the most common ones is to confuse them with regular pop-ups we all know too well.
Web push notifications are not pop-ups. Pop-ups are messages that appear suddenly,without permission over the website’s content while the user is navigating it. They interrupt user experience by showing up unexpectedly, covering the content and are activated by an action, such as scrolling down or moving the cursor to a certain spot.
Unlike pop-ups, web push notifications only show if the user has allowed them by subscribing through an opt-in prompt that appears on the left top corner of the website when first visiting it. They also differ from pop-ups because they appear even when the user has left the site and don’t intrude over the site’s content.
Because web push notifications are delivered outside the site that sent them, they don’t affect the user experience at all.
These are the most common web push notifications myths out there
If you still have doubts about the workings of this new retargeting channel and what it can do for your online businesses, get in touch with us and we would be happy to offer you a free trial period of one month so you can see the results for yourself.
If you are looking for even more information about what are web push notifications and how they work, make sure you also read:
Web push notifications are short, immediate and highly personalised messages delivered to users through their browser after agreeing or subscribing to receive them. This channel is quickly gaining popularity amongst e-commerce sites due to its inherent characteristics and benefits:
No 3rd party cookies required
No personal data from users required
They reach users from desktop and mobile devices
Messages get delivered even when users leave the website
Additionally, platforms like Frizbit offer the possibility to reach users through their entire journey by creating automated sequences of messages for each step of the marketing funnel based on individual user behaviour.
You can easily see why web push notifications are becoming the number one marketing tool preferred by online store owners and digital marketers to engage with their customers and bring them back to the site to finish a transaction.
Despite being recognized as most effective and profitable for e-commerce, this new channel has applications for all types of websites including B2B. One of the things that make web push notifications so great is that they can be personalised to adapt to any business, from tailoring the message to adjusting timings, languages and sequences, this is the most versatile digital marketing channel you can get.
How to Use Web Push Notifications for B2B
Digital marketing strategies for B2B don’t usually differ so much from B2C, the main difference is that B2B processes last longer than in B2C businesses. This presents a different challenge for marketers because they need to find ways to keep audiences interested during longer periods of time.
The traditional way to do so has always been by sending emails with interesting and relevant content with the objective of finally achieving conversion. However, with the saturation of content on the Internet it is getting harder to cut through the noise of thousands of messages daily and actually make an impact.
Bottom line, customer engagement is key for B2B businesses to succeed and increase their lead conversions and web push notifications are a great channel to interact with customers and create a hyper-personalised experience.
Reach Anonymous Users and Turn Them Into Leads
As we mentioned before, web push notifications don’t require any type of personal data to reach users after they leave the website. When a person visits your site for the first time, if they have enabled the channel, they will be shown a browser based prompt asking them if they wish to allow web push notifications.
If they leave without taking any further action, you can re-engage them via web push notifications after a certain period of time you decide is best. Since you can customise the notifications as much as you want, you can decide which page you want subscribers to go to when they click on the notification.
This is a great opportunity to redirect them to a page with super useful information you think will tilt the balance in your favor and also peak their interest. For example you can offer them a trial period or present them with a special discount for first time customers as an exchange for them filling in a form and leaving their contact details such as email address or phone number.
This is a great strategy to turnt anonymous visitors into leads so you can contact them later and give them your full pitch. This is not possible to do with any other channel. With retargeting ads you won’t know for sure if your message got delivered, maybe you have competitors who are paying more than you so your ad is never shown and you lose that visitor for good.
Re-engage Dormant Users
Through some stages of the marketing funnel, people are browsing around a lot of pages looking for information. They jump from one site to another investigating and searching around and this might go on for some time while they decide to move forward with the process.
Web push notifications are a great channel to target people during these stages when they think and research and maybe lose the information from your site as they stumble into other similar solutions.
You can send manual web push notifications campaigns sharing information they might find valuable to bring them back to your site or, at least, maintain your solution on their top of mind so they keep it as a valid option. You can send notifications about:
New features
Updates about your solution
New downloadables such as whitepapers
Use Recurring Web Push Notifications
One of the most important stages of the marketing funnel is the “loyalty” and “advocacy” which, sadly, often gets overlooked. B2B businesses should invest time and effort in keeping their customers engaged even after they have converted.
Since this implies “spending” resources after the goal was achieved and extending the work beyond the main objective, its importance is diminished. But businesses need to understand that the best customers are recurring customers and the way to keep them coming back is to offer them an engaging post-purchase experience.
If you are a provider, you can do this by sending automated recurring web push notifications alerting them that it is time to repeat their order, for example. These types of messages keep customers engaged and offer the feeling that you care about them and appreciate their business.
Sequences for Lead Nurturing
Once you have established the journey your customers go through when visiting your business site, you can create a sequence of automated web push notifications to keep in touch with them after they leave your site without converting.
You can send them hyper-personalised messages that will show on the screen of their desktop or mobile devices to re-engage them and bring them back to your site. Segmentation and automation will allow you to reach specific audiences based on their individual behaviour, targeting their specific needs.
You can recommend them services or products that fit their requirements based on their most recently viewed category or products. Remember that the objective is to maintain a flow of communication with regular contact by providing useful information that ultimately leads to a conversion.
To sum up…
We hope these tips allow you to understand the applications of web push notifications for B2B. This channel offers online businesses a world of opportunities, you just need to strategize and find the right mix that works best for you and your audience.
Sending web push notifications to prospects or customers will increase your return rate and help you grow your business. Remember that the important thing is to keep your solution present in their minds throughout time as a valid option to solve and fulfill their own business needs and requirements.
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Defining objectives and KPI’s is essential for all digital marketing efforts, including web push notifications. How else are you going to measure the performance of your campaigns and make sure they are working towards the achievement of your marketing goals?
Tracking certain metrics to subsequently analyse them, will give you insights on what’s working best with your target audience and to what are they being more responsive. You can later use this data to adjust your web push notifications campaigns and make them the best possible.
That is why in this blog post we are going to share with you the most important metrics you should be tracking and how to understand your web push notifications campaigns performance.
Web push notifications are still a fairly new digital marketing channel, which is why it is normal to have questions and doubts about their performance and how to track and measure results. We have summed up the most important metrics for you:
Web push notifications metrics you should be tracking:
1. Opt-in Rate
The opt-in rate makes reference to the number of people who visit the site and click on “Allow” when asked if they want to subscribe to web push notifications. In fewer words, is the number of people who subscribe, versus the total number of people who visit your website. In comparison, web push notifications have a 5 to 10% opt-in rate, while emails have a 1 to 3%.
The opt-in prompt is the first contact visitors have with this channel and how and where you place it can make a huge difference. There are two types of opt-in request you can use:
Native opt-in: this is the browser’s default version of the prompt. It is standard for every website showing a short text asking visitors if they want to allow or block notifications from the site and it is a single-step request.
Custom opt-in: in this version, website owners have the option to completely customize the prompt. You can add your logo and write any text you want to ask users to allow notifications. However, if visitors click on “Allow” the native opt-in will be automatically triggered and for the subscription to be effective, they need to click on “allow” again. This type of prompt requires visitors to make two clicks to subscribe and this tends to decrease opt-in rate by 3x.
You can also choose which page from your site you want the opt-in prompt to show. The most common practice (and the one we recommend from Frizbit) is to place it in the homepage and show it to visitors as soon as they enter the site for the first time. If they click allow, they will become subscribers, if they click on block you can’t ask them again unless they delete all the browser data, and if they just close it, the prompt will appear again when they come back or visit another page.
2. Click-through Rate
Click through rate might be the most talked about metric in digital marketing. CTR is the number of clicks a web push notification campaign received, versus the number of total subscribers it was sent to.
The reason this metric is so popular (and so important) is because it easily lets you know what type of message and notifications your subscribers are responding better to. If you run different campaigns for different events in your site, by analyzing their CTRs you can create hypotheses, test them and improve the performance of your notifications.
If, additionally, you decide to run A/B tests, try out variations of the same message and track the CTRs of each one, you can have even deeper insights on the type of message that works best for your business goals.
There are many factors that can directly affect the click through rate:
Image: web push notifications that include an image have a 20% higher click through rate than the ones without one. So make sure every time you can, you add an image.
Required interaction: web push notifications are displayed on the user’s screen only for a few seconds unless you activate the “require interaction” feature that forces the user to click or close the notification. If this box is not checked, you run the risk of the user missing the notification for any reason, thus decreasing the click through rate.
Call to action: we can’t stress enough the importance of including a clear call to action in your notification and how much this can affect CTRs. Call to actions need to tell users what you expect them to do and is much better if you appeal to a certain sense of urgency.
Segmentation: relevancy is a very important factor when it comes to CTRs in web push notifications. That is why, especially with bulk or manual campaigns, the most segmented your audience is, the better. Automated web push notifications usually have very good click through rates because they are highly personalized with messages that click with the recipient.
3. Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is the metric that indicates if you are reaching your business goals. They vary from industry and objectives, going from filled forms, completed purchases, demo requests or sign ups.
When it comes to web push notifications and conversion rates, this stat can help you determine if there’s some sort of issue with you landing page or check out process once the users go back to your site after clicking the notification.
Good CTRs are not a goal, reaching your desired conversion rate is. That is why you should always contrast the information you receive from both metrics so you can analyse it and dig in deeper if you are not getting the results you want.
4. Time Spent on a Page
At first glance it might seem that this is not a metric directly related to your web push notifications. However, it is and it can provide you with significant insights about the relevancy of the messages you are sending.
Every notification you send includes a link that redirects the user to a page on your site. It is your job to make sure that the copy from the notification matches what the user finds when he clicks on it and goes to the landing page. If it doesn’t, the time spent on the page will be very short because the user will leave disappointed and confused.
This metric indicates the accuracy of the message and if it met the expectations you created for the user. For example, if the notification you sent makes reference to a 25% discount and when the user clicks on it, arrives to a regular category landing page with no discounted products, the user will be lost and leave without spending any time on your site.
Understanding the metrics
Metrics, numbers and analysis might seem very boring and tedious. However, understanding these key metrics is the secret to conduct successful campaigns and reach your business goals. Yes, it takes time to sit down and interpret all the data to then create hypotheses, apply them and analyse again but it is the only way to eliminate the guesswork and and strategize with a plan and clear objectives.
With web push notifications, you can combine Google Analytics with Frizbit’s campaign analytics and the detailed reporting we personalise for each of our clients. By comparing and contrasting all this information, you have everything you need to optimize your web push notifications campaigns.
Web push notifications are the new channel every site is eager to use. From retailers online stores, private shopping, travel agencies and real estate, they have proven to be the most efficient way to stay in touch and communicate with customers.
However, with its rising popularity it’s getting harder for brands to really stand out and deliver notifications that truly connect and engage subscribers. Even though web push notifications have very good opt-in rates compared to other channels (around 16,7% overall acceptance), the truth is that many users don’t click on them upon delivery.
Given the fact that users receive between 33 to 85 notifications per day, we can’t stress enough the importance of creating excellent notifications to cut through the noise and get that subscriber to click on it.
With web push notifications is not about using them just for the fun of it: brands need to optimize them in order to provide users with a great experience and get actual good results. So, this time we are going to focus on:
7 Tips to Increase Web Push Notifications Click-through Rates
1. Segment users based on their interests
The more relevant the message, the more likely users are to click on it, and targeting based on their previous behaviour is the best way to increase relevance.
Regardless of the type of online store you have, most certainly you have different categories and a range of products for different users with varied tastes. Not everyone is into the same things, which means that every sale, special offer or promotion you carry out is not going to be interesting for all of your subscribers.
For example, let’s say you have a sports e-commerce site and there’s a big soccer game between Spain and Italy coming up and you want to launch a special sale on both teams’ apparel. Instead of sending a manual web push notification campaign to ALL of your subscribers, use the segmentation feature and send it only to those that have visited or clicked on Spain or Italy soccer products.
Chances are that, if you send a notification like this to all your subscribers base, CTR is going to be very low considering that users from a sports site can be interested in many very different things, like yoga, running or tennis and only a few in something as specific as a soccer game between Spain and Italy.
In scenarios like this one, segmentation can make a huge difference in the performance of your campaigns and conversion rates.
2. Include an image
People are very visual. Including an image related to the product you are making reference to in the notification will increase the chances of users clicking on it when they automatically see the article they were interested in.
Push notifications that include an image have a 20% higher click through rate compared to those without one. There are a couple of things you should keep in mind when adding images to your web push notifications:
a) Depending on the browser and operating system, the image will be displayed differently. Notifications on Windows and Android devices will always show the image, while notifications on MacOS won’t include one. Some of Fribiz clients have opted for the alternative to include the product image in the place where the brands’ logo will normally appear. This way they guarantee that the product image is always visible regardless of the operating system.
b) A 1.5 : 1 width-height ratio is ideal for images. If you use other sizes it will be cropped and won’t be displayed optimally. Sometimes it happens that the product image from the web has a different ratio and it doesn’t display properly in the notification.
3. Use emojis
Frizbit offers its clients ready to use templates for their automated web push notifications campaigns. These templates include two versions so clients can implement A/B testing if they wish to.
Version A is plain text, while version B includes emojis customised to fit the brand’s industry. In cases where clients run A/B tests to try out which option performs the best, B version with emojis always wins the race.
Web push notifications that include emojis have a click through rate 15% higher than those with just text. Of course, you should be careful and thoughtful about which emojis you are going to add and make sure they are pertinent with the subject of your notification.
Using emojis is a very easy way to give your messages a little something extra to help them stand out, catch the users’ attention and increase CTRs.
4.Activate the Require Interaction feature for your notifications
By default web push notifications are shown to users for only 10 seconds, and then they disappear. What if the user is super concentrated on a task and doesn’t even notice the notification before it goes away? Or maybe they left the browser open and moved away from the computer. Or in some cases, there’s not even enough time to read the message before it disappears.
Taking this into account, the best option is to make sure the notification sticks until the user sees it and decides to click on it, or to close it. This is the best way to guarantee that they will see the notification when it’s delivered.
Frizbit offers this feature that ensures a higher click through rate on your notifications.
A triggered notification is sent to users as a response to a specific individual action they completed on the website. For example when a user adds a product to his cart and then leaves the site without completing a purchase, you can set up a notification that gets triggered by this action and delivered to the user after a certain period of time.
You can set up as many scenarios to trigger notifications as you wish. At Frizbit we recommend 4 different ones that cover the entire shopping journey for a traditional e-commerce site:
Subscription
Category Retargeting
Product Retargeting
Cart Abandonment
Depending on the industry and type of products you sell, you can also include:
Post Purchase
Monthly Reminders
Because these triggered notifications are completely based on individual behaviour, they are extremely relevant for the user that receives it. They contain information of interest for them which highly increases click through rate.
6. Create urgency
Appealing to a sense of urgency is no new trick, but it works. One of the easiest strategies to increase any campaign click through rate is to tell users that they have to act “right now” or they will miss out on something really good.
The way to do it with web push notifications is by making use of the Title, Description and CTA to add text that emphasizes the fact that the offer is available for limited time or limited stock. You can use words like: now, last minutes, few units or hurry.
You can also include emojis that appeal to that sense of urgency and also make the notifications more visually attractive.
7. Perform A/B Testing
After some time when you start getting data on the performance of your campaigns, you can go ahead and introduce A/B testing and test different variables through time until you get the perfect combination that works the best for your business and offers your customers the best experience possible.
Frizbit’s A/B testing features allows you to try different versions of the same notification and change as many parameters as you wish. You can also segment the audience and send each version to specific percentages.
Doing this will eliminate the guesswork about what type of messages perform the best thanks to the data collected during the time you run the test. Ultimately you will know your audience a lot better and be able to adapt and design messages that truly connect with them.
Other factors that affect web push notifications click through rates
Even though there are many things that can be directly done to optimize campaigns, there also are a lot of external factors that can affect web push notifications performance like:
Type of industry
Incentives offered
Customer’s relationship with the brand
These are all tips on how to increase web push notifications click through rates but the best advice we can give you is to always test your ideas. Start out with what you think is best and try it out.
If you want to learn more about web push notifications:
Web push notifications are the new retargeting channel any website can benefit from. Maybe you are used to communicating with your customer via emails, social media or even by phone, but have you been introduced to the power of direct, hyper-personalised messaging via web push notifications? Keep reading and let us tell you
Why and how can the travel industry benefit from web push notifications
Web push notifications allow websites to communicate with visitors using behaviour-based messages without requiring any type of personal data, even when they have left the site. Users that visit just need to accept (or opt-in) to become subscribers and start receiving notifications on their browsers or their mobile devices.
The combination of all these characteristics make web push notifications the best channel to reach subscribers and encourage them to return to the website and complete an action, whether fill out a form or complete a hotel or flight booking.
Everyone knows that planning a trip can be a bit stressful. There are way too many options regarding airlines, flight schedules and all bookings processes. It takes people a lot of time, research and comparison before making a decision and here’s where web push notifications come in handy for the travel industry.
This channel has the power to make the entire process a lot easier for people planning a trip and for travel companies to increase customer engagement, satisfaction and boost revenue.
By using a web push notifications platform that allows automation, the use of dynamic parameters and hyper-personalisation, any website from the travel industry can greatly benefit from this channel.
Let’s dive into how to boost your travel site marketing strategy with web push notifications
Recover lost reservations
By using automated sequences of web push notifications, you can create campaigns that are triggered by user behaviour on your site. This means that when users search for a trip destination, accommodation or a specific tour booking but leave the site without completing it, a message will be delivered encouraging them to come back and finish the booking.
Thanks to dynamic parameters and behavioral recognition, this strategy is great to connect with users with highly relevant information. The notification sent can include details such as name of the destination, price, airline, hotel name, specifics about accommodation and pretty much anything you wish that’s available from your site. As a result of receiving such detailed and personalised information, customers are more likely to engage with the notification, resulting in higher CTRs and conversion rates.
With this type of notifications, customers will land directly on the booking page, as if it was an abandoned cart from an e-commerce site, making it even easier to push them down the final stage of the marketing funnel.
Itinerary updates and changes
Remember that customers today want personalised experiences and catered services. If you can offer them that, you will be steps ahead of your competitors and one way to do so is to maintain a flow of communication with relevant information.
If there are changes on your customer’s travel itinerary you need to use all communication channels available to get that message across, making sure it reaches its destination on time. Web push notifications are the best way to do so.
Email might be the most common channel to communicate with customers, however it is not the fastest or most effective one. Web push notifications can reach them on both mobile and desktop even if they are not visiting your site and they will be grateful that you sent them urgent information.
You can send these types of notifications by using the segmentation feature of the platform. There you can choose exactly which subscribers you want to communicate changes and updates about specific destinations or bookings.
This strategy is very useful during this pandemic times in which every country constantly changes the entry requirements (PCR tests, vaccines certificates). If a certain destination updated the type of document travelers need to enter, you can send them a web push notification informing them about the changes so they can be prepared.
Advertise travel deals, sales and special offers
We’ve been talking about automated web push notifications as a great strategy to stay in touch with customers. But there also are manual or bulk web push notifications. These types of campaigns are sent to all subscribers’ databases since they are not behavioural-triggered.
Manual web push notifications are great to communicate special deals, offers or promotions that are time sensitive or limited. If you have a special offer coming up with discounted flights, accommodation or tours, you can send a bulk notification to let customers know about it! This is a great strategy to generate lots of traffic very quickly.
If you want to be more specific, you can also use segmentation here and target users based on their interests. For example, if you are having a sale on Mediterranean Cruises, you might want to send a notification to users that previously searched for cruise vacations to alert them about the sale.
It’s a wonderful strategy for users that still are at the first stages of the funnel and still haven’t decided on a specific destination or made any reservation intent. This will not only help you get more bookings, it will help customers benefit from discounted travel plans and they will certainly appreciate it.
Travel plan reminders
Traveling involves a lot of important information. Once a user has already made a reservation, you can use web push notifications to remind them of their travel details, like flight departures, delays or hotel check-in hours.
These are the types of messages that users appreciate and value the most. Web push notifications have the great quality of immediacy, so you can rely on them to guarantee important information gets delivered.
By applying these strategies, you enhance user experience. They will feel the process was smooth and safe and will increase the chances of them repeating and booking their next trip with you.
Price drops
You can send and schedule manual web push notifications to alert users about price drops. If a user was browsing your site looking for interesting traveling plans and leaves without completing a booking, a great strategy to bring them back is to communicate price drops on destinations they expressed interest in.
Maybe a great hotel announced an offer, or a flight is selling the last seat at a discounted price. Let users interested know about these great deals and leverage that information to close the deal.
When sending manual notifications about price drops, always remember to include a call to action button with a sense of urgency. Tell users that the offer is for limited time only, or that there are only a few seats left with the special price.
Web push notifications for all the travel industry are a must!
The travel industry is a universe within itself. There are tons of agencies, airlines, accommodation finders sites, car rentals and more that a user can browse when planning a trip and all of them can benefit from the inclusion of this channel in their marketing strategy.
Web push notifications can help travel websites connect with users by offering a better user experience with hyper-personalisation. If you have been relying on traditional emails to communicate with your customers, you are definitely missing out.
You can check out Frizbit’s success story with Corendon Airlines as a great example on how to boost your travel website with web push notifications.
And if you want learn even more about this amazing channel, make sure you read:
The real estate industry is no stranger to unexpected and intense fluctuations. Ups and downs are very common and especially during the last year with Covid-19 pandemic causing major economic uncertainty. Stay-at-home orders and job losses are a couple of reasons why people stopped looking for new homes.
Real Estate Marketing
Is no secret that innovation and adoption of new technologies is key to success in any business. But if there has ever been a time when this is essential, it is now for the real estate industry. A seamless digital marketing strategy that integrates the newest channels plays a big role in growing the business and catching the attention of potential clients.
Keep in mind that 92% of buyers use the internet to begin their house hunting, according to a study from the National Association of Realtors. This means that having a strong online presence that simplifies communication between buyers and sellers can make a huge difference to the success of the business.
Web Push Notifications for Real Estate Marketing
Web push notifications are the new retargeting without ads channel that allows sites to engage subscribers without any type of personal data through their entire customer journey. With the use of dynamic parameters it’s possible to send hyper-personalised relevant messages based on an individual’s behaviour.
In this example of a web push notification for real estate using dynamic parameters you can see:
Image of the apartment.
Specific details about the characteristics of the listing, such as the number of bedrooms and bathroom and size in square meters.
City/Area of the listing
Even though web push notifications are more common for e-commerce sites, the truth is that this is an amazing retargeting channel for any type of industry. Real estate marketing can greatly benefit from the advantages of using them:
Generate more leads from anonymous users: web push notifications don’t require any type of personal data such as email addresses from users. They just need to click “Allow” in the opt-in prompt from the browser to become a subscriber and start receiving them. This means that, by collecting subscribers, you’re creating an additional database of users you can contact later without the need of them filling out any form or sharing their information.
Reach users when they’re not on your site: this channel has the power to reach subscribers when they have left the web and are browsing any other site.
Reach through desktop and mobile: web push notifications can reach users on both desktop and mobile without the need of installing an app.
Direct communication: unlike emails, when using web push notifications you can communicate with users in real time. You don’t have to wait for them to check their inboxes in order to get the message across: as soon as they open their browsers the notification will be delivered.
Now that you know how you can benefit, let’s talk in depth about how to boost your real estate marketing strategy with web push notifications.
First things first: Identify you user’s journey and define events in your site
The success behind any digital marketing strategy is planning. Before you start designing your messages and setting up your web push notifications campaigns, you must have determined different scenarios that trigger the messages based on users’ behaviour on your site.
In order to do this you must have a very clear understanding of your business marketing funnel. What’s the process users go through from the moment they enter your web for the first time until they reach conversion? What stages do they experience?
The sequence of messages you create for your automated web push notifications campaign is directly tied to every action and step users take while browsing your website. That’s why it’s so important that you have complete knowledge of how the decision making process goes for your target audience and how you can engage with them in every stage.
It could look something like this, for example:
Initial visit to the real estate website: user enters the site for the first time
Chooses a location: country, city, neighborhood
Selects a listing category: could be apartments, houses, offices
Applies a series of filters: price, size, number of bedrooms/bathrooms
Viewing of a specific listing page
Finally filling out a contact form requesting more information
If you determine that these could be the steps users go through when browsing for a listing, you can easily determine that you need to use automated web push notifications campaigns that are triggered by each and one of these events. If a user leaves, before going to the next one, he/she will receive a notification with the objective of pushing them down the funnel.
Create sequences of messages with automated notifications
Once you’ve defined your triggering scenarios, you can go to the next step and create a sequence of automated web push notifications for each one: homepage visited, category viewed, listing viewed, form filled out. The objective is to keep the communication flowing through a period of time that helps maintain the interest and lead to the conversion.
With a platform like Frizbit you can define as many scenarios you want with as many sequences as you consider appropriate. A combination of 5 events with 3 sequences each, would be ideal to show great results. You can schedule them to be delivered after the amount of time you see fit, for example: 1 day, 3 days and 7 days after the event if the user still doesn’t convert.
In real estate it’s a great strategy to appeal to a sense of urgency that the listing is going to be taken by someone else who is also interested, and sequences of automated web push notifications are a great way to do just that. Let’s jump right into some specific examples for every scenario:
Practical use cases of web push notification for real estate:
a) Retargeting based on City/Area
This would be one of the first things a user would do when browsing a real estate site. After entering the web, users will choose a category to start looking for options that interest them. This category could be a location for example, a country, city or more specifically, a neighborhood.
If users browse through a listing category and then leave the site without going any further with their search, you can retarget them via web push notifications reminding them about the listings in that city or area. A category can also include a type of listing.
b) Retargeting based on filters
Once users decide the category they want to browse, they’ll start applying filters to get the result that meet their needs the best. Parameters such as:
Size
Number of bedrooms
Number of bathrooms
Price
All can be used to later send hyper-personalised messages via web push notifications to inform them about new listings with the same specifics. The main benefit of using these parameters is that they appeal exactly to what users searched for: they have already expressed interest in this information and will be appreciative of getting a reminder suited to their needs.
c) Retargeting based on listing viewed
Once a user clicks on a listing and visits its page, but then leaves the site without going any further with the process, you can send a web push notification with said information encouraging the user to come back a schedule a visit.
This message can include all the details about the listing the users liked, increasing its relevance and value.
d) Schedule a visit
This would be the equivalent of a cart abandonment recovery message from an e-commerce site. You can send a web push notification to users that visit a page listing but leave the site without filling in a form to schedule a visit.
e) Similar Listings Recommendation
Additionally to being able to create scenarios and sequences of messages with automated web push notifications campaigns for every step of the user’s journey, you can also create campaigns with recommendations.
Once a user has visited and showed interest in a specific listing, adding filters for every characteristic, you can use this information to create an automated campaign that sends notifications after a period of time you decide if the user doesn’t convert.
When people are looking for a new home, they want to keep posted about new listings that they might like. Going online every single day to check all the sites for new opportunities can be very exhausting. By sending web push notifications with recommendations, you’ll save a lot of time and effort to your subscribers,they will appreciate it and you’ll generate a lot of new visits and leads.
f) Favorites reminders
When people search classified pages, they look at a lot of different options before finding the one they like. That’s why these types of pages always have a “favorite” bookmark option to save the listing in a separate category.
With automated web push notifications campaigns you can use this information to send hyper-personalised reminders to users who have added a listing to their favorites. You can send reminders encouraging them to schedule a visit as soon as possible appealing to a sense of urgency that someone else is going to take it off the market.
Tips and strategies to improve your campaigns:
1. Send bulk campaigns to announce new listings and price drops
Manual web push notification campaigns are sent to all the subscribers list, unlike automated ones that are delivered based on individual user behaviour and triggered by events on the site. That’s why they’re the best channel to communicate important information you don’t want anyone to miss out on.
Bulk campaigns can be sent immediately or scheduled to a specific date and time. This feature comes in hand when you want to plan ahead and make sure you communicate any update in a timely manner, even if you’re out of the office
Specifically for the real estate industry that’s constantly changing with new listings and price drops that subscribers surely don’t want to miss, manual web push notifications become an invaluable asset. You can send bulk campaigns every week to alert users updating them about all that’s new.
Additionally, these types of campaigns are great quick traffic generators. Even though their objective resembles a lot to the objective of newsletters, in this case you don’t need to rely on users checking their inboxes on time to learn about important and time-sensitive information.
Massive web push notifications campaigns reach users on time and get them to go back to the website encouraging them to take action immediately.
2. Use segmentation
If you choose the right web push notifications service provider, you’ll have the chance to use a lot of features that will help you make the best possible campaigns. One of them is segmentation.
By segmenting users you’ll have the ability to send them super relevant information that specifically suits them, which ultimately will improve the performance of your campaigns and improve overall user experience. You can use segmentation for:
Localization: if there’s an industry that revolves around localization is real estate. If you target users by country, city or neighborhood you can send them extremely relevant information about new listings in their area as soon as they become available.
Listing type: you can identify users by the type of listing they want: if they are looking to buy or to rent, for example. Then, you can target them with a notification letting them know about new listings that might interest them that have the same features. This can also be applied with other characteristics like size, number of bedrooms or bathrooms.
3. Choose the right service provider
Keep in mind that before getting into specifics about campaigns, sequences and strategies the first thing you need to do is to choose the right web push notifications provider for your business. This is the most important step because depending on the provider you select, you’ll have more or less features to play with, amongst other things.
Here’s a list of the most important ones you should keep an eye out for:
Ownership and subscriber portability
Campaign automation by triggering events
Personalisation capabilities
Campaigns tracking and improvement: segmentations, A/B testing, scheduling
Pricing plans
Customer support and account management
Make sure you’re clear about what type of notifications campaigns you want to send and make a list of which features are the most important for you and your business. Is it important to be able to send automated notifications? Do you want additional features such as A/B testing capabilities?
Ask yourself as many questions as possible,as the type of web push notifications strategy you are looking to implement and then search for the right service provider that offers a solution suitable to your needs.
Real estate marketing, classifieds and web push notifications
Web push notifications are reigning in the e-commerce world bringing customers back, recovering abandoned carts and more. But the potential they have for other industries, like real estate and classified pages, is boundless.
You can notify subscribers about new listings, price drops, let them know about new opportunities in a specific area they are interested in and include all sorts of details related to their searches. Keep in mind that, since web push notifications are so versatile and adaptable to any type of site, you can use all of these strategies for classified platforms as well.
With platforms like Frizbit this is possible. If you wish to try it out for yourself and unleash the potential of this new channel for your real estate business, get in touch to request a free demo trial.
Web push notifications are quickly changing the way online businesses approach retargeting strategies. This channel allows sites to reach anonymous users in real time encouraging them to visit once more and complete a conversion while engaging with highly relevant content.
The value they present is undeniable, especially when looking forward to a digital marketing landscape without third-party cookies. Even though web push notifications are a fairly new channel still unknown for many marketers, the ones that have tried them are seeing an exponential increase on their revenue and amazing ROAS results.
With the rise of web push notifications as an essential part of digital marketing strategies, hundreds of companies have emerged or added them to their portfolio services. Conducting a quick online search will serve you with many (many) options making it very difficult to choose a provider. We are here to lend a helping hand and let you know:
How to choose the best web push notifications service
If web push notifications have piqued your interest but you’re not quite sure where to start, we have put together a list of the most important features you should focus on when looking for a web push notification service:
Subscriber ownership & portability
Data Security and GDPR compliance
Automated triggered-events
Hyper-personalisation
Segmentation
Scheduling
A/B testing
Customer support
Pricing plans
Let’s dive a little deeper on each of these features.
1. Subscriber portability and subscriber ownership
Subscriber portability is something that gets overseen a lot. Once you sign with a web push notification provider and implement, you’ll start collecting subscribers every day. What happens, if for whatever reason, maybe a price increase or a lack of needed features you decide you want to change provider and you can’t take with you all of your subscribers with you?
No matter what happens you should be able to switch providers and not lose all the subscribers you’ve gathered and nurtured from day one. You need to discuss this, read the small letters and make sure your subscribers belong to you and not to your service provider.
What happens in many cases is that a lot of web push notifications service providers use a subdomain of their property to collect the subscribers. This means that every time users enter your site and click on “allow” to opt-in to your web push notifications, they get redirected to a subdomain that belongs to the provider who becomes the owner of the data when they accept.
If you don’t carefully read the Terms and Conditions of your provider, you might end up in this position. All the subscribers you asked permission to send web push notifications, won´t belong to your website, they’ll belong to your service provider website.
So if in the future you wish to change platforms, you will lose all your subscribers and have to start from scratch, asking already subscribed users to opt-in again which could very easily damage your opt-in rates and your overall web push notifications campaign performance.
Custom Subdomain Opt-in Web Push Notification
Native Opt-in Web Push Notification Example
The easiest way to make sure this is not happening to you is to check you’re collecting subscribers via native opt-in. This is the browser prompt used to ask users to allow web push notifications. If your provider installed a custom opt-in prompt the chances of them registering subscribers under a subdomain of their ownership is higher. Take into consideration that native opt-ins have 3 times higher opt-in rates than custom ones. This is extremely important for the success of your web push notifications strategy.
2. Data Security and GDPR compliance
Even though web push notifications are GDPR compliant by nature, you still need to make sure that your service provider aligns with all regulations and keeps the data of your subscribers safe. This includes, not only abiying to the General Data Protection Regulation, but also storing the data in highly secure servers.
Check that your provider complies with GDPR even for subscribers who are outside the European Union and that you are the owner of all the data. This protects, not only your subscribers, but you as well ensuring that no one can share or sell your information to a third party that could even be your direct competitor.
3. Automated web push notifications by triggered-events
Automated web push notifications are the ones sent automatically. They’re triggered by a specific action from users on the site based on predefined events. You can create as many events as you wish but here are the most common and important ones that you should always include in your sequences:
Category retargeting: a push notification sent to users that visit a Category Page but leave the website without taking any further action.
Product retargeting: a push notification that’s sent to users that visit a Product Page and exit the web without continuing forward.
Cart abandonment recovery: a web push notification sent to subscribers who add a product to their virtual shopping cart and abandon the site without completing a purchase.
Category Retargeting
Product Retargeting
Cart Abandonment
This is the basic sequence you should implement when using web push notifications. You can personalise it as much as you want depending on your type of business and industry and create additional ones that fit your specific marketing funnel and help users convert.
It’s important that you check what type of scenarios, triggered events and sequence automation personalisation each web push notification vendor provides before choosing one.
4. Hyper-personalisation
The next feature you want to keep an eye out for is the level of personalisation offered by the provider. Today’s users are looking for content and experience tailored to their wants and needs. Sending impersonal, pre-made messages just won’t cut it.
Hyper-personalisation is key when it comes to creating effective web push notification campaigns. Besides customising the messages with emojis and an appealing text make sure your provider offers the use of dynamic parameters.
By using dynamic parameters your web push notifications can include very specific and relevant information such as product image, product name, user name, price and even brand. Dynamic parameters pull the information directly from the site and include it in the message of the notifications which, not only saves a lot of time and effort on campaign creation but also makes the notification hyper-personalised for the user.
5. Segmentation
Segmentation is essential to any marketing effort. The success of any campaign can rely on knowing who the target audience is and addressing the message properly to them. Is the same case when it comes to web push notifications.
Before deciding on a provider check what segmentation parameters they offer within the platform. The most basic ones should cover:
Location
Gender
Language
Browser
Age
Frizbit Segmentation
Frizbit Segmentation
Of course, depending on the web push notification service there are many more possibilities. In addition to all the mentioned above, Frizbit allows to target users by behaviour, life cycle and user actions and the possibility to include them or exclude them of a specific campaign.
6. Scheduling
Scheduling is a basic feature any provider must offer. It allows you to design and create a web push notification campaign and choose a date and time to send it automatically for you at a later time.
By scheduling a campaign you make sure to always stay in touch with your subscribers even if you’re out of the office or maybe too busy to send it manually. A great strategy is to check the calendar, plan ahead and schedule your web push notifications campaigns with enough time. This will help you be super time efficient and to make sure you don’t miss communicating any important sales or events from your site.
That’s why it’s so important to make sure the provider you choose offers scheduling features within the platform.
7. A/B Testing
When it comes to any digital marketing effort it’s not easy to get right with the first attempt. Even though you might have a lot of insight about your target audience and have crafted and designed a web push notification campaign based on that information, it’s possible you don’t get the results you were expecting.
Frizbit A/B Testing
That’s why A/B testing is so important and you need to make sure your service provider includes this feature. By gathering information on the performance of previous campaigns, you can make small changes and try-out different versions of the same notifications to test which one does better and, little by little, improve your campaigns to make them the best they can be.
8. Customer support
Whether you’re familiar or not with web push notifications, is of utmost importance that your provider offers you impeccable customer support before and during your contract with them. During the decision making process you´re surely to have a lot of questions you need to clarify and this gives you the perfect opportunity to measure providers by requesting all types of information from them and evaluating their response.
The most common doubts that your provider should solve at first are:
What’s the implementation and integration process like
How do I install web push notifications?
How long does it take to start sending web push notifications
What’s the average opt-in rate for web push notifications
Asking these questions and listening to how the provider answers them will give you important information about the type of service they offer. The best advice we can offer is that you choose a provider that offers a trial period.
This way you can both test the performance of the platform, how it works, what kind of results you can expect long term and the type of support you get during said period: are they solving your issues properly?. Familiarizing with the tool and the provider is key to the success of your web push notifications campaigns.
Frizbit offers all new clients a trial period of one month with all features available for testing while providing customised support during the entire journey.
9. Pricing plans
There are as many pricing plan models available, as web push notifications providers. This is where you have to do your homework and research the option that really suits your business needs, size, industry and growth prevision.
Most providers offer subscriber-based pricing. This translates to you paying for the amount of opt-ins you get. These plans seem very appealing because they start with very low costs and seem very profitable. However, you have to think long term, taking into consideration that you cannot migrate all of your push notification subscribers.
In a subscriber-based pricing you could start paying 100€ for 5,000 subscribers, which seems nice. But as you continue to grow your database, each time you’ll pay more and more: if you reach 50,000 you’ll pay 250€, then 5,000€ for 150,000 and so on and on. The price is always going to scale through time becoming more and more expensive as you grow.
Other options offer to pay per click, or amount of notifications sent. But what makes the most sense is that you go for a provider that offers you peace of mind with a pricing plan based on your monthly web traffic with unlimited subscribers and unlimited notifications. This is the best way to have your costs fixed for the future, instead of always inflating prices.
When choosing a web push notifications service provider…
If you’re considering adding web push notifications as a new retargeting channel to engage with your customers, you’re already on the right path to improving user experience with amazing results. We hope this guide on how to choose the right web push notification service helps you make the right decision and select the provider that suits all of your needs.
If you are looking for the only provider which complies with all these above-mentioned criteria, contact Frizbit right away!
If you have any more doubts or just want to learn more about web push notifications, make sure you check out:
Web push notifications have a x3 higher opt-in rate than emails
