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!
Taking into consideration that 96% of people that visit your site are not ready to buy, In previous articles we’ve talked about the importance of implementing retargeting strategies for online businesses. We’ve specifically compared using web push notifications VS. retargeting ads with the purpose of bringing customers back, connecting with anonymous users and, ultimately, retaining clients and increasing revenue.
There are many channels available to include in the digital marketing mix to accomplish this purpose. Social media platforms have become the top choice for many brands to connect and engage with users. They offer many possibilities, are very versatile and people spend lots of time there. According to Statista, “As of 2019 and 2020, the average daily social media usage of internet users worldwide amounted to 145 minutes per day, up from 142 minutes in the previous year.”
No wonder most brands seek to have a strong presence on, at least a couple of social media platforms. However, building a follower base and cutting through the noise in these channels nowadays is a daunting task. Social media is great to engage with users but has become a jungle of content in which everyone wants to stand out from the crowd. Actually reaching people, getting their attention and urging them to take action is an uphill battle. That’s why social media platforms are almost obliging you to use their ads to even reach your own followers.
That’s why it’s so important to don’t rely on just one channel to achieve your goals. In this case, we want to talk about how to mix and match social media retargeting with web push notifications retargeting strategies. Combining multiple channels and creating a multi channel marketing strategy can do marvelous things for your online business.
But first, let’s take a look at some stats (considering paid posts for social media not exclusive for retargeting):
Channel
Reach/Deliverabilty
CPM
CPC
CTR
Cookies required for retargeting
Web push notifications
99+%
$6.0* (Estimated)
$0.09* (Estimated)
6,7%
No
Instagram Feed
Depends on CPM
$7.7
$3.4
0.2%
Yes
Facebook
Depends on CPM
$8.7
$0.8
1.1%
Yes
Twitter
Depends on CPM
$5.0
$0.58
0.9%
Yes
LinkedIn
Depends on CPM
$5.8
$3.20
0.2%
Yes
With info from Q1 2020 Paid Media Benchmark Report – https://www.adstage.io/
*It’s an estimate, because push notifications are not based on bidding. Amount calculated based on the average of millions of web push notifications sent by Frizbit’s clients
Now, let’s break down a little bit more and talk about the benefits of each channel specifically.
Social Media Retargeting
Social media platforms offer a pathway to reintroduce a product to a user. If someone visited your site and liked something, you can retarget him/her through social media and offer a special incentive, like a discount, to encourage him/her to come back and finish a purchase.
By placing a cookie on users when they visit the site, it’s possible to show them an ad on social media platforms, like Facebook or Instagram when they’re browsing later on. These ads offer many possibilities for brands, making it easier to create engaging content like videos, photos or image carousels.
Social media ad campaigns allow brands to work with all kinds of budget, segment the audience based on location, likes, interests, gender and age and choose daily spent on a period of time. Setting up social media retargeting ad campaigns is very simple and doesn’t add a lot of workload, once you have already designed the pieces you want to use. However, optimizing them and making them as best as possible, involves a great deal of analysis and time.
These platforms also allow brands to connect with customers through organic non-paid content. However, as time passes, it’s getting harder and harder to get non-promoted posts to reach people. According to Hootsuite “On Facebook, the average reach of an organic page post hovers around 5.20%. That means roughly one in every 19 fans sees the page’s non-promoted content.” So when it comes to social media retargeting strategies, paid posts are the way to go.
Benefits of social media retargeting
Brand awareness: as we mentioned earlier people spend a lot of time of their days on social media and everyone has at least one social media account. In 2020, over 3.6 billion people were using social media worldwide, according to Statista. As this number is expected to increase over the next few years, having a social media presence increases the chances for brands to be present in their consumers’ minds.
Availability: nowadays there’s practically one social media for every interest, taste and demographic. We have LinkedIn for business and professional relationships, Twitter for news and world-events, Facebook and Instagram for entertainment, Tik-tok for younger audiences and now even only-audio chat rooms with Clubhouse. Every time a user accesses one of these platforms they do it during a time they’re open minded to consume said type of content. This makes it a golden opportunity for brands to try and connect with them when they’re available to engage with the content.
Versatility: continuing with the previous thought, every social media platform offers a different and versatile way to create retargeting content. Videos, photos, reels, stories and influencer marketing offer a range of different possibilities for brands to create engaging content.
Adaptability: one of the main advantages of social media retargeting is that you can do a lot with little money investment. Social media allows you to set up campaigns with even just 1 euro a day and reach around 15,000 people and have complete control of the amount spent. This makes it ideal for new business, entrepreneurs and small companies to reach a lot of people with very little budget.
Web Push Notifications Retargeting
Web push notifications are a very pretty new digital marketing retargeting channel. When users visit a site that has enabled them, it’s possible to send them messages relevant to the actions they took while browsing, inviting them to come back once more.
By asking users to accept and subscribe to web push notifications (opt-in), it’s possible to send them a hyper-personalized message based on their behaviour when they are browsing online later on. This channel offers brands the opportunity to reach non-registered users on both mobile and desktop with engaging messages.
Depending on the provider you work with, web push notifications allow you to segment the audience with all types of demographic data and use dynamic parameters to make the message as relevant as it can be. The setup of the campaigns only needs to be done the first time and then everything basically runs on autopilot. This means there’s not any extra workload that needs to be done through time.
One of the main attractions of web push notifications is their reach. Unlike social media, this channel has a deliverability of 100%. If users opt-in, the next time they open up the browser, it’s guaranteed that they’ll receive the message. With web push notifications you don’t have to fight against social media algorithms that almost randomly choose whether to show or not your post. With web push your message will be delivered.
Benefits of Automated Web Push Notifications Retargeting
A message for every step of the funnel: web notifications are set up to be triggered by events you define on your site: category viewed, product viewed, product added to cart or any other you wish. This means you’ll have multiple opportunities to connect with users that leave without completing an action with a specific message related to the step of the shopping process where they abandoned the site.
Hyper-personalised messages: web push notifications are 100% based on user behaviour. If someone who accepted them visits your site and takes any action that triggers a notification, he/she will receive a message containing the image, product name, brand and even price of the article. You can also put your own brand’s personality to the notification by adding emojis and customizing the text.
Guaranteed deliverability: as we mentioned before, web push notifications have a deliverability rate of 100%. These messages are browser based which means that, as soon as a user opens its browser, the notification will be delivered. They also work for both mobile and desktop. With one campaign you can reach users on any device they own.
Time efficient: web push notifications automated campaigns only need to be configured one first time. Frizbit offers its clients ready-to-use templates that allow brands to start sending messages right away as soon as the implementation is done. Of course, you can customise said templates as much as you want and modify them through time as well, but it’s not something that needs to be optimised and analysed on a regular basis in order to achieve great results.
No CPM/CPC cost: when using web push notifications as a retargeting channel with Frizbit, you don’t have to worry about CPM and CPC costs like in the case of social media promoted posts. With automated web push notifications you have unlimited messages to send, with no costs for impressions or clicks.
What retargeting strategy should I use for my online business?
Social media platforms and web push notifications are inherently very different channels. Nonetheless, both of them are used by big and small brands in the pursuit of reaching and engaging with users with retargeting strategies.
When it comes to planning a digital marketing strategy to retain users, the ideal scenario is to combine channels. In this case both social media and web push notifications, present very clear and unique characteristics that can greatly complement each other in a well-thought communications plan.
There are many big brands and online businesses that invest a lot of their budgets on working with social media ads agencies to promote their products and services. Most of these companies haven’t considered including web push notifications campaigns in their marketing strategy because they don’t even know the benefits of this new retargeting channel.
If you would like to try it out, get in touch with us and we would gladly introduce you to the world of retargeting with automated web push notifications campaigns.
Since we got your attention, you might also like to read:
If you own an online store or work on any branch of the digital marketing environment, you know and value the importance of advertising on the web to reach potential customers and bring back visitors. Nowadays, there are many platforms, media, channels and strategies to do so, but one of the most popular is definitely retargeting.
What is retargeting?
Retargeting is a digital marketing strategy used by online stores to bring back customers that visited a site but didn’t convert, whether completing a purchase, subscribed or filled a form. Even though retargeting is mainly known for ads, There are many possibilities within the retargeting scenario other than: ads:, email, sms and web push notifications.
What are retargeting ads?
One of the most popular strategies is retargeting ads. When a user visits a site, they usually get a cookie or a pixel that tracks their behaviour on the webpage. After they leave, said cookie helps brands follow the user and show ads related to the category or product they expressed interest in the site, with the objective of bringing them back and completing a conversion.
This strategy doesn’t require users to fill forms or leave any type of information such as email or phone number, since their actions are tracked based on browser and not personal data. However, for the residents in the EU, they should have allowed cookies first.
One of the main benefits of retargeting ads is that they are directed to users that have already expressed interest in your brand and products, hence increasing the conversion rates probabilities. It’s always easier to re-engage with people that already visited the site because of an own, genuine interest than by targeting potential customers that haven’t even heard of your brand before. That’s why retargeting ads have become such a popular and powerful tool.
Should I use retargeting ads for my website?
Even though they have a well-deserved reputation, retargeting ads also have some downsides to take under consideration before deciding to use them as a part of your digital marketing mix.
Reach: One of the main advantages of using retargeting ads is that they allow you to reach almost everybody who allows cookies anywhere on the web. After a user visits your web, it practically doesn’t matter where they’re browsing next, either a blog or media website, social media or any other type of web page who shows ads open to ad exchange. If you’re using retargeting ads campaigns, you can reach them very easily and invite them to go back to your website. Consider that, even if you don’t get a conversion, by using this channel your brand will be on the top of mind of your target audience.
People use ad blockers: Users tend to feel harassed and can find retargeting ads creepy because of the “following around” sensation they cause. According to Statista “In 2019, roughly 25.8 percent of internet users were blocking advertising on their connected devices” and that number is expected to continue growing in time. The overwhelming amount of advertisements displayed on websites, make navigation uncomfortable for users who ultimately decide to install ad block extensions in their browsers. This means that a bunch of the budget destined to online ads is lost and the message never reaches potential customers.
Dependence on deliverability: consider that people who don’t use ad blockers, are bombarded with ads on every website they visit. They are used to seeing a lot of advertisements and it’s very easy to overlook them to just focus on the content they actually want to see. On top of that, for users to come across that ad you put so much love into, they have to navigate a web site that belongs that reaches your display network, which minimizes the probability of the ad fulfilling its function.
Uplift in sales: you can reach up to a 10% uplift with retargeting ads if you choose your bid targeting properly. If you bid higher, you generate more sales while being less profitable, or if you want to be more profitable you bid less and you reach less people and uplift will be more limited. The point with using this strategy is to re-engage with users that have already visited your site and have expressed interest in your product or service. Since you already got their attention once, it’s much easier to obtain a conversion with them, translating into an uplift of your sales.
Profitability: are retargeting ads profitable? The short and simple answer here is it depends. You have to keep in mind that it mainly depends on your CPC and ROAS objectives and also the quality of your campaign, your audience segmentation. The higher CPC you bid, you get more impressions but your ROAS decreases and vice versa. When retargeting the right audience you can see a great increase in conversion and end up with a great ROI. But one of the most important factors when it comes to using retargeting ads, is that you’re bidding against your direct competitors and if their CPC bids are higher, your ad won’t get the impressions that you expect.
Retargeting the wrong audience: If you don’t do the integration properly using the “tracking pixel”, you could be losing money by reaching a customer that already bought a product because retargeting ads are not behaviour based. When users enter your site and you leave a cookie on them, if they directly decide to purchase a product on that first visit, they’re going to get an ad later. Not only will you waste your budget by displaying an ad that’s going nowhere, your brand’s reputation will be negatively affected by appearing intrusive and irrelevant.
Additional workload: depending on the platform you’re working with, your retargeting ads might need to be updated frequently, if you keep showing the exact same ad, with the same message and images to your potential customers, they’ll get bored. You need to dedicate time into designing and creating different versions of the ad that you want to display periodically so users don’t get used to seeing them or bored by them. This translates into an additional workload for you.
Is there an alternative to retargeting ads?
The brightside is that technology is offering marketers new, innovative ways to re-engage online visitors. The direct and best alternative to retargeting ads campaigns are automated web push notifications. They also don’t require users to provide any type of personal information, are browser based and take the lead when it comes to personalisation and reach.
Ad blockers don’t affect them: ad blocker extensions don’t block or affect web push notifications in any way. When a subscriber opts-in and consents to receiving them, the message will always be delivered when users open their browsers, on both mobile or desktop, and start navigating any site. Web push notifications have a much higher acceptance than retargeting ads, especially because you give people the choice to allow or block them and opt-out whenever they want to: you put them in control so they don’t find them creepy or inappropriate. Some extensions can block them.
The right message to the right person at the right time: automated web push notifications allow you to create message sequences based on individual consumer behaviour. These messages are triggered by events the users complete on your website. For example, if a user browses a product page but doesn’t add the article to the basket, he will receive a retargeting web push notification as a reminder to continue with the shopping process. This triggered notification won’t be sent if the user ads the product to the cart and so on: one event excludes the other. This automation guarantees that users will receive the right message with a high level of personalisation that retargeting ads don’t allow.
Guaranteed deliverability: one of the biggest advantages of web push notifications is their reachability. Users who opt-in receive them on both desktop and mobile devices, regardless of the website they’re navigating on. Unlike retargeting ads, web push notifications are shown on any website, not the publishers or a network display one. This guarantees that your message comes across every time. As another benefit, when it comes to retargeting ads, as we mentioned before, it’s very easy for them to get lost in a jungle of ads displayed on a site. This will never be a problem with web push notifications, as they’ll appear on a corner of the screen (on desktop) or a regular app notification on mobile devices. Users just won’t miss them.
Automation reduces workload: the setup process of the campaigns has to be done just one time only. Service platforms like Frizbit take care of the integration process in just a day and hand over ready-to-use templates that clients can customise as much as they want. This means that you won’t have to be creating, designing and changing your campaigns constantly to keep it interesting for your potential customers. Web push notifications by Frizbit include dynamic parameters that fill in automatically to make the message as personalised and relevant as it can be by adding user name, product name, brand and images and more. There’s no other retargeting channel that allows as much customisation as web push notifications do.
Should I use retargeting ads or automated retargeting web push notifications?
To sum up, the truth is that a great digital marketing strategy includes a mix of channels combined to get the best results and achieve objectives the most efficient way possible. Retargeting ads and web push notifications can easily coexist in the same online strategy. However, the pros and cons of each channel are very clear.
Ultimately the decision will have to be based on your industry, type of products and budget. Between both channels, web push notifications have shown to offer greater results in terms of ROAS, click-through rates and conversion rates.
You are welcome to read our clients success stories and see for yourself what an automated web push notification retargeting campaign can do for your online business.
Bidcom, an online retailer leader in consumer electronics, partnered with Frizbit to implement a retargeting strategy to recover abandoned carts. With a masterful combination of automated behavioural email and hyper personalised web push notifications campaigns, they managed to bring back 15% of their subscribers and reach a ROAS of 37x with a cost per session as low as 0,04€.
Bidcom Success Story!
We have put together a complete and comprehensive Case Study of Bidcom’s success working with Frizbit. We get into details on the challenge the client was facing, their needs, expectations and how Frizbit’s platform presented a new, top-notch digital marketing retargeting strategy as a solution.
Email marketing has always been the favorite marketing channel to reach users and tackle the major issue online stores face: abandoned carts. Frizbit wanted to integrate this channel to Bidcom’s strategy to offer the best result possible. Behavioural automated emails offer a high level of personalisation by including relevant information like user name, product name, price and image.
However, to create a bullet proof abandoned cart recovery strategy, automated web push notifications were the key ingredient. This new channel offered Bidcom the possibility to reach and engage visitors that didn’t fill any form or completed any type of registration on both desktop and mobile.
Bidcom is now retargeting even anonymous visitors through the entire shopping funnel with highly relevant messages that enhance user experience, focusing on cart abandonment recovery.
The integration process is very simple as Frizbit’s team takes care of implementing via Google Tag Manager. With the ready-to-use templates, in just one day, clients can start sending campaigns as soon as they want, or they can choose to customise the messages, designs and timings to fit the brand’s identity as much as they desire.
Definition (what are they, what are they used for, where are they shown and in which formats)
What’s the difference between web push and mobile push notifications?
What’s the difference between pop-ups and web push notifications?
What elements compose a web push notification?
What operating systems do they work on?
What browsers support web push notifications?
What devices support web push notifications?
How do web push notifications work?
Opt-in process
Manual web push notifications
Automated web push notifications by Frizbit
Why should I use web push notifications on my website?
Retention of anonymous users
Reach users outside of the website
Desktops and mobile reach without having and app
Quick traffic generator
Time efficient
Are web push notifications effective?
High opt-in rate
High CTR
Profitable channel
How much can you increase revenue?
How do I send web push notifications from my website?
How to install web push notifications
What metrics should I track to optimize my web push notification campaign?
How to measure web push notifications performance
Metrics to keep track of
Are web push notifications GDPR compliant?
What makes a good web push notification?
It’s relevant
It’s personal
It’s specific
How to choose a web push notification service provider?
1. What are Web Push Notifications?
Web push notifications are clickable messages sent by a website and appear on the screen of a user’s device, even if the website is closed and the user hasn’t filled any type of registration form. It is the latest and a very powerful digital channel for websites to re-engage and communicate with subscribers who opt-in to receive them, providing useful/interesting information.
What are web push notifications used for?
They’re used as a direct communication channel to keep users informed about news, promotions, abandoned products on their shopping carts or general information and updates. Web push notifications can be installed on any website: e-commerce, newspapers, blogs or magazines and their purpose is to entice users to return to the site and complete an specific action.
Where do web push notifications appear?
The format and position of web push notifications changes depending on the operative system, browser and device they appear on. They slide on the top right corner on Mac devices, on the bottom right corner on Windows devices , and on mobile they appear in the same way to a regular push notification from an app.
Windows Desktop Web Push Notification
Android Mobile Web Push Notification
What’s the difference between web and mobile push notifications?
Mobile push notifications are messages sent by an app that is installed on a mobile device or tablet. In order to receive them, users need to give permission and they’re shown on the screen of the device, no matter if the user is actively on that app or not.
Web push notifications are simply the website version of the app push notifications. They are messages sent by a website and delivered through browsers even when the users are not on that website, to both mobile and desktop devices.
The first time a user accesses a notifications-enabled website, users will be asked if they would like to to allow or block them by a browser permission prompt, just like apps would ask their users to allow notifications.
What’s the difference between pop-ups and web push notifications?
A pop-up is a message that suddenly shows-up on a website over the content while the user is currently navigating on it. The majority of them show-up as soon as a user lands on the page. In some cases they can be activated based on users’ actions, such as a click, scrolling down, spending a specific time period or closing a window (exit intent pop-ups).
Web Push Notification
Pop-up
Pop-ups can appear both on desktop and mobile, and are typically used for advertisement with the purpose of directing the user’s attention to a specific message in the site they’re visiting. User experience is usually diminished by these types of messages as they’re considered intrusive and annoying.
Web push notifications differ from pop-ups mainly because they’re shown on the screen of the user not necessarily within the browser window even if the user is not on the website, while pop-ups can only be shown within the browser window when the user is actively browsing on that website.
What elements compose a web push notification?
Web push notifications are composed of various elements that conform their anatomy. They include: icon, headline, description, call to action button, a large image and the page url from where it’s being sent. All the elements are modifiable for each notification, you can change the icon, image, text, CTA for each one if you wish to.
Icon: The icon is usually the logo of the brand. Its position inside the notification varies between different OS and browsers, but is always visible. The icon has to be a square image preferably at least 256 x 256 px.
Tips and insights: if you use your logo, you can adapt the design to match the season or a holiday!
Headline: The headline is the first text line of the notification. It usually appears in bold letters as an attempt to catch the user’s attention in most of the browsers & OS’s. The length of the visible area varies between 43 to 69 characters depending on different OS and browsers
Tips and insights: use the most appealing words at the first 43 characters of your content to make sure it’s visible regardless of the OS and browser.
Description: The description is the textual content that follows the headline and it’s used to offer a more detailed explanation. The length of the visible area varies between 50 to 136 characters depending on the OS and browser.
Tips and insights: use the most appealing words at the first 50 characters of your content to make sure it’s visible in all OS and browsers. Personalise the content using the dynamic parameters in this section as it has more area which can accommodate longer values of parameters
Large Image (Optional): An image that complements the message, it should be descriptive and appealing. It’s only visible on Google Chrome, Windows and Android OS.
Tips and insights:push notifications with images have a 20% higher CTR, according to A/B testing conducted by several Frizbit clients. The ideal ratio of the image to make it visible on all OS and devices is 2×1 horizontal, minimum size being 512 x 256 px and recommended size being 1024 x 512 px. You can read more about the ideal size and resolution for rich web push notifications here.
Page URL: Is the domain of the website that’s sending the notification, the one the user subscribed to. The subscriber can be directed to any destination URL, it doesn’t necessarily have to be the same domain.
Tips and insights: send subscribers to a page as close to the lower end of the shopping funnel as possible. This will increase the possibility of conversion. Don’t forget to add UTM tags to track the traffic coming from each different push notification campaign
Action button (Optional): Action buttons (you can have up to two) are optional buttons which can be used as call to action to tell users what you want them to do, what action is expected from them. Its visibility also varies depending on OS and device. It is possible to define a distinct URL to action buttons, other than the main URL of the notification.
Tips and insights: be precise on the CTA (Call to Action), tell the subscribers exactly what you want them to do: finish your purchase, book now. Don’t forget to add UTM tags to track the traffic coming from each different push notification campaign.
Even though all web push notifications include the same elements, how they’re shown will depend on the browser, operating system and device. Some will include the image, some won’t and the visibility of the text and action buttons will vary as well.
All the elements can be highly customised with personalised text, images and even emojis. If you make use of the dynamic parameters, you can include even more specific information such as category name, product name, product image, product price and user name to make the message as relevant as possible for each user, making them feel that you’re talking directly to them.
What operating systems support web push notifications?
Web push notifications are supported by all major operating systems, except iOS. Windows, Android, MacOS work properly with web push while iOS doesn’t support them by default.
Chrome Android Web Push Notification
Chrome MacOS Web Push Notification
Chrome Windows Web Push Notification
Firefox Android Web Push Notification
Firefox MacOS Web Push Notification
Firefox Windows Web Push Notification
Safari MacOS Web Push Notification
What browsers support web push notifications?
All major browsers, Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera and Microsoft Edge support web push notifications, except Internet Explorer.
What devices support web push notifications?
Web push notifications are shown on desktop, mobile and tablets even if the user has left the website. Their appearance and where they’re shown will vary depending on the operating system of the device.
2. How do web push notifications work?
From the publisher’s perspective
Web push notifications work for any kind of website. Any brand or business that owns a website can configure and send web push notifications very easily. No mobile app is required to do so, and the implementation is fairly simple by adding a small piece of code from a web push notification service platform to their site. We explain the process with more detail ahead in this article.
From the user’s perspective
Web push notifications is a permission based marketing channel, which means that it can be only sent to a user if they allow a website to do so. In order to start receiving web push notifications all a user needs to do is basically to opt-in (give permission to that particular website to send push notifications) and become a subscriber. This can be done by two ways:
Native opt-in: is the browsers’ default prompt to ask users their permission to subscribe to the web push notifications channel. It includes a non-customizable text and uses the language settings chosen by the user. It triggers when a user visits a site for the first time and they have to click “allow” or “block”.
Custom opt-in: is a form of opt-in which shows first a pop-up that can be customized with the website’s branding that also appears the first time a user visits the site. It offers the possibility to personalise the message and include the logo of the brand. It can be shown on the top middle of the screen and after clicking “allow” on, it triggers the browsers’ opt-in prompt, in which the user must give permission again to become a subscriber. The downside of using a custom opt-in, is that it requires two clicks from users in order to actually allow the notifications and this results in a 3x decreased opt-in rate.
Opt-out: How to disable web push notifications?
When it comes to this channel, the users have complete control over them. In order to unsubscribe from web push notifications, subscribers just need to access their browser settings panel, look for the notifications option, find the website they would like to opt-out and select “block”. The process may vary a little depending on the browser you use, for details you can check these articles:
There are two types of web push notifications: manual and automated. Depending on the service provider you choose, you’ll have more options regarding the type of messages you can send. The difference between them is their triggering mechanism:
Manual (bulk) push notifications: manual web push notifications are used to send manually a massive communication to all or a segment of users informing about special discounts, promotions, time sensitive sales or new products. They could be understood as the push notification equivalent to email newsletters. You can send messages regarding:
News
New blog post
Event information
Flash sale
New products
Automated (triggered) push notifications: automated notifications are highly personalised messages sent to users based specifically on their individual behaviour on the site. They’re designed and scheduled to be sent automatically in predetermined time frames after a user completes an action. You can define as many scenarios as you wish to trigger an automated web push notification, depending what type of site you have:
E-commerce: you can define events that send a message to users for every step of the funnel. Ex. Cart Abandonment, Product Retargeting, Category Retargeting.
Travel: you can define events to trigger notifications to recover lost reservations of the users that didn’t complete the booking or to improve the UX of the trip. Ex. Last Seats for a specific destination, last available room, check-in, boarding, luggage reminders.
B2B/SaaS: you can generate more leads by sending a sequence of web push notifications to nurture leads that visited a page but dind’t complete a sign up.
Real Estate: you can generate more leads and interactions by communicating with users about a listing they have viewed but didn’t engage with it or recommending similar properties or announce them about new listings.
Why should I use web push notifications on my website?
Web push notifications present a direct and real-time communication channel with users. Subscribers receive the message when they’re online, which highly increases the chances of interaction within minutes of the notification being sent. There’s no other digital marketing channel that has this inherent power that web push notifications have.
Engage anonymous users
The main reason web push notifications are becoming so popular amongst marketers, is because it is a unique channel to retain users that didn’t leave any personal information on the website. To become a subscriber, a user has to simply click “allow” on the opt-in prompt without filling any form, sharing their email address or any other type of personal data. This presents a major opportunity for businesses to create a flow of communication with users that might never decide to drop their email.
Reach both desktop and mobile without having an app
One the most attractive features of web push notifications is that they don’t require an app to function. In order to send a push notification, you just need to have a website and you can reach your subscribers on both desktop and mobile devices. This means that you don’t have to wait for users to check their emails to get the message through. Being able to reach people at any time, on any device is a unique advantage of web push notifications.
Reach users out of the website
What makes web push notifications so special is that they can reach audiences even when they’re not actively browsing your website. If a user subscribes, leaves and starts navigating any other site, they’ll still receive notifications from you. There’s currently no other direct digital marketing channel you can do this with, which adds to the list of reasons why you should use web push notifications on your website.
Generate traffic in seconds
Web push notifications is a real-time communication channel. This means users get the message the moment they’re online which inmensely increases the chances of interaction. On average, most notifications are clicked within the first hour after receiving it. For example, with manual web push notifications, you can direct lots of traffic in a very short period of time. In less than a minute after sending it, you’ll see sessions being generated on your web and users engaging with the site in real-time in your web analytics solution.
Time efficient
Digital and online businesses are used to working with multiple marketing tools to get their message across. Most of the time it would seem overwhelming to add one more channel to the mix. However, web push notifications is different. The campaign setup is extremely simple and you don’t have to spend a lot of time creating each message and manually sending it. Using automation you can create templates that will be sent automatically when triggered by an event you define on your site. You’ll only need to invest some time once to configure your campaigns and that’s it!
Are web push notifications effective?
The most simple and straightforward answer is YES! But let’s dig a little deeper. If used wisely it can become the most effective retargeting channel for online businesses.
High opt-in rate
Web push notifications have proven to be much more effective than other traditional channels. They have an average 3x higher opt-in rate than emails, which can easily be related to how seamless the process is. With just one click, visitors can become subscribers without handing over their email address or other personal information. Reducing the steps one person has to follow and complete to opt-in to any type of digital communication, will decrease the hesitation and make them more open minded to subscribe.
High CTR
Stats have shown that web push notifications have a 4x times higher click through rate than emails. That’s a 8,5% over in comparison to the 2.4% CTR of emails. The hyper-personalisation capabilities of web push notifications, allow to significantly increase the CTRs. When people feel like you’re really talking specifically to them, it will translate into more clicks and that is one of the biggest benefits of using web push notifications.
Profitable channel
Web push notifications present a very valuable alternative for marketers that allocate a big part of their marketing budget to retargeting ads. Most web push notification services are based on monthly fees that vary on the amount of subscribers or visits to the website. There are no extra fees for the amount of messages sent, implementation nor PPC rates involved. You can send unlimited notifications.
This makes the cost of retaining a customer very profitable. Consider that returning users that have already converted are the biggest asset to your business. Web push notifications allow you to bring them back without having to spend a large marketing budget chasing them around with expensive retargeting ads.
How much can you increase your revenue with web push notifications?
Web push notifications offer varied results depending on the industry, type of business and amount of traffic of the site. You can access our calculator and introduce a few data to estimate how much you can increase your revenue using web push notifications in just a few clicks: https://get.frizbit.com/revenue-calculator/
How do I send web push notifications from my website?
1. Upload Service Worker
The process of implementing web push notifications is very simple and can be done in any website. The first thing you have to do is to upload the Service Worker file of your provider to the root folder of your website’s domain. A Service Worker is a file that allows a browser to run functions that don’t need a web page such as sending push notifications to a user when they are not on your site.
2. Add JavaScript snippet
The next step is to add the JavaScript snippet of your provider that will help you create a user profile for every person that visits your site, allowing you to to track their behaviour. There are two options to do this:
A) Via Google Tag Manager: most web pages nowadays already use GTM and you can easily add this snippet as a tag on GTM. Besides, a web push notification service provider such as Frizbit can offer all the implementation on GTM in a few moments.
B) Adding directly to the web: if you don’t work with Google Tag Manager, you have the alternative to directly add the JavaScript snippet by copying and pasting it inside the <head></head> section of your website.
Working with a web push provider makes the process very simple, since they can take care of all the configuration, onboarding and then they hand everything over to you. After the setup is complete, you’ll instantly start collecting subscribers when they visit your site and opt-in. All that’s left is to design the notifications. Some providers, like Frizbit, will offer you templates, advice and support for the optimization of your campaigns.
How to create a web push notification?
Web push notification service providers usually have a dashboard where you can create the content of push notifications. Frizbit’s dashboard allows you to design your messages personalising with the use of all kinds of dynamic parameters and also see the changes in your design in real time for each browser and operating system. This way you have complete control and awareness of how the notification will be shown to users.
Access the dashboard, select “New” and enter a name for your campaign
Fill in the information of the title, and description and include the icon
Select the options for Google Chrome and add a large image, write the message for the call to action. You can add a second one if you wish to.
Follow the same steps for Safari
In the “Advanced Options” tab, you can set a timer and add a tag for your campaign.
Proceed to select when and how you want the notification to be delivered: right now, scheduled, recurring or event triggered.
Next, continue with the audience segmentation. Here you can select as many filters as you wish, such as language, country, type of event, browser, device and much more.
Once you’re done, you can save your design as a draft or publish immediately. The web push notification you created, will be saved on your dashboard and you can edit it later or copy it for new creations.
Remember you can perform different versions and conduct A/B testing. You can assign percentages of users to each campaign variation and see for yourself which one performs better. Use the results to optimize your notifications as much as possible and get the best results.
What metrics should I track to optimize my web push notification campaigns?
Web push notifications significantly increase user engagement and improve retention rates. There are several metrics you should keep an eye on in order to constantly improve your campaigns.
Opt-in rate: is the percentage of the unique users on your site clicking “allow” and becoming subscribers. Keeping track of this information will give you hints on where to ask users if they want to receive notifications from your site and adjust accordingly. You can place the opt-in prompt in any page you want, and trigger it by an action of the user. It’s not necessary to ask permission within the second a visitor enters the site.
Click-through rate: is the percentage of subscribers that click the notification over the total number of subscribers you sent it to. It’s so important to keep close track of this number, because it lets you know what type of notifications your subscribers are responding to. You can test different messages changing the title, image, description and CTA and analyse which ones are resulting in more clicks.
Time spent on a page: when sending a notification, you tell users what to expect when they click on it. Directing them to a good landing page that fulfills their expectations is key. That’s why you should keep track of how much time subscribers spend on a page after they click the notification. This will give you valuable insight on how the messages portrayed in the notification meets the landing’s information. If there’s no connection between the copy of the notification and the content of the page you send users to, bounce rate will increase, letting you know there’s an issue in copywriting.
Opt-out rate: shows the number of people that unsubscribed from web push notifications from your site. This is a vital metric to keep track of. Naturally your opt-in numbers should be much higher than opt-outs. If you discover that your opt-out rates are increasing over time, ring your alarm bells and start looking for the problem. In this case it’s usually related to low relevance of your notifications, or maybe you’re sending too many notifications that your subscribers perceive as spam and decide to opt-out.
Conversion rate: this is the ultimate goal of your campaign and the main metric of any type of business. This metric indicates the accomplishment of your goal, whether completed sales, signup or another type of engagement. All of the improvement efforts for other metrics should be aimed at ultimately increasing conversion rates. You can have great opt-in rate or click-through rates, but if they’re not translating into conversions, it is time to evaluate your web push notifications campaign strategy in place, identify the problem and do whatever it requires to resolve it.
You can keep track of the majority of these metrics, setting goals on Google Analytics and checking the reports that provide your web push notifications provider.
Are web push notifications GDPR compliant?
Web push notifications are GDPR compliant by nature. They present a direct communication channel with users with no personal data requirements. This means that users have to give consent to become recipients, but they don’t have to provide their name, email, phone number or any other type of personal information.
These instant alert messages are device oriented. The user is not targeted based on some personal data they share, but to their device. The subscription information is all stored in the browser, so businesses have no access to it and can’t use it or sell it in any way.
The user is the one in complete control by having access to the notifications panel, where they can easily decide to opt-out if they wish to.
What makes a good web push notification?
The best web push notifications have three attributes that bring results: they’re relevant, personal and precise. This channel offers many possibilities that can greatly benefit your online business if used correctly. If you exploit all its features with a well-thought strategy and avoid common mistakes, you’ll be a web push notification lover just like us.
A great web push notification is:
Relevant: Tracking the user’s behaviour on your site gives you all that you need in order to make the notification as relevant as possible. Define different scenarios to trigger a specific notification based on each user activity, so that the message they receive is directly linked to what they did on the site. You also want to keep in mind user segmentation. You don’t want to send a special offer on a product today, to a customer that bought it the day before. The same way you should keep in mind to send notifications about sales or special offers during the time they’re active and deactive the campaign the minute the promotion is over. Web push notifications that are highly relevant, have much higher click through rates.
Personal: Make use of all the dynamic parameters available: user name, product name, category name, image or any other available parameter to design a super personalised notification. If a user feels that you’re talking directly to him, the message will present a higher value and the user will be more enticed to engage with it. You should also contemplate language and time zone. Customize the campaign for each language and country you’re sending it to. The content of your web push notification has to appeal to each subscriber as an individual.
Specific: Great web push notifications let the subscriber know exactly what you want them to do and what they can expect when clicking that action button. Make it clear and precise with your title, message and CTA. Write the text keeping in mind how it will display on each OS and browser. Write the most important message in the title to make sure it’s always visible and make sure you link to the right landing page where your subscribers will find all you promised in the notification.
How to choose a web push notification service provider?
There are a list of features and considerations to be made when choosing a web push notification service. It’s important that you do your research and don’t jump ahead and go for the first service you find online. The main aspects you must consider are:
Customer data protection
There are many well-known free web push notifications service providers in the market. You might feel enticed to choose one of these instead of a paid one. The thing is, that free web push notifications services might sell your customer’s information, they’re “free” for a reason. When using one of these providers, you allow them to collect and sell your subscribers behavioural data, which can be purchased by your very own competitors. You have to decide which price to pay: a normal service fee or to sell subscribers personal information to third parties.
Subscriber portability
When choosing a web push notification provider, you want to make sure you collect subscribers under your own domain. Some of the providers offer you an alternative way of subscription where the users will be subscribed to a subdomain of the provider rather than the domain of the business itself. If you agree to this, all the subscribers that accept and opt-in to notifications from you, won’t belong to your website, they’ll belong to the website of your service provider. This means that, if one day, you wish to change providers for whatever reason, you’ll lose all your subscriber’s base and will have to start from scratch.
Personalisation and automation
Make sure you select a platform that offers the option of hyper-personalisation through dynamic parameters. As we mentioned before, customised notifications that include details like user name, have higher CTRs and lower opt-out rates. The same happens with automation. Notifications triggered by the behaviour of users on the website, have high relevance that translates in better engagement.
Good customer support
Whether you’re new with web push notifications, or have been using them for a while, good customer support is extremely important. You want to choose a provider that’s always going to be present if you have any doubt, concern or issue with your campaigns. Frizbit offers its clients a step by step onboarding, ready-to-send templates for your automated campaigns and consulting of any type.
When choosing a push notification provider, seek one that offers a trial period. This will help you ensure it ticks all the boxes and put you at ease with your decision. If you want to request a demo from Frizbit, click here and let us know!
