Push Notifications Marketing: From a Message to an Efficient Ad Format

Contributed by PropellerAds
Whether you work in advertising or not, you must have heard about Push notification marketing a million times already. Indeed, in recent years, Push advanced steadily and turned into a powerful advertising format. What’s the reason for such a buzz?
Okay, let’s bring some basics. What really matters in advertising is the user’s response to your marketing message. However, at times of speedy information circulation, it’s really hard to capture people’s attention and get their meaningful reactions.
They get distracted by so many things: thousands of banners, promo reels, endless marketing emails, spam, etc. This way, people find it harder and harder to reach information and offers they really want, like interesting news, products, updates, discounts, or useful articles.
The task of a modern marketer is not only to break through the wall of endless content but also to make it in a slight and non-invasive way. PropellerAds claims: Push is the right thing to reach both these goals.
PropellerAds made Push notifications a full-fledged advertising format that really works, so we know a lot about it. And now we are ready to share our knowledge and experience with everyone curious about Push. Read on!
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Radically different approach to user experience
A small chunk of history. So, a long time ago, push notifications appeared as system messages on mobile devices. The pioneer was Blackberry, and then Apple followed this winning idea. The initial idea of these brands was a better user experience achieved with small and instant messages.
Say, before Push, checking email was a big deal – users had to open their inboxes and see if there was anything new there. Obviously, fast messaging was almost impossible this way, which was a real issue, especially for travelling employees.
Push changed this.
Today, Push is the ultimate way to communicate with users, and it went far beyond system messages. As an ad format, Push engages users in instant interaction with news, promos, games, applications, and other content. And affiliate marketing offers, of course.
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Push in affiliate marketing
We bet you have seen it a thousand times: you open a website and see the opt-in window like this:
Such messages can be used to promote affiliate marketing offers and help website owners collect a subscriber base.
One of the best things about Push notifications – they are noticeable and non-intrusive at the same time. Say, if users are not interested in the offer, they can just deny the opt-in access. If they agree, they will receive your messages, like this one:
This way, you can be sure that most relevant users react to your opt-in positively, and therefore – you get high-quality traffic.
What is the difference between Push and In-Page Push?
Basically, there are two types of Push notifications – Push and In-Page Push. While classic Push is delivered via websites after subscription, In-Page Push works rather like a banner than a message. In-Page Push was designed by PropellerAds to help advertisers expand their campaigns and reach users on those platforms where classic Push didn’t work.
The latter is displayed on publishers’ websites without any previous subscription, which allows them to avoid opt-in request blocking. This advantage of In-Page Push also allows affiliate marketers to target iPhone and Mac, users.
How to make your Push campaign strike?
As we already mentioned, Push can be used for any of your affiliate marketing aims. But how to reach the best result? You need appealing content and a well-thought strategy, of course.
Text and image
As you can see from the example above, Push notifications are not so big, that’s why you need to be laconic and catchy with your title and description. Use magic words like “sale”, “exclusive”, “free”, or “prize” (just make sure that you don’t give any empty promises).
The small image should be appealing but simple at the same time. Iconlike pics work best – stick to simplicity and avoid using too detailed pics.
PropellerAds always recommends launching a number of A/B tests and seeing which creatives and copies bring the best results. 3-5 creatives should be tested to make conclusions.
The right frequency
There is no one-size-fits-all frequency strategy for Push ads. PropellerAds recommends setting different frequencies for your campaigns to see how they impact the conversion rate for a particular offer with the given targeting settings.
Constant analysis
Using tracking, targeting and engagement tools of a chosen advertising network, make sure to evaluate and analyze your results regularly. You will need at least a day of rolling for a campaign with a simple flow and a week for a more complicated one before getting comprehensive numbers. In a while, your campaign will obtain enough data to let you see which targeting settings, creatives, and zones work and which don’t.
This way, you will get an idea about your traffic quality and see which zones need to be white- or blacklisted. PropellerAds have all the necessary tools to adjust the frequency and other variables, as well as a statistics tab to evaluate your performance + targeting and optimization instruments to benefit from.
Push on practice: statistics and insights
Push works great with any affiliate marketing vertical, including eCommerce, Nutrition, Finance, Web/Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Utilities, and more. Let’s take a look at PropellerAds stats for the last 30 days (1-30 September 2022) and see how these verticals performed in campaigns with corresponding offers and around the top GEOs.
Statistics represent top GEOs, number of impressions and clicks growth compared to the previous period.
E-commerce
In September, eCommerce showed significant results. One of the main reasons – it was a big global sale on 9.09 (it’s important to track such dates and launch event-related campaigns if you want to get more profit).
Utilities
As we checked the numbers in more detail, we concluded that the most profitable offer category in utility vertical was VPN.
Finance
This September, the Finance vertical was really successful – we can see significant Impressions and Clicks growth. The most popular offer types in this vertical are credit cards, trading and crypto products.
iGaming
Another vertical that really impressed us this month was iGaming. This vertical is popular almost 365 days a year, but an additional conversion-boosting factor is football matches. For example, Thailand takes first place definitely because of the Thai League (the event started on the 12th of August and it’s still running). The same is true for the Brazilian national team – they had matches with Ecuador and Columbia in September.
Nutrition
And these are the Nutrition results for a week:
In general, we have noted bounce for almost all GEOs and verticals on Push – autumn is a nice season to start your campaign. Why don’t you also do it?
Time to Push It: Push Notifications Marketing Wrap-up
To sum up, let’s briefly list the most crucial benefits of Push notifications in affiliate marketing:
1) Engaging
You can personalize your Push notifications with relevant targeting settings and craft them specifically for the events (holidays, sports matches, big sales, etc.). A bright image and a short, appealing copy will definitely do the work – people eagerly subscribe for stuff they like. At PropellerAds, you will find a number of CTR-boosting features like Badges (small icons on your Push notification) and customizable text for buttons.
2) Easy to notice
Push notifications appear above other content, being really hard to overlook. They look like tiny but noticeable alerts on both – mobile devices and desktops. What is more, Push appears on a user’s device even if he is not browsing the Internet at the moment. Wherever your subscribers are, they will receive a message even if they are not online
3) Not annoying
As we discussed, users start receiving Push notifications only after they subscribe. Yes, In-Page Push doesn’t need subscriptions, so if you choose this format, just make sure not to overdo with frequency.
Also, even though Push messages appear above the content, they are decent and elegant enough not to annoy subscribers. As such, your communication with them stays soft (if you don’t overdo with ad frequency, of course).
4) Affordable
Compared to social media ads and website banners, Push notifications are cost-effective (at PropellerAds, the starting price for 1 click is $0.001). Also, at PropellerAds, you can find beneficial pricing models like CPC (cost-per-click), CPA Goal and more. They will ensure that you don’t pay for irrelevant audiences and stay within the limits of your budget.
Well, yes, compared to social media ads or banners, Push traffic needs a bit more effort. For example, for some products (mostly those that require additional description) you will need a pre-lander or other instruments for a customer warm-up.
At the same time, affordable traffic price opens more opportunities for thoughtful tests and retests, which helps you try different creative combos and variations. As a reward, you will have a high chance to get a good ROI.
So, this is it. Consider launching a Push campaign or scaling your existing one with this winning format!