What are Web Push Notifications?
Web push are closely linked with web browsers. They are short and concise communications which appear, while using the browser, in a small rectangular frame, usually in the bottom right corner of the screen. In this frame, there will often be a logo which makes it easy to recognize the sender as well as some sort of message enticing the user to click on it, which will result in being linked to the sender’s website. For the user to receive such communications, he or she must first give consent on the dispatcher’s site, so for example while shopping on a web store or while simply browsing. Giving consent means that the user will receive notifications while using the browser even when not on the specific website. Such communications mostly contain information about new products, promotions and rebates on a webstore, or in the case of other websites, about a new blog post, an interesting article or introducing a new feature.
Utilizing Web Push Notifications
Web push notifications are a new way to communicate with users, aiming to acquire the most subscribers possible, which in turn increases the number of site visits. The idea behind this tool seems similar to sending newsletters to email addresses, because here also you need user consent and their aim is similar in that it persuades its recipient to visit the site once more and perform on it a specific action (i.e. buy a product). What differentiates web push notifications from all types of emailing campaigns is that web push works instantaneously. A received email message may be read even after a few days (or not at all, if it ends up in the spam folder), while notifications in the browser appear in the moment, when the user is actually using it. This means that it’s a much faster way to reach a user with specific information, which may be informative or advertising in nature, but always enticing the user to click and visit the site. In practice, this tool is used by online shops, but also information blogs and all other sites which rely on generating traffic.
When it comes to web push notifications’ effectiveness, hard data speaks for itself. From information posted on the site of one of the few polish web push tools PushAd we can gather that the click rate indicator CTR from received communications is on average 21%. For comparison CTR of mailing campaigns rarely exceeds 10% and usually reaches around 5%.
