Web push notifications deliver messages to end users through desktop and mobile browsers. If you don’t have an app, you can still reach your customers with targeted, personalized content. This will drive engagement, retention, and conversion.

From promotions to purchased-based communications, web push is a great way to reach your customers and provide an experience that is seamless, useful, and tailored.

According to comScore, “U.S. mobile browser audiences are 2x larger than app audiences across the top 50 mobile web properties and have grown 1.2x faster over the past 3 years.” Web is more relevant than ever.

To make sure your app is set up to send web push notifications, see Web push notifications prerequisites.

This article covers web push best practices in the following areas:

• Creative
• Targeting
• Timing
• Deeplinks

We also look at some key statistics for web push notifications.

Creative

Messaging

• Make your notifications relevant and personable – As with mobile push notifications, make them feel like they came from a close friend—relevant, useful, and welcomed.
• A/B test and experiment – Develop different variations of your message to see which ones your customers like the most.
• Keep it short, simple, and front-loaded – The most important part of your messaging must remain at the front, ensuring your customer sees what’s important and relevant to them.
• Title – 38 characters maximum (with spaces)
• Message – 46 characters maximum (with spaces)

Imagery

• Use emojis and imagery – Both elements tend to drive engagement up significantly, so try to be as rich as possible, as often as possible.
• Keep it rich – Add imagery to your web push to ensure your brand and message stands out and delivers a unique experience.
• Make it actionable – Be sure your call-to-action (CTA) or subheading clearly tells a user what to do next.
• Keep them local – Ensure you localize your campaigns to reach your customers in their preferred language.

Targeting

• Be strategic when requesting permission to send notifications – A message with a value of the notifications can help lift opt-in rates.
• Don’t ask too soon – Try placing your permissions prompt on a page where the reason for the permission request is obvious. This way you aren’t wasting time targeting users who aren’t really interested.
• Target precisely – Make your messaging personalized for your user, including more than just their name, such as details about their behavior and preferences.
• Segments-of-one – Send notifications based on your recipient’s prior actions and preferences on the website—don’t make them feel they’re getting the same message as everyone else.

Timing

• Be conscious of timing – You don’t want to send your users notifications at times when they’re unlikely to engage.
• Choose an optimal time to connect with your users – This is likely during the day when they’re using their browser.
• Scheduling your campaign – Use Swrve’s timing preferences to effectively reach your customer with web push:
  • Optimal time: Select the first option to send the push notification at the optimal time for each user within a certain window, or select the second option to send the push notification at the optimal time for the user within a 24-hour time period.
  • Local time:  Select a time from the list at which the push notification is sent in the user’s local time zone.

Deep linking

• Make the experience easy – Drive the user to the expected destination with deeplinks based on your messaging content.
• Use relevant deeplinks – The deeplink should save the user from having to search for the content or offer you’re promoting.

Key statistics

• 7-10 % opt-in rate from unique visitors to subscribers.
• Click-through-rate (CTR) rate of web push ranges between 4X to 8X of email across various industries.
• Average CTR of around 10.85% for notifications sent to less than 5,000 subscribers. The CTR for email is around 3-4%.
• Average CTR of around 4-6% for notifications sent to 25,000+ subscribers.
• 10% opt-out rate after allowing web push notifications (quite low).
• For finance, web push subscription has an opt-in rate of 15% and CTR of 30%.
• E-commerce opt-in and CTR hold steady at 10%
• Combining both app and web push approaches provide additional touch points, so web push can help drive up app retention 3-10x

Next steps

• Create a new web push campaign in the Swrve Campaign center. For more information, see Campaign overview and channels.
• View results and reports for your web push notification or change the status. For more information, see Campaign reports.