5 Ways to Boost Your Website User Strategy with Push Notifications

Retaining a customer can be up to 25 times less expensive than acquiring a new one, highlighting the significant value in reducing customer churn.

When armed with the appropriate tools, the daunting task of increasing user retention becomes easier. Push notifications are one such tool, serving as concise alerts sent from a website or app that can reach users even when they are not actively browsing.

This article will delve into the best practices for using push notifications to keep users engaged, offering real-life examples to illustrate these strategies.

Why are push notifications worth your attention?

Push notifications are used by 78% of brands — but only email marketing, the most popular user retention channel, is ahead.

What makes in-app and web push notifications such a popular choice, and why are they so efficient? Here are the main reasons:

• Push is easy to embed: Most push notification services can be integrated into any website within a couple of minutes.
• Quick opt-in: A user can subscribe and start receiving notifications with a single or double click.
• Wide reach: Subscribers get your messages even when they are not browsing your website – and even when their browser is closed or their smartphone is locked!
• Possible ROI increase: Some push services offer to show ads alongside regular notifications.

If we skip the theory and dive into practice, there is plenty of evidence behind these takes. We made a brief description of several real case studies from brands that benefited from implementing push notifications:

Brand	Results
AppLabz – mobile app developer	Improved ROI and customer LTV while reducing churn for apps.
Contteudo – content media group	+3,4 mln active subscribers – users constantly returning to the media group’s websites.
Fani Pogody – weather forecast website	+20k daily returning users — 20% of the total website traffic count

How to boost user engagement and ROI with push notifications

So, how exactly do push notifications helps grow user retention and re-engage customers? And how do you achieve the extra revenue flow we mentioned above?

Here is what you can do with the help of a push notifications channel.

1.   Build loyalty for your website

One of the most notable advantages of push notifications is their ability to reach users even when they are not actively using your website or app, or even when they are not browsing on their PC or phone at all.

This attribute makes push notifications an incredibly powerful tool for reminding people of your brand and ensuring your presence remains constantly visible to them.

Here are some examples of push notifications that help to create loyalty:

• Welcome message sent an hour after a subscription

• A daily reminder of the new content

• Notification with a special offer

2. Segment your audience

Current statistics say that 80% of customers appreciate it when a brand shows a personal touch. Thus, the more accurately you personalise the user, the more likely they are to react to the message.

User segmentation — dividing your audience into several groups by certain parameters —  is one of the practices that helps you be more personalized. And it is easily done with the help of push.

Here are several ways you can segment your customers using push notifications.

• Segmentation by interests and topics

When you post content on several topics, you can easily segment users right at the moment they subscribe to your notifications. It is possible thanks to a special opt-in request called Categories: it allows a customer to pick themes of alerts they want to receive.

After they confirm their choice, they automatically appear in a certain category and receive only relevant notifications.

• Segmentation by user location

This option becomes handy when your website’s audience comes from various cities, states, or countries and you post content about a particular location. When you create a separate segment of people coming from a particular area, you again increase your chance of reaching the right user.

• Segmentation by user behavior

The welcome message you send to your new subscriber will be completely irrelevant to a loyal customer, right? Thus, another opportunity to narrow down your targeting is to create special user behavior audiences.

They may consist of, say, people who subscribed a particular number of days ago or have not visited your website for a while.

• Segmentation by device

When your website has news or offers related to particular devices, browsers, or operating systems, it makes sense to divide the audience into the corresponding segments. This way, iPhone owners will not get updates about new Android apps, for example.

3. React to user’s actions

Another way of keeping users engaged is to work out their possible needs at a particular moment. A quick reaction to a user’s action might prevent them from switching to another service — and will keep them inside your sales funnel.

In most cases, it works like this: you send a special push notification based on a certain action (or its absence): login, click, order, abandoned cart, no return, a particular page visit, etc.

Note: Modern push notification providers allow sending such push notifications — so-called triggered push — automatically through the particular targeting settings.

  4. Improve customer service

However smooth your workflows are, there is always a risk of some unexpected issues. For example, the busy festive period can delay delivery when you are selling goods. Besides, planned maintenance that prevents users from visiting your website can also become a reason for customer churn.

Push notifications are the quickest and the most convenient way to say sorry, to inform about possible inconveniences, and, overall — to show a customer they are cared about.

  5. Monetize your subscribers

In most cases, high user retention rates already imply a stable revenue stream, however there is an even more straightforward way to skyrocket your profit. We are talking about monetization — a special feature available at some push providers.

The point of monetization is that when you switch it, your subscribers start receiving some extra push notifications. These notifications contain ads relevant to your overall website content. Users interact with these ads, and it brings you additional income.

Here is an example of an ad push notification:

Tip: Check if a push service provider’s monetization plan allows you to set the frequency of ad notifications and select the topics of the ads. Otherwise, you risk sending irrelevant ads or becoming too intrusive.

How to implement push notifications in your marketing strategy

As we already mentioned, it is usually very easy to start working with push. Here is a quick overview (using the example Notix):

• Choose the provider. You can use this checklist to ensure you don’t miss any essential points.

• Integrate the service by adding a special tag and a service worker to your website code. If you work with a WordPress website, choose a provider that has a ready WordPress push notifications plugin to embed.

• Set the opt-in prompt — a message suggesting a visitor subscribe — and start collecting your subscriber base.

To sum up

As you see, push notifications have the power to re-engage, attract, and inspire users to take action.

There are plenty of strategies you can use depending on your website type and audience needs — and you are welcome to do it with the instruments we provide you with at Notix.

Guest Author: Anna Efimova is the Sales Director at Notix. She is an Adtech professional with distinctive experience in sales, marketing, and leadership. She has a proven track record of success fostering long-term relationships and generating leads.