5 Myths About Push Notifications

Today we’re publishing an article provided by the team at DatsPush. It’s a really interesting read that a lot of people will find useful — we highly recommend it and are happy to share it here.

We receive countless push notifications every day — from messengers, apps, email, and yes, ads.

Most advertisers and marketers have already recognized push as one of the most effective tools for brand promotion and customer acquisition. The key advantage: users opt in themselves, which means they’re already interested in that type of content. Push notification CTR is significantly higher than most other common ad formats.

Unfortunately, in our day-to-day work we keep running into a lot of misconceptions about this ad format — so today we’re debunking the most common myths.

Myth 1. Nobody Actually Subscribes to Push Notifications Voluntarily

That’s not true. Users subscribe to push notifications quite actively. In fact, according to data from the past year, the push subscription rate has more than doubled.

The subscription process itself — just 2 clicks — requires direct action from the user, which makes it nearly impossible to “force” anyone onto a push list.

Myth 2. Push Notifications Are the Spam of the Mobile World

Sure, most of us receive a flood of notifications — and not all of them are informative or relevant. But the truth is, the blame lies entirely with advertisers and marketers who either can’t or won’t properly configure their targeting. When users receive a ton of notifications that have nothing to do with their interests, their trust in the whole format starts to erode.

The more personalized your notification, the more attention it will grab.

Myth 3. Nobody Wants to Receive Push Notifications

That’s debatable — especially when you consider the fact that users choose to subscribe on their own.

Of course, nobody wants irrelevant notifications, and they’ll simply unsubscribe if that’s what they’re getting. The solution is to analyze your target audience and apply the appropriate targeting settings.

Myth 4. Users Only Receive Push Notifications When Their Browser Is Open or They’re on the Site

This is one of the most widespread myths. It stems from how other ad formats work — pre-rolls, banners, pop-unders, and the like.

Push notifications are better compared to email. We receive email regardless of whether our email app is open at that moment. All that’s needed is an internet connection. Push notifications work the same way — and in terms of effectiveness, they’ve long outpaced standard email campaigns.

Myth 5. Push Notifications Show Which Site the User Subscribed From

This is only partially true. It depends on the site and the push notification provider. For e-commerce stores or apps, yes — the site URL and brand logo are the main hook meant to attract attention.

In DatsPush, the site URL doesn’t appear in the notification text, because what matters to DatsPush advertisers is promoting their product — not the site where the subscription happened.