Push notifications - a communication channel or a complete annoyance of users?
According to user reviews on Facebook - the second option prevails. But we will nevertheless talk about 15 successful cases of using push notifications by Russian sites and groups on social networks.
All cases are real. Information was provided by the guys from Pushall (a service that allows you to receive push notifications both in the browser and on mobile platforms. Notifications can be received even from groups on Vkontakte).
Before describing the cases, I would like to clarify the situation with push notifications. The fact is that they are different. And not everyone understands the difference between them (I myself drove into this topic for a long time, but finally figured it out). And, having run into “clean” push notifications several times, many simply hated this tool. Yes it's true.
Let's understand the concepts.
Pure push notifications are such a tough thing. I go to the main page of the site, and they almost force me to sign up.
I close it, go to another page, and then the “invasion” of my personal life
continues : And such a tin continues indefinitely. If I click “Block”, then this thing will not appear on the site. And, even if I want to subscribe to push notifications from this site (when I understand that it has useful info), I can’t do it anyway.
Here they are, these push notifications that no one likes, and some even hate. They spoil the whole impression of the new tool for interacting with users.
But notifications are completely different. For example, the guys at Pushall make sure that notifications do not cause hate attacks. The user has full control over push notifications.
People like to keep everything under control. And they don’t like when the reverse situation occurs, which is characteristic of “pure” push notifications.
Here is an example of the proper use of push notifications:
<img src = "
" alt = "image" />
This is the site sohabr.net, which aggregates information from Habrhabr, Geektimes and Megamozg. When the user understands that he liked the site, useful information is posted on it, then he clicks on the “Subscribe” button, where he is offered various options for obtaining information. Push notifications are one of the options. The user clicks on it and goes to the subscription page:
Everything is simple, unobtrusive and convenient for the visitor. According to Oleg Karnaukhov (co-founder of Pushall), only 10% of users use the Push API to receive notifications, that is, even with the inclusion of a button, for people this method is quite inconvenient, and it’s easier for them to install a browser extension or even use Telegram.
Now you feel the difference between correct and incorrect notifications?
And do not be so biased towards this tool. Do not like it - do not subscribe. But at the same time there will be a considerable number of people who will find this option more convenient than E-mail newsletters, tracking updates on social networks, etc. Related
Article - Upgrade Email Marketing: Trigger Mailings
Let's move on to Russian cases from various fields of activity. Let's start with online media.
1. Consider the same example of Sohabr , which aggregate information from three sites at once. At the time of writing, 260 people were subscribed to it (although when Oleg was throwing me information on cases, there were only 200 people). With an audience of 200 people, 1,800 alerts were sent daily. The audience is growing, not decreasing - this suggests that push notifications are convenient for the target audience.
The site sohabr.net is directly integrated with Pushall through the API, so when a new article appears, the subscriber will immediately receive a notification. And due to the use of filters, everyone adjusts the flow of notifications to their needs.
Conveniently? Conveniently!
2. Unofficial channel w3bsit3-dns.com site . More than 200 people receive news alerts from w3bsit3-dns.com.
3. The semi-official channel of the site meduza.io . Created by official representatives, however, they have not yet untwisted it, and did not inform their audience about it. Medusa passively scored 60 subscribers.
4. The official channel of an independent startup publication - Rusbase.vc. While the push notification channel is practically not promoted, but people are gradually subscribing to it. Now there are already 30 subscribers who receive daily alerts about new articles.
5. The official channelFinanalize.com is a completely new channel, but it has grown very quickly to 200 subscribers. This happened due to the E-mail newsletter with an offer to subscribe to a new channel for receiving information. It would seem, but why another source of alerts? But this makes sense: the channel notifies you of trading signals, and does it for free. For readers of the site - this is important information. And the speed of its delivery is important
.
6 / And here is the negative case of the same obsessive Iguides.ru (at the beginning of the article I already checked their perseverance). Therefore, questions such as How to disable Chrome push notifications from iGuides appear on the Internet? And iGuides himself had to write a whole guide on how to turn off these notifications: there were too many dissatisfied. Below is the confirmation to my words:
<img src = "
"alt =" image "/> The
comments in the article show that a few days after work, users wanted to turn off notifications ... but they didn’t know how. And this caused a flurry of negativity. Some comments gained dozens of pluses, which reflected the opinion of site visitors and inefficiency "pure" push notifications.
in general, there is Pushall 50 different thematic channels online media, which have been created recently and are just beginning to use this tool of communication with the target audience.
The channel of our website - Boosta.ru - was created yesterday and RMS. oh I'll start actively promoting it to their readers. Then be sure to write a positive (hope so) or a negative case the use of "guns." And yet subscribe to it. Alerts will come no more than 2 times a week when new articles are published.
Related article - Push notifications - new [communication channel] with the target audience
In Russia, they love foreign series and are constantly waiting for the voice acting of new series. A number of studios are responsible for the voice acting, there are many of them, and among them there are quite large ones with thousands of audiences. The problem is that there is no exact schedule for the release of voice acting, so users do not know when a new translated series of their favorite series will be released.
And in this case, the notifications were very helpful. The studio translated a new series - the subscriber immediately found out about it and went to watch / download it . At the same time, some studios do not even have their own site, and those that have no HTTPS, so they basically can’t use classical (clean) push notifications (since HTTPS is needed for the Push API to work)
There are several such studios in the Pushall Channel Directory. Some of them were created by official representatives of the companies, some had to be added informally - all for the sake of the user.
1. Baibako is a large studio, it translates a lot of series and works very closely with its audience. They are probably distinguished by the best voice of Doctor Who. All fans of the doctor watch the voice acting only from Baibako.
Now they are signed by 1 995 people. And the number of notifications per day sometimes exceeds 10,000. Already after 2-5 seconds after distribution, dozens of viewers come to download the voice acting of their favorite series.
2. Lostfilm.ru- The largest studio in the CIS. The channel was created unofficially, as it was not possible to negotiate with company representatives. But almost 1,600 people are subscribed to this channel, and the daily number of alerts is more than 5,000.
3. NewStudio is the official channel of another studio. 1,400 people signed up for it, despite the fact that company representatives practically do not advertise push notifications for satay visitors. The daily number of alerts is more than 3000.
The service has many more interesting channels for TV shows (about 20-30 different), for example, Jaskier Studio - their voice acting is usually plausible without any censorship (by the way, their alerts are automated through their VK group). Or TeamTardis - they were able to collect more than 300 fans of Doctor who. They use push notifications when a new series in the original and subtitle translation are released.
Perhaps one of you has a question: “How do they gain a subscriber base if they do not use“ clean ”push notifications when they enter the site?”. Then two examples from the guys from Baibako:
This is how they tell their target audience about the presence of push notifications. And it is precisely due to such posts that they stimulate subscription to their channel. This is convenient both for the studio itself and for ardent fans of TV shows.
Article in the topic - Foreign cases of using push notifications + tips and the most common mistakes
Projects in the field of eSports are another area in which push notifications can soon receive the status of “must-have”. Here are a few examples:
1. Hellraises.pro - use “clean” push notifications (intrusive notifications). Like iGuides, only they also use an additional layer from another site, so turning off their alerts will be even more difficult. After a subscription, it’s not at all clear whether it works or not. And it is unclear how to turn it off in case of something. There are no statistics on how many subscribers and how effective. The guys chose the wrong “guns” strategy. Nevertheless, this is one example of the use of notifications in e-sports.
2. Esports commentator Vladimir Maelstorm Kuzminov. Professional commentator Dota 2. Commenting on games as part of StormStudio, and is also the annual official commentator for The International.
He cannot fully promote his channel, as StormStudio so far decides where it is better to use alerts. However, now he has attracted more than 60 people and notifies them of important e-sports news, the beginning of important games and his own streams.
Many gamers are waiting for the matches, and it is important for them to find out when they will begin. Push notifications solve the problem of awareness. Therefore, if users are aware of the ability to receive notifications, the channel will quickly gain popularity. Matches on average are watched by 50 thousand people every day! And as a rule, this is a regular audience.
3. Only_smiles - streamer girl, plays in Hearthstone. In just a couple of months of streaming, she learned to play at a high level and recruited more than 120 fan followers. Notifications are sent to all subscribers so that they do not miss the stream on Twitch.tv.
4. Blazya also plays in Hearthstone. He immediately became interested in the opportunity to notify his audience. He carries out fairly charged streams at different times and it is important not to miss their beginning. He currently has a total of 21 subscribers.
5. 105TV - ARMA streams. 59 people are now subscribed to their channel.
The use of push notifications in the field of e-sports is just beginning to develop. Anyone who is among the first to start using push notifications in this area will receive a new and very convenient channel for interacting with the target audience.
In this category there will be services that notify their users directly through the API. The PushAll service has more than a hundred private hidden channels, among which there are many channels for internal CRM to coordinate the work of employees. We cannot write about most of them in this article. But here are some examples:
1. Ooo.company - SaaS solution for business automation. They built PushAll flexibly enough into their system, and now it is impossible to miss any important notification from the service.
At the moment, their channel activity is weak, and this can be assessed more likely as a concept. They even wrote an article about the development and operation of the system with notifications.
2. Onliner.IO is an interesting service that provides monitoring of the VK social network. It has convenient statistics on visits by time, analysis of musical preferences and can tell when you can meet a person on the network most often, and how much time he “burns” on a social network.
Push notifications are used to receive notifications about a person entering the site. If you cannot catch someone online, then such push notifications are an interesting and effective solution. The recipient of the message will be surprised if, 10 seconds after entering VK, he will receive a message from you.
3. Freeloot - a new generation freelance exchange. They still carry out integration for their innovative task manager, through it it will also be possible to receive notifications of feedback to order and the appearance of a new job for a freelancer.
It will also be possible to instantly notify the freelancer and the customer about new events, which means that the interaction process will become more effective.
Notifications are not so terrible. The problem with hatred towards them is caused by “clean” and intrusive push notifications and companies that do not benefit through alerts, but only spam. So do not completely debit this tool of communication with the audience.
The proper use of push notifications can be very convenient and effective. And no one restricts you in use cases. Do you want to notify about the release of a new series - no problem. Want to notify of a new article - no problem. If you want to be notified about new orders for freelance exchange - no problem.
The most important thing is to do it wisely. The user must be aware of how he will receive notifications, how often and where he will be able to unsubscribe from them. The user should have a choice where to receive notifications - in the browser or directly on Telegram, for example.
In many ways, all of these issues are helped by the Pushall service , which provided information for this article.
In PushAll, the number of supported platforms, devices, and channels is constantly growing. There are more than 58 channels in the catalog with more than 10 subscribers. And 18 channels with more than 100 subscribers. This is more than the number of sites on the network that implemented pure Push APIs — notifications that only Chrome and Safari support.
You also need to consider that according to PushAll statistics - about 80% of users receive notifications through installed add-ons (extension / plugin) in Chrome or Android applications, 10% receive through Telegram. And only 10% receive alerts using the Push API (alerts without installing add-ons), apparently the negative experience with this type of alerts affects the motivation to use this method.
Prepared by Pushall.ru by Boosta.ru blog and Changeagain.me project. Also
read our other popular articles:
1. They will help you find all the "killers" of the conversion - 10 reports in Google Analytics (6000+ views)
2. 100 ideas for A / B testing. Part one(2500+ views)
3. 100 ideas for A / B testing: Part Two (1500+ views)
4. How to find an idea for A / B test: heatmaps and polls (1000+ views)
5. Find out your target audience or die : 34 vital questions (2000+ views)
6. The secret to successful A / B testing - 5 questions to yourself (1500+ views)
All cases are real. Information was provided by the guys from Pushall (a service that allows you to receive push notifications both in the browser and on mobile platforms. Notifications can be received even from groups on Vkontakte).
Before describing the cases, I would like to clarify the situation with push notifications. The fact is that they are different. And not everyone understands the difference between them (I myself drove into this topic for a long time, but finally figured it out). And, having run into “clean” push notifications several times, many simply hated this tool. Yes it's true.
Let's understand the concepts.
Pure push notifications are such a tough thing. I go to the main page of the site, and they almost force me to sign up.
I close it, go to another page, and then the “invasion” of my personal life
continues : And such a tin continues indefinitely. If I click “Block”, then this thing will not appear on the site. And, even if I want to subscribe to push notifications from this site (when I understand that it has useful info), I can’t do it anyway.
What is the disadvantage of using “clean” push notifications:
- They are wildly intrusive. They are the first thing that meets you on the site and haunts you until you block them.
- They are uninformative and incomprehensible. Here is what I can understand from the text “The site is requesting permission to Show notifications”. What are the alerts? How often? Alerts about what? Why do I need them? A lot of questions and not a single answer.
- It is very difficult to unsubscribe from them when overt spam begins to go to you through the “guns”. It’s difficult because you don’t even know what it is and where to look for the Disable / Unsubscribe button. Some, not knowing how to turn them off, simply reset all browser data and automatically unsubscribe from all other (possibly useful) subscriptions.
- The unsubscribe problem is compounded by the fact that in different browsers and on different devices, the process of rejecting such push notifications is arranged differently.
Here they are, these push notifications that no one likes, and some even hate. They spoil the whole impression of the new tool for interacting with users.
But notifications are completely different. For example, the guys at Pushall make sure that notifications do not cause hate attacks. The user has full control over push notifications.
How notification control is achieved
- The subscription process is not due to the endless appearance of the “Allow notifications” window, but at the request of the user, by installing an extension (plug-in) for the browser or using the Push API (the thing described above, only the request appears when the user wants it) either on other devices by other methods.
- There is a catalog of all subscriptions and the ability to disable any subscription in one click.
- It is possible to remove the extension in one click and completely get rid of notifications.
- It is possible to filter notifications. Do you want to receive notifications from the site only on a certain topic - no problem.
People like to keep everything under control. And they don’t like when the reverse situation occurs, which is characteristic of “pure” push notifications.
Here is an example of the proper use of push notifications:
<img src = "
" alt = "image" /> This is the site sohabr.net, which aggregates information from Habrhabr, Geektimes and Megamozg. When the user understands that he liked the site, useful information is posted on it, then he clicks on the “Subscribe” button, where he is offered various options for obtaining information. Push notifications are one of the options. The user clicks on it and goes to the subscription page:
Everything is simple, unobtrusive and convenient for the visitor. According to Oleg Karnaukhov (co-founder of Pushall), only 10% of users use the Push API to receive notifications, that is, even with the inclusion of a button, for people this method is quite inconvenient, and it’s easier for them to install a browser extension or even use Telegram.
Now you feel the difference between correct and incorrect notifications?
And do not be so biased towards this tool. Do not like it - do not subscribe. But at the same time there will be a considerable number of people who will find this option more convenient than E-mail newsletters, tracking updates on social networks, etc. Related
Article - Upgrade Email Marketing: Trigger Mailings
Let's move on to Russian cases from various fields of activity. Let's start with online media.
Cases Online Media
1. Consider the same example of Sohabr , which aggregate information from three sites at once. At the time of writing, 260 people were subscribed to it (although when Oleg was throwing me information on cases, there were only 200 people). With an audience of 200 people, 1,800 alerts were sent daily. The audience is growing, not decreasing - this suggests that push notifications are convenient for the target audience.
The site sohabr.net is directly integrated with Pushall through the API, so when a new article appears, the subscriber will immediately receive a notification. And due to the use of filters, everyone adjusts the flow of notifications to their needs.
Conveniently? Conveniently!
2. Unofficial channel w3bsit3-dns.com site . More than 200 people receive news alerts from w3bsit3-dns.com.
3. The semi-official channel of the site meduza.io . Created by official representatives, however, they have not yet untwisted it, and did not inform their audience about it. Medusa passively scored 60 subscribers.
4. The official channel of an independent startup publication - Rusbase.vc. While the push notification channel is practically not promoted, but people are gradually subscribing to it. Now there are already 30 subscribers who receive daily alerts about new articles.
5. The official channelFinanalize.com is a completely new channel, but it has grown very quickly to 200 subscribers. This happened due to the E-mail newsletter with an offer to subscribe to a new channel for receiving information. It would seem, but why another source of alerts? But this makes sense: the channel notifies you of trading signals, and does it for free. For readers of the site - this is important information. And the speed of its delivery is important
.
6 / And here is the negative case of the same obsessive Iguides.ru (at the beginning of the article I already checked their perseverance). Therefore, questions such as How to disable Chrome push notifications from iGuides appear on the Internet? And iGuides himself had to write a whole guide on how to turn off these notifications: there were too many dissatisfied. Below is the confirmation to my words:
<img src = "
"alt =" image "/> The comments in the article show that a few days after work, users wanted to turn off notifications ... but they didn’t know how. And this caused a flurry of negativity. Some comments gained dozens of pluses, which reflected the opinion of site visitors and inefficiency "pure" push notifications.
in general, there is Pushall 50 different thematic channels online media, which have been created recently and are just beginning to use this tool of communication with the target audience.
The channel of our website - Boosta.ru - was created yesterday and RMS. oh I'll start actively promoting it to their readers. Then be sure to write a positive (hope so) or a negative case the use of "guns." And yet subscribe to it. Alerts will come no more than 2 times a week when new articles are published.
Related article - Push notifications - new [communication channel] with the target audience
Case studies of studios that translate series
In Russia, they love foreign series and are constantly waiting for the voice acting of new series. A number of studios are responsible for the voice acting, there are many of them, and among them there are quite large ones with thousands of audiences. The problem is that there is no exact schedule for the release of voice acting, so users do not know when a new translated series of their favorite series will be released.
And in this case, the notifications were very helpful. The studio translated a new series - the subscriber immediately found out about it and went to watch / download it . At the same time, some studios do not even have their own site, and those that have no HTTPS, so they basically can’t use classical (clean) push notifications (since HTTPS is needed for the Push API to work)
There are several such studios in the Pushall Channel Directory. Some of them were created by official representatives of the companies, some had to be added informally - all for the sake of the user.
1. Baibako is a large studio, it translates a lot of series and works very closely with its audience. They are probably distinguished by the best voice of Doctor Who. All fans of the doctor watch the voice acting only from Baibako.
Now they are signed by 1 995 people. And the number of notifications per day sometimes exceeds 10,000. Already after 2-5 seconds after distribution, dozens of viewers come to download the voice acting of their favorite series.
2. Lostfilm.ru- The largest studio in the CIS. The channel was created unofficially, as it was not possible to negotiate with company representatives. But almost 1,600 people are subscribed to this channel, and the daily number of alerts is more than 5,000.
3. NewStudio is the official channel of another studio. 1,400 people signed up for it, despite the fact that company representatives practically do not advertise push notifications for satay visitors. The daily number of alerts is more than 3000.
The service has many more interesting channels for TV shows (about 20-30 different), for example, Jaskier Studio - their voice acting is usually plausible without any censorship (by the way, their alerts are automated through their VK group). Or TeamTardis - they were able to collect more than 300 fans of Doctor who. They use push notifications when a new series in the original and subtitle translation are released.
Perhaps one of you has a question: “How do they gain a subscriber base if they do not use“ clean ”push notifications when they enter the site?”. Then two examples from the guys from Baibako:
This is how they tell their target audience about the presence of push notifications. And it is precisely due to such posts that they stimulate subscription to their channel. This is convenient both for the studio itself and for ardent fans of TV shows.
Article in the topic - Foreign cases of using push notifications + tips and the most common mistakes
Cases from the world of eSports
Projects in the field of eSports are another area in which push notifications can soon receive the status of “must-have”. Here are a few examples:
1. Hellraises.pro - use “clean” push notifications (intrusive notifications). Like iGuides, only they also use an additional layer from another site, so turning off their alerts will be even more difficult. After a subscription, it’s not at all clear whether it works or not. And it is unclear how to turn it off in case of something. There are no statistics on how many subscribers and how effective. The guys chose the wrong “guns” strategy. Nevertheless, this is one example of the use of notifications in e-sports.
2. Esports commentator Vladimir Maelstorm Kuzminov. Professional commentator Dota 2. Commenting on games as part of StormStudio, and is also the annual official commentator for The International.
He cannot fully promote his channel, as StormStudio so far decides where it is better to use alerts. However, now he has attracted more than 60 people and notifies them of important e-sports news, the beginning of important games and his own streams.
Many gamers are waiting for the matches, and it is important for them to find out when they will begin. Push notifications solve the problem of awareness. Therefore, if users are aware of the ability to receive notifications, the channel will quickly gain popularity. Matches on average are watched by 50 thousand people every day! And as a rule, this is a regular audience.
3. Only_smiles - streamer girl, plays in Hearthstone. In just a couple of months of streaming, she learned to play at a high level and recruited more than 120 fan followers. Notifications are sent to all subscribers so that they do not miss the stream on Twitch.tv.
4. Blazya also plays in Hearthstone. He immediately became interested in the opportunity to notify his audience. He carries out fairly charged streams at different times and it is important not to miss their beginning. He currently has a total of 21 subscribers.
5. 105TV - ARMA streams. 59 people are now subscribed to their channel.
The use of push notifications in the field of e-sports is just beginning to develop. Anyone who is among the first to start using push notifications in this area will receive a new and very convenient channel for interacting with the target audience.
Personal alerts from sites
In this category there will be services that notify their users directly through the API. The PushAll service has more than a hundred private hidden channels, among which there are many channels for internal CRM to coordinate the work of employees. We cannot write about most of them in this article. But here are some examples:
1. Ooo.company - SaaS solution for business automation. They built PushAll flexibly enough into their system, and now it is impossible to miss any important notification from the service.
At the moment, their channel activity is weak, and this can be assessed more likely as a concept. They even wrote an article about the development and operation of the system with notifications.
2. Onliner.IO is an interesting service that provides monitoring of the VK social network. It has convenient statistics on visits by time, analysis of musical preferences and can tell when you can meet a person on the network most often, and how much time he “burns” on a social network.
Push notifications are used to receive notifications about a person entering the site. If you cannot catch someone online, then such push notifications are an interesting and effective solution. The recipient of the message will be surprised if, 10 seconds after entering VK, he will receive a message from you.
3. Freeloot - a new generation freelance exchange. They still carry out integration for their innovative task manager, through it it will also be possible to receive notifications of feedback to order and the appearance of a new job for a freelancer.
It will also be possible to instantly notify the freelancer and the customer about new events, which means that the interaction process will become more effective.
Still, push notifications are not only annoying users?
Notifications are not so terrible. The problem with hatred towards them is caused by “clean” and intrusive push notifications and companies that do not benefit through alerts, but only spam. So do not completely debit this tool of communication with the audience.
The proper use of push notifications can be very convenient and effective. And no one restricts you in use cases. Do you want to notify about the release of a new series - no problem. Want to notify of a new article - no problem. If you want to be notified about new orders for freelance exchange - no problem.
The most important thing is to do it wisely. The user must be aware of how he will receive notifications, how often and where he will be able to unsubscribe from them. The user should have a choice where to receive notifications - in the browser or directly on Telegram, for example.
In many ways, all of these issues are helped by the Pushall service , which provided information for this article.
In PushAll, the number of supported platforms, devices, and channels is constantly growing. There are more than 58 channels in the catalog with more than 10 subscribers. And 18 channels with more than 100 subscribers. This is more than the number of sites on the network that implemented pure Push APIs — notifications that only Chrome and Safari support.
You also need to consider that according to PushAll statistics - about 80% of users receive notifications through installed add-ons (extension / plugin) in Chrome or Android applications, 10% receive through Telegram. And only 10% receive alerts using the Push API (alerts without installing add-ons), apparently the negative experience with this type of alerts affects the motivation to use this method.
Prepared by Pushall.ru by Boosta.ru blog and Changeagain.me project. Also
read our other popular articles:
1. They will help you find all the "killers" of the conversion - 10 reports in Google Analytics (6000+ views)
2. 100 ideas for A / B testing. Part one(2500+ views)
3. 100 ideas for A / B testing: Part Two (1500+ views)
4. How to find an idea for A / B test: heatmaps and polls (1000+ views)
5. Find out your target audience or die : 34 vital questions (2000+ views)
6. The secret to successful A / B testing - 5 questions to yourself (1500+ views)