Did you know that 47% of people who receive a push notification get annoyed? Wondering why? In a nutshell, half of the website and app’s owners aren’t able to choose the right time for their push notifications. Let’s say you’re on vacation, sleeping in a king size bed with the ocean view, and suddenly notification sound! “Hey, Luca! Did you know that we’ve just released a new feature in our app? Check it out!” If you’re lucky, Luca will just ignore the push you sent. But there’s a chance that he will uninstall your app in 0.2 sec. No one wants to wake up from their holiday morning sleep getting nonsensical, and untimely push updates.
This example is for sure dramatic. But I’ve decided to report it, so that you can understand how much timing is fundamental. Because, when I say timing is everything, I really mean it!
But then, another question arises: “What’s the best timing?“. I don’t have a one-size-fits-all answers, but I can give you some tools to discover it by yourself.
Who’s your target?
First off, you need to know your target. Who usually downloads your app? What kind of problems do your users solve thanks to your app? Answering to these apparently easy questions is the first step to understand when your users are most likely to engage.
When I say you need to study your users I mean you need to get to know their habits. And this is a bit tricky, I know, because it varies a lot from person to person. For example, some of them could use your app mainly in the morning on the way from home to work; while others could prefer to use your app before sleeping, because during the day they’re busy and full of stuff to do. In this situation, an app could achieve a high open-rate if push notifications are sent to different users at different times.
You should conduct a study on your user behavior based on all the data you collect. I know that’s hard, but think about all the potential information you’ve got on your users and try to exploit them! That’s the starting point.
Once you’ve studied your audience, you can start using some tools to boost your app open rates. For example, you can use an algorithm that analyses users past behavior to predict their future engagement. This is the best way to predict the best time in order to improve open rates. I think you’ll find this one an excellent and helpful tool.
Now that you’ve discovered what the perfect timing is, scheduling push notifications will be a piece of cake! Remember that they’re more successful when sent during specific user journey stage. Indeed, effective campaign planning will help you improve your push success rate.
Tips
1. Avoid sending push notifications during the night
I sleep with my smartphone on the nightstand, and I think most people do the same. Do you turn on the DND mode? I don’t. So, I’d be very, very, VERY annoyed if a push notification woke me up!
Let’s say most people mute all push notifications delivered during the night. Don’t you think it’s easy to ignore them? So, you’ll get no results!
2. Scheduling push notifications
Make sure you send notifications based on your users local time zone to boost user engagement. Remember to always analyze and use information about your users to increase the chance that they’ll open your push notification. How to do it? Easy, using a Headless CMS, such as MBurger, which has a specific Engagement Platform in order to implement time zone notifications.
Don’t know what a Headless CMS is? Check it out!
3. Urgent push notifications
There’s always an exception to the rule. And in this case, I’m talking about urgent notifications, e.g. a push notification reminding your users their train leaves in 30 minutes. This kind of notification can be sent at any time. But be careful! You need to exactly figure out what an urgent notification is.
Conclusion
Sharing the right content with the right audience at the right time – what a struggle, uh? I’m sure that it’ll be easier with those tips.
Once you’ve studied your target audience, segmented them, and lastly, personalized your notifications, focus on timing them. Run your mobile marketing campaign wisely by figuring out the right time to send users your push notifications. This way you’ll be more likely to engage them and achieve outstanding results thanks to their enhanced experience within your app. Your goal is to avoid your users “What the hell is this now?” reaction!
The perfect timing will dramatically increase your open rate! Remember: timing is everything!
… and NOW?
- Have a look at our Engagement Platform and discover how to schedule your push notification to send them at the PERFECT time 🤩