Ideal Length

● It is important to keep push notifications short and simple.

● A rough count for notifications is 60-90 characters for Android and no more than 120 characters on iOS. ​Source
● A good push notification has to be less than 40 characters if you expect the user to read and action it. ​Source
● This chart breaks down character length limits by device. ​Source

Ideal Time
● Push notifications are highly time sensitive.
● Location specific push notifications​: Personalize content for users based on location. Contextual & location-based relevance will improve
engagement with users. ​Source
● Customizing delivery time based on user preference results in an average conversion uplift of 384% ​source
● Leanplum conducted a study of sends vs. opens. They analyzed 671,587,169 push notifications, they found that 63% of apps send at the wrong
time. They broke down these findings by geographic location and weekday vs. weekend. ​Source

○ North America (Weekday)

■ Benchmark: Weekdays in NA, send spike during morning commute hours, lunch breaks, and after school ends.
■ Opportunity- Brands should send after dinner, from 6-9.

○ North America (Weekend)

■ Benchmark: Apps send the bulk of pushes on weekend mornings and afternoons.
■ Opportunity: Brands should send at 4pm and 5pm where customer engagement is still strong and push frequency drops.

○ Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (Weekday) 9pm is the prime hour.
■ Benchmark: Apps send late at night, pushing from 9pm-1am
■ Opportunity: Target mornings, from 6-8am

○ Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (Weekend) 9pm is the prime hour.
■ Benchmark: Sends and opens both peak at 9pm, but sends taper off an hour later, while opens are still high.
■ Opportunity: Brands should keep sending an hour longer, through 10pm.

○ Latin America (Weekday)

■ Benchmark: Engagement is high morning and night.
■ Opportunity: Engage at 8am or after 6pm, rather than sending in the afternoon.

○ Latin America (Weekend)

■ Benchmark: Apps send more often than users open from 3-5pm.
■ Opportunity: Should push at the 6pm timeframe when customers are more likely to open.

○ Asia Pacific (Weekday)

■ Benchmark: Push frequency is higher in the late morning.
■ Opportunity: Send earlier from 7-9am to have a better chance at engagement.

○ Asia Pacific (Weekend)

■ Benchmark: Afternoon push sends are still high from 4-6 pm.
■ Opportunity: Brands should aim to reach their audience by sending from 7am-1pm.

Personalization
● Contextual Details can include:
○ User Name
○ Local Weather
○ Available Inventory
○ Nearby Event
○ Previously Browsed Product/Content

● According to Leanplum’s report on top words that lead to high open rates, they state that personalized push content gets up to 4x
more opens. ​source

● According to an article on Wigzo, personalized push notifications have a higher click through rate. They explain that push
notifications perform better when they take into account user data like demographic and in-app behaviour. ​source

● Even though personalization is powerful, it is important to not overdo it. According to the diagram by Leanplum, all apps that have
high open rates used fewer than 100 different push campaigns in 2015. ​source
Proven Words
● Leanplum set out to understand the top words that lead to high open rates, so they analyzed 2.6 billion push notifications sent
between January 1st and December 31st in 2016. ​Source

● I am attaching the link for the push notification text report here: ​source

○ From this study the results broke down the power words into 4 categories:

■ Urgency - (Eg: Last Minute Sales)

Alert Immediately Reminder

Breaking Imminent Reveal

Cancellation Important Speedy

Critical Instantly Tick-Tock

Date Notice Timely

Deadline Pending Today

Delay Quickly Wait

■ Exclusivity - (Eg: Promotions, Sneak Preview of New Content, Etc…)

Accepted Inquire Opportunity

Activate Inventory Pass

Application Invitation Queue

Deliver Limited Reward

Drawing Member Spotlight

Eligible Official You’ve

■ Emotion - (Eg: Features - Themes of Fear and Delight)

Green: Positive Red: Negative

Believe Love Addiction Risk

Dream Miracle Avoid Shot

Epic Playtime Creepy Storm

Escape Reward Forfeiture Warning

Imagine Unplug Quit Waste

Improve Wish

Indulge Woo

■ Value - (Eg: Daily Deals)

Bargains Money

Buy Offers

Cash Payday

Check Sale

Deals Sell
 ○ Retail Takeaways:

■ Mention the Item - Being specific about what you offer.

■ Focus on savings - Words such as “deals”, “bargains”, “payday” and “cash” lure shoppers back.
■ Lead with desire - “Want”, “Sweet”, “Amazing” and “Incredible” help to deepen shopper FOMO.

○ Power Words - Retail

Amazing Friday Quickly

Bargains Gold Recycle

Best Great Resell

Black Happy Right

Browse Huge Sale

Cash Incredible Search

Check iPhones Sell

Cleaning Products Simplify

Clutter Item Spring

Curated Money Sweet

Deals Money-making Toss

Dressers Trending Payday

Extra Popular Want

Fast

○ For retail apps it’s important to lead with desire. (Eg: Want, Sweet, Amazing, Incredible)

○ Words that could potentially hurt app engagement and decrease your push notification open rates (Eg: Higher, Faster,
Guarantee, Affordable). Two themes that could lower engagement were:

■ Boring Reminders - make sure the language is updated to not appear outdated. Avoid these words:

Difficult Outdated Necessary Requirement

■ False Promises - if trying to hard to sell it comes off ingenuine and unoriginal. Avoid these words:

Higher Faster Guarantee Affordable

CTA’s
● According to research of best practices for push notifications, for a CTA to be truly effective it should be personal with your ask of
the user, as well as the content/information the push notification directs the user to.
● In the example given by Countly, they show 1 push notification sending the user to the website’s homepage vs. another where it
directs the user to the specific section of the website’s homepage with a notification that reminds the user of the promotion and
when the sale ends. ​Source
○ The first example is vague and feels impersonal, and is unclear what products are actually on sale.
○ The second push notification is more personalized by using her name, and recommending a specific section of the store.
Also, the CTA directs the user to the specific section of the store’s website, instead of the homepage which allows a better
browsing experience.