Web push notifications are taking over the marketing world, and for good reason. They enable businesses to reach out to website visitors, quickly and without much extra effort. Web push notifications are a new marketing asset, and being new they’re really effective at driving results. In this blog post, we take a deep dive into web push notifications and explore the opportunities they present to your business.

How Do Web Push Notifications Work?

For starters: what are web push notifications? If you're actively browsing the web, you might have received, at least once, a pop up window in your browser that looks like the one below. In simple terms, web push notifications are messages sent from websites to users who opted-in to receive such messages.

Since web notifications don't require users to provide their email addresses or phone numbers, their contact forms are simply opt-in pop ups with two options: allow or block.

All your prospects need do is allow web notifications from your website, by clicking the "Allow" button in the pop up window. Once a visitor grants permission, their unique web token is added to your database and you can start sending push notifications. In brief, there are 3 stages in the subscriber’s journey.

Long story short, web push notifications are an emerging marketing trend that has already managed to win the hearts of both businesses and consumers.

How to Use Web Push Notifications

Whatever your industry, there's a number of ways web push notifications will help you increase customer engagement. To name a few:

Drive repeat traffic by informing users of new content on your website.

Generate more sales by notifying users of new arrivals and back-in-stock products.

Create an urgency with time-bound offers, promo codes and discounts.

Prompt users to come back and complete the purchase.

Improve customers’ confidence by updating them about the status of their orders.

And much, much more.

A study by Marketingland.com revealed that marketing professionals mostly use push messages for the following purposes:

55% use mobile push notifications to notify users of new features and updates to their services;

24% use web notifications to send promo offers and links to dedicated landing pages;

12% use push notifications to share their partners’ links and promotions;

9% use push notifications for other purposes.

Why Send Web Push Notifications with eSputnik?

Because web push notifications are a nascent marketing channel to communicate with your customers, they’re rapidly growing and yielding great results. eSputnik features everything you need to connect with your customers in the most meaningful and effective way.

1. High deliverability rate

Typically, web push notifications boast a 50% to 90% deliverability rate. In web push marketing, deliverability rate is measured as the percentage of users who received the message compared to the total number of users who agreed to receive them. There are several reasons why notifications might not show:

The user didn't allow notifications from your website.

Browser ID wasn't recorded.

The device was turned off, offline, or otherwise unavailable.

Still, the percentage of such contacts is relatively low, meaning that most of your notifications will reach your target audience.

Web push notifications are sometimes called browser push notifications, but in fact, they will be displayed even if the browser is closed. That's why many companies prefer them as a regular means of communication with their customers and prospects. Chances are that your emails will be missed, ignored, or deleted, while push messages appear on top of other windows and are sure to capture users’ attention.

Unlike with email addresses and phone numbers, web push marketing doesn't require users to enter any data manually, which means that you won't have to deal with misspellings and typos. However, it's worth noting that web push messages are only supported by Google Chrome and Firefox in most popular operating systems, such as Windows, OS X, Linux, and Android.

2. Customizable web push notification lifespan

Website push notifications have their own lifespan (activity time) which you can set manually in the eSputnik interface. In this way, you’ll ensure that users receive your messages as soon as they’re online, and don’t receive out-of-date messages. For example, if you’re offering discounts for one day only, you can set the lifespan of your notifications to one day so that they won’t be delivered after your offer has ended.

You can also configure the time duration for your notification message:

By default, notifications will be displayed until users close them themselves.

Alternatively, turn on “Hide notification automatically” to make your notifications disappear after 8 to 20 seconds, depending on the browser.

In a nutshell, message lifespan allows you to flexibly control notifications without bothering users with outdated information.

3. Detailed statistics

As with email marketing campaigns, eSputnik provides detailed statistics for all web push notifications you send.

You’ll be able to answer dozens of questions about the performance of your web push notification campaigns,such as: which of the campaigns was more effective, which days have more opens, or which offers are more likely to attract customers.

4. Cross-channel analytics and campaign management

All your data, along with the detailed reports on your SMS text messages, emails and web push notifications, will be stored in a single system, enabling actionable insights for your marketing initiatives.

You’ll be able to use a single eSputnik account to manage all your campaigns, including Viber messages, track sales for each marketing channel and monitor the growth of your subscribers’ database.

5. Instant creation of urgent notifications

Web push notifications are designed to grab users’ attentions and encourage them to take action. That’s why it’s better to send short texts with compelling CTAs. Urgent reminders require the client to make quick decisions on any occasion, such as:

Offer expires in 3 hours

Promo code expires soon

Breaking news from the scene

Typically, it may take 30 minutes to 4 hours to create an email. In contrast, with web push notifications all you need is a compelling sentence with a call to action and a catchy image of your product.

6. Branded messages

Web push notifications with large images and logos will make it easier for users to recognize your brand and take the action you want them to take.

You can easily customize your message:

Add call-to-action buttons

Add or change logos

Display large image previews in Google Chrome

7. Personalized content

Leveraging your leads’ personal data will make them feel more special and attracted to your offer. For example, you can use basic personalization to call website visitors by their first name:

You can also go beyond the basic settings with dynamic content, such as the customer’s order ID, list of products in the abandoned cart, or even personalized images. eSputnik makes it all possible with the help of Apache Velocity variables.

8. Multi-channel marketing

You could send your promo messages to the entire subscriber database trying to enhance the campaign with multiple channels at the same time. Still, it’s better to leverage triggers, saving your customers from a pile of messages they don’t want to receive.

Here’s an example of a multi-channel marketing campaign with a timer-based event. Send your promo offer via email first and wait for 1 day with a timer trigger. The next day, eSputnik will check if a user has opened your email. If not, it will send a web push notification message to the user’s device.

Another option would be the so-called “thrifty campaigns” where messages are sent starting with the cheapest marketing channel and ending with the most expensive one. For instance, web push notifications ⇨ email ⇨ SMS ⇨ Viber. That is, you’ll be able to interact with your customers via the channel that is most convenient for them.

9. Automated push notifications

By leveraging triggered push messages, you’ll be able to enhance your existing email campaigns or even replace some of the emails. For example, eCommerce businesses can use automated web push notifications to inform users when the is back in stock, keep them informed about the order status, and much more.

Variables are particularly relevant for abandoned cart notifications. Opted-in users will see the notification on top of all other windows even if they leave for your competitors’ websites to compare prices. You can also create automated web page push notifications triggered by any user activity. This includes, for example, creating short welcome series for new subscribers and using push notifications as part of your discount campaigns.

10. Web push notifications are free

Last but not least, eSputnik offers free web push notifications to all its users with any prepaid plan. All you need do to create your own web push notification is connect your domain, configure system settings, and customize your message. To learn more about how to create your own web push notifications with eSputnik, please visit our Support Center.

P.S. It can be tempting to throw yourself into web push notification marketing and see it in action. Yet remember that no-one likes being bothered without good reason. Make sure to send messages only when you have something to say.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact us at support@esputnik.com. We’re always happy to help you create web push notifications, and with any other questions you may have.

We’re looking forward to talking to you soon ;)