Despite the simplicity of collecting subscribers with push notifications, many factors impact campaign CTR. For example, when you use the same picture for all of your campaigns instead of using a variety of them, your notifications will attract less attention from subscribers.
Read more about how to utilize images for web push.
Thus, planning is the first step before you start a campaign.
We will find out how sending frequency impacts push campaign results. How often should one send notifications to maintain effective interaction with subscribers?
Frequency and CTR
Sending frequency is the number of campaigns you send per day, week, or month.
CTR or Click-Through-Rate is a ratio that shows how many notifications were opened as a percent of those delivered.
The correlation between sending frequency and CTR is not obvious. On the one hand, too many notifications can be intrusive. On the other hand, too few may not be enough to maintain the interest of your subscribers.
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Note: Time settings influence the opt-out rate as well.
Learn more about push notification time settings.
So, let’s try to understand how to manage your campaign schedule in order to maximize your CTR.
Optimal frequency
Online media send campaigns more often than eCommerce websites. Media websites frequently publish new content, so they have to inform readers about new articles more often. Typically, media publishers send 3-5 times more campaigns than eCommerce companies.
To determine the optimal frequency for a website you need to analyze your web push statistics. This will give you insight into your subscriber activity and behavior. Start with an average number of campaigns for your industry and track signals of subscriber responses. If your opt-out rate increases and your CTR decreases, you clearly need to change your strategy.
The Gravitec.net client case shows how it works in detail.
- Client – a news website
- Features. The main goal of their web push campaigns is to generate website traffic.
The blue line on the graph is the number of campaigns per week.
The orange line – the average CTR per week.
They started sending about 50 campaigns per week, or about 7 campaigns per day. After the first week, they increased the number of campaigns to 70, and the CTR decreased from 10,5% to 9,6-9,2%. Three weeks later, the company reduced the number of campaigns back to the previous level. The CTR increased back to over 12%. Thus, we can see in this case, the optimal frequency is about 50-60 campaigns per week.
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Mobile and desktop users
You can filter subscribers in the Gravitec.net dashboard by device type. For example, if you select the Android operating system, notifications will only be sent to mobile devices. This will help you determine the best times to send notifications to different subscriber groups. Based on our experience, smartphone users often are more active in the evening, while PC users are more active during the daytime (working hours). When users are more active, the CTR is higher.
In the graph below, you can see the correlation between CTR, sending time, and devices, for a news website. 
The pink line shows the number of clicks from desktop users, and the orange line shows that of mobile users. This case shows how CTR can change every hour. From 9 am until 6-8 pm, CTR for desktop users is twice as high as for mobile users.
This case is only an example. Campaign results differ among various companies and industries. On the Gravitec.net dashboard, you can see the opt-in rate for your website from the ‘Subscribers’ menu item. This data will help you send campaigns to different groups (by OS, or region) just in time.
Targeted campaigns
Targeted campaigns for specific user groups get the highest CTR due to their adherence to recipient interests. For example, if a subscriber is interested in books for children, it makes sense to inform them about new items from this category.
Learn about push notification segmentation.
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We recommend a mixture of targeted and untargeted campaigns to achieve better results. Send automated campaigns to all your subscribers immediately after an article is posted on your website. And send targeted campaigns to inform a certain subscriber group about special offers.
Read more about push campaigns from RSS.
Specific dates
Another way to raise CTR is by sending campaigns on special dates.
Our final case shows statistics from an e-commerce website. The company uses web push to lure subscribers back to their website.
On the graph below you can see how the CTR was growing due to “Black Friday”.
This is an important date for e-commerce since consumers are expecting to see discounts on merchandise. Many online stores make special offers and include this date in their schedule of marketing activities.
“Black Friday”, and other important dates, represent opportunities to increase campaign CTR and create unique offers to subscribers.
Conclusion
The optimal frequency for push campaigns depends on several factors: the company, the industry, the type of push campaigns (targeted, standard), specific dates, and user activity. The best way to find that optimal frequency for your company is by analyzing subscriber behavior.
If you have any questions about push campaigns, please, contact the Gravitec.net Support Team.
