Maintaining user engagement in e-commerce is a key to success in any company. When and how often to send push notifications to keep a customer?
Push messages are a very effective marketing tool; however, when implementing campaigns, certain rules need to be followed. One of the most common mistakes made in relation to push advertising is excessive or insufficient frequency of sending campaign messages, which can contribute to low conversion. What is the best method to maintain user engagement?
Frequency of sending messages
The frequency of sending advertising campaigns obviously depends on a company’s business profile. It will be different in the case of an online store and when we have a sports-related website. In the latter case, for example, when we are reporting a football match live, sending several notifications within 90 minutes will not be an excessive number. The situation is different with e-commerce. Push notifications are a high engagement channel, so be careful and moderate when sending messages. If recipients receive notifications too often, they may feel overwhelmed and simply opt out from notifications.
How often should pushes from an online store be sent? There is no explicit answer to that question – it all depends on the industry specific nature and customers’ expectations. It may turn out that sending a campaign message once a week is a really good idea. However, if a reader wants to receive the latest news from an industry blog, a few push messages a week seem reasonable. If we send notifications too rarely, a user will lose interest, which will contribute to low conversion. However, excessively high frequency of sending notifications can result in a wave of opt-outs. In the case of courier companies, the frequency may be higher – after all, recipients want to track a parcel route on a regular basis.
How to find a happy medium?
The campaign implementation tool provides the option of Big Data analysis. This will let you find out when to send messages and the best times to send them. At this stage, it is important to assess a subscribers’ response to receiving notifications. The data obtained is an ideal basis for future dispatch – every completed campaign provides invaluable information that is worth using to increase conversion in the future. You should constantly monitor the effectiveness of your campaign by analysing statistics, deliverability and click-through rates.
When implementing push campaigns, one should set its target and scenario in advance. For example, if a user added a product to a shopping cart and then left the page, it is worth sending a message after 20-30 minutes reminding about unfinished purchases. In this case, it seems reasonable to re-deliver the push message the next day. When a subscriber only viewed products on the site, but did not add any of them to a cart, you can send them a notification the next day, directing to the last product viewed.
