When to send push notifications

Uber marketer Andrew Chen recently   wrote a blog post about how users respond to push notifications at different times of the day. We decided to figure it out and draw practical conclusions. Push notifications are considered one of the main modern customer engagement tools. In his article, Andrew provides data from the Leanplum platform  . The study covered 671 million push notifications and allowed us to track some of the trends. The graph shows the dependence of the time of day and the number of sent and open push notifications. The blue curve represents the number of push notifications sent to users. The red curve represents the number of open push notifications. 

The first thing to note is the areas where the red curve is higher than the blue. During this time, customers receive fewer notifications than they are willing to read. For example, from 7:00 to 8:00, from 12:30 to 14:00, and from 16:00 to 17:00. Especially it is necessary to note the interval from 18:45 to 21:00, at which time users are most active. It can also be assumed that users are most actively using their smartphones during these hours and open the accumulated push notifications one by one. For your push notification to be open, you need to ensure that the notification is first in the queue. 

If you don’t know when to send notifications, send from 18:00 to 19:30. At this time, your text will be read by the largest number of people.

Andrew Chen also provides data on the use of Internet traffic by users during the day, here are the main indicators:

• Internet consumption has two peaks: at 8 am and at 7 pm.

• The use of iOS and Android applications starts around 7 am, gradually increases during the day, peaks at 9 pm, and then drops sharply.

We do not recommend sending notifications during the day. Don’t interfere with your clients’ work. And if you still want to start the action quickly, then send it in the morning or at lunchtime.

conclusions

So let’s draw conclusions. All metrics show that push notifications can be most effective outside of business hours, when nothing interferes with phone use. In addition, it is necessary to take into account the subjective factors of the sender of push notifications. For example, if you’re a marketer for a store near customers’ homes and you want customers to shop on the way home from work, send notifications at the end of the day or within an hour after. User activity during these hours is quite high, in addition, the notification will be useful for recipients. Considering simple factors, you can achieve an increase in the effectiveness of notifications by 40% or more.