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Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

eugeneyan.com

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Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#61

Post by QuadmasterXLII »

justinl33 wrote: post #4
saagarjha wrote: post #2

If you send me a push and I can’t explain why I’m seeing it (for example, if it’s not time-sensitive or I haven’t done anything to indicate I want it) then I consider it spam. This is doubly so if you’re using it to send me an advertisement. That’s the easiest way to ensure your app is going in the trash.

I think this was covered: > Another challenge is that irrelevant or unwelcomed pushes risk having the user disable notifications, uninstall apps, or start ignoring them due to low usefulness > most recommendation engines take a myopic view, over-optimizing on immediate user responses at the cost of long-term satisfaction.

I think it undersells how rage inducing pointless pushes are. Like you are barely, tangentially connected to this and I already personally despise you

Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#62

Post by brazzy »

mikecoles wrote: post #59
cuu508 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what they really meant there was > But with pushes, we have to guess what is the upper limit of unwanted marketing the customer will tolerate

The upper limit is still zero.

No. Most customers will tolerate quote a lot of this form of advertising just like other forms. Enough to make it profitable to spend significant effort on it.

Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#63

Post by brazzy »

kijin wrote: post #15
gdeglin wrote: post #5

One detail not covered as much in this article is that many options are now available to users and apps to control the push notifications they send and receive. For example, on iOS, when prompted for notification permission, users are now asked to choose if they want the notifications sent to a summary view. iOS will also invite users to disable notifications from apps they haven't interacted with recently. Here are…

There's a problem with the current status quo, at least on Android. Apps can tell that you have disabled notifications, and nag you to re-enable them. Back when I used cyanogen, I could deny permissions to an app while tricking the app into believing that those permissions were granted. The app would just get an empty contact list, no GPS signal, etc. Even with recent improvements, stock Android still falls short in…

That just seems like the strongest possible encouragement to uninstall the app entirely.

Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#64

Post by spacebanana7 »

rochak wrote: post #19
saagarjha wrote: post #2

If you send me a push and I can’t explain why I’m seeing it (for example, if it’s not time-sensitive or I haven’t done anything to indicate I want it) then I consider it spam. This is doubly so if you’re using it to send me an advertisement. That’s the easiest way to ensure your app is going in the trash.

Uber's Apps are so shit when it comes to that. I can rarely recall a time when I opened the app and closed it without finding anything useful and it didn't send me a notification within minutes.

Snapchat too. They always send me engagement marketing though push notifications like friend suggestions & team snapchat messages.

It's hard to avoid because I need to have those notifications enabled for when I chat with friends on the platform.

Instagram does this too, albeit with less intensity.

Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#65

Post by anticorporate »

brazzy wrote: post #62
mikecoles wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The upper limit is still zero.

No. Most customers will tolerate quote a lot of this form of advertising just like other forms. Enough to make it profitable to spend significant effort on it.

Whether customers will tolerate it has no bearing on whether it is acceptable to bake an antifeature into an application.

Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#66

Post by zeta0134 »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #11

> But with pushes, we have to guess what the customer might be interested in given triggers such as events, promotional offers No, you don't have to guess. You can correctly know that the answer is "no". If you're going to blatantly send unwanted marketing to the user, at least be honest with yourself and your audience about it.

And this is why pretty much none of my apps are allowed to send notifications. At all. Too many poisoned apples in the barrel and I just have lost my trust for the lot of them

Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#67

Post by SkyPuncher »

sakjur wrote: post #30

Something I wish Apple and Google would support is notifications that are only delivered if you’ve opened the app during the last 2 hours. Taxi and food delivery services for example have a reasonable usecase for push notifications, but only around the time when I’ve opened the apps. I think adding such dials to the operating system could help align the user interest of not being spammed with the engagement metrics u…

I delete DoorDash after every usage because they're excessive with the push notifications.

I want notifications during order/delivery. I don't want the push notifications any time after that.

Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#68

Post by mixdup »

londons_explore wrote: post #31

I'd much rather the OS have a "report spam" button on notifications, and if more than 5% of app users report spam then the whole app gets all notifications blocked by default. Both Apple and Google have strong controls on the apps identity, so it won't be like email spam where the sender can just send from a new email address to get around the filter.

Neither platform owner is interested in solving this problem, they both abuse notifications for spam themselves

Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#70

Post by detourdog »

pluto_modadic wrote: post #22
JoshTriplett wrote: post #11

> But with pushes, we have to guess what the customer might be interested in given triggers such as events, promotional offers No, you don't have to guess. You can correctly know that the answer is "no". If you're going to blatantly send unwanted marketing to the user, at least be honest with yourself and your audience about it.

yeah, I was like "you check the user's notification settings, right? right?"

The problem starts with low opt-in rates. The assumption becomes the low response was due to the user not understanding how to opt-in.
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