Email vs push notifications: Which one’s better?
Straight answer?
That’s the wrong question to ask.
What you should be asking is which one’s better for your business. Let’s not have any misunderstandings here.
Email and push notifications are both effective marketing tools…
But that’s all they are. There’s no silver bullet.
Depending on your overall marketing strategy, we highly recommend using both email marketing and push notification marketing at the same time.
So, we’re going to put this thought to the test and lay down some statistics for you to look at. And then, we’ll give you 3 effective strategies to improve your marketing efforts overall.
Does that sound good to you?
Let’s dive in.
Push Notifications vs Email Statistics: Top 5 Roundup
For a small business, push notifications can bring a lot more impact than email marketing right off the bat. But for a more mature business, you need both channels to keep acquiring, engaging, and closing new customers.
Why? The answer makes more sense when you check out these statistics:
- The average open rate for emails is less than 2%. Push notifications have an open rate of 20% on average.
- Emails have a click rate of 1-2% on average as opposed to an average click rate of 28% for push notifications.
- The average opt-in rate for web push notifications is above 6%. This is roughly 3x the opt-in rate for email campaigns.
- Push notifications get instant reactions whereas emails usually get reactions with a delay of 6.5 hours.
- Push notifications are delivered straight to the notification tray of your device. Emails can end up in spam, social, and promotional folders to get completely ignored.
Our source for the statistics: BusinessofApps
Here’s the thing:
None of the statistics are meant to paint email as the less effective channel. The truth is, email marketing can be just as effective as push notifications.
So, why are the statistics skewed so far in favor of push notifications?
Honestly, push notification campaigns start blowing up in the early stages of installing web push notifications. And this tips the scales in favor of push notifications. But this growth eventually slows down unless you start personalizing push notifications.
That’s why in terms of pure numbers, push notifications seem to crush email marketing.
But the fact remains that an average person in the US gets 90 emails a day and only 63 notifications (including in-app, web push, and mail notifications).
What does this mean?
In simple terms, use both email and push notifications to grow your business.
3 Expert Strategies: Email vs Push Notifications
If you’re struggling with either email or push notifications, the problem isn’t necessarily about picking the right tool. It could also be about striking the right balance. Sending too many emails or notifications will eventually annoy your subscribers.
Our advice? Here it is…
Start Segmenting Your Subscribers
Segmenting your subscribers is a simple, elegant, and powerful way to personalize your emails and push notifications.
By segmenting your audience into smaller buckets, you can avoid sending them too many messages. At the same time, you can also keep your subscribers engaged by sending them content that they’re most definitely interested in.
An easy way to start segmenting your audience for push notifications is to do it right when they opt for your notifications.
Of course, there are other ways to automatically segment your subscribers. But using your opt-in will not only help you segment your subscribers, but also improve your opt-in rates.
For emails, you should absolutely segment your subscribers as well.
If you’re new to email segments or email marketing in general, you should check out this article on email segmentation tips.
Set Up Clear Guidelines for Both Channels
The biggest reason why marketing fails is that even when the plan and the idea are brilliant, there are no clearly defined guidelines. As a result, there’s way too much chaos to control every element of any campaign.
Even worse, it becomes really difficult to replicate the good results because no one knows what’s working and why.
So, the better option is to create concrete guidelines for both channels before you start creating campaigns. If you’re not sure where to start, you can check out our push notification best practices guide. It has everything you need to get started.
And it can help you personalize your messages even further to create truly epic notifications like this one:
Here’s another nice resource…
The sheer volume of articles on email marketing can be overwhelming. Different internet gurus can stand by different email marketing services. And we’re going to tell you what you need to know right now.
It doesn’t matter what email service provider you use.
What matters is that you set clear guidelines for your content. And if don’t already have documented guidelines, you should check out this email marketing guide. It’s the best in the industry and we follow this guide ourselves.
Optimize Your Opt-Ins
Yes, you’ve probably heard this a million times about email opt-ins. And if you haven’t, here’s an article on ways to collect emails without being pushy. If you’re not optimizing your email opt-ins, you’re leaving money on the table.
The fun part is that you can also optimize your push notification opt-ins.
You can use high-converting opt-ins like this one on your website:
As you optimize the way in which you take permission to send notifications, you’ll see a massive shift in the overall experience of your subscribers.
Happier subscribers = more eventual buyers.
How does that sound to you?
Wrapping Up
That’s all for this one, folks.
A final word of advice: Use all three strategies in this article at the same time for compounding effects. Even individually, these strategies work really well. But every successful customer we’ve ever had has combined all three to get explosive results.
Trust us when we say it, you don’t have to choose between email and push notifications.
Do both. And if you’re looking for the right push notification software for your business, you should try out PushEngage. PushEngage is the #1 push notification toolkit in the market. So, your business is in safe hands.
If you haven’t already, get started with PushEngage today!
