The Kumulos team explains why its time for all mobile marketers to begin using web push notifications to engage audiences

Web notifications present a massive opportunity for mobile marketers. Why? Because they help you go beyond app engagement. Web push notifications engage audiences on mobile web, and of course, desktop too. So, it’s time to take a look at why you should use web push notifications.

Why you should use web push notifications

If you have a mobile app, and you’re already making the most of push notifications and in-app messaging to engage your users, you might think that you have your mobile marketing strategy covered. Indeed, mobile messaging is one of the most important ways to onboard, engage and retain your users.

However, you should also be using web push notifications to reach your wider audience on mobile web, and desktop. In fact, most brands actually have much more traffic on their mobile websites than they have app users.

Mobile website traffic exceeds app users

In a comScore US Mobile App Report, they compared the top 500 mobile apps vs. the top 500 mobile websites. They found that mobile website audiences were more than twice the size of app audiences.

Therefore, you can see the potential to go beyond your app users and reach a huge audience via web push. With web push notifications, you can really deepen the engagement of your web visitors. You can send notifications that demonstrate the value of your brand. This will ultimately lead to additional mobile app downloads. Moreover, it will achieve your business objectives, whether that’s ecommerce sales, bookings, leads etc.

What are web push notifications?

Web push notifications are notifications sent from web browsers to opted-in users on both mobile and desktop web.

On a mobile, web push notifications are delivered to the notification tray and look very similar to notifications coming from a mobile app. On a desktop, the web push notifications slide onto the screen.

As with any marketing, it’s essential to gain opt-in for web push notifications.  Just like gaining consent for push notifications (or consent for in-app messaging) you need to gain opt-ins for web push notifications.  With web push, people are able to subscribe with just one click. It is much easier than signing up for an email newsletter and less invasive than other types of marketing pop-ups.

Most web push notification providers support all major browsers. Whether it’s Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera, Safari, or Samsung, you just need to check their compatibility with Windows, macOS, Android and iOS.

In order to streamline your marketing tools, it’s best to look for a user engagement platform which allows you to schedule your push notifications, in-app messages and web push notifications from one dashboard. There are many push notification providers out there. Likewise there are many web push notification providers to consider.

When it comes to mobile engagement, customers of Kumulos are very excited with the recent addition of web push to our award-winning messaging platform. With the addition of web push, Kumulos now allows you to send all your messaging campaigns from one platform. Contact us today for a demo or, read on to learn more about web notifications.

The difference between web and push notifications

Users, if they are opted-in, can receive a web push notification regardless of whether or not they are actively using the website at that precise time. As long as the web browser is open, someone can be sent a notification and it will appear on their desktop or mobile device screen.

Push notifications only reach opted-in users of your mobile app. Which means, you are missing out on the opportunity to engage with your other website visitors – whether they visit the website from their mobile or a desktop.

From a mobile user’s perspective, both web push and push notifications from an app look pretty much the same.  The main difference is that web push notifications can display on a desktop too. For business-to-business marketing, web notifications allow you to reach your target audience when they are working on their business – at their desk.

From any mobile marketer’s perspective, particularly in the business-to-consumer field, web push is a way to take advantage of the fact that most of online engagement is from mobile search.

Web notifications complement push notifications

Admittedly, web push notifications are an excellent way to complement app push notifications. You can use one without the other. But web push notifications are another great way to reach more of your customers on mobile — through web push notifications sent to mobile web.

This is great news if you don’t already have an app. It’s also great if you do have an app, but want an additional channel for reaching users who have opted out of app push notifications and/or in-app messaging.

What should a web notification contain?

When planning your messaging strategy, web push notifications generally fall into one of three types of messages.

• Educational web push notifications – to share key events, products etc
• Transactional web push notifications – to confirm purchase, notify about shipping etc
• Promotional & ecommerce web push notifications – to promote special offers etc

Let’s take a look at the benefits of these types of web notifications.

Benefits of educational web notifications

You can use web push notifications to alert your users to new blog content with the intent to educate them about your product benefits. Specifically, if you are in retail, you can send notifications with deep links to items which are new in-store.

Educational notifications which are personalised are generally more effective. For example you can segment your users based on the pages they’ve browsed, items they’ve purchased etc.

As mentioned earlier, web notifications are a great way to contact your users who haven’t already downloaded your app. And, a great way to contact those who have opted out of push notifications and in-app messages.  For example, if you are in travel and have an airline app, not all flyers will download the app. But, if they opt-in for web notifications you can send them relevant notifications about their destination with car rental options, hotel options etc.

Transactional notifications for business web apps

No matter which sector your business is in, if you have a web app providing a business service to clients, web push notifications will enhance their experience.  For example, insurance providers with a web app can encourage clients to opt-in for notifications to be alerted when their documents are ready to download, or when their policy is due for renewal etc.

In fact, many businesses which don’t have technical teams use low-code or no-code platforms to build responsive web apps or mobile apps. For certain sectors where the business hasn’t developed a mobile app, they find a web app works well.  In this case web notifications are the equivalent of push notifications if they had an app.

Promotional & eCommerce notifications

Abandoned carts are one of the biggest issues for ecommerce providers.  Generally, in marketing, retailers try to entice people back to their carts using email marketing.

However, with low open rates, or, emails going into spam, this is not typically successful. A well written web notification though which pops up on their mobile, or desktop, reminding them about their attempted purchase is more likely to be seen and actioned. It is a simple and very effective way to bring back your customers to complete a purchase.

Furthermore, ecommerce providers can gain further customer engagement benefits by using notifications to give customers updates on the status of their order.  Typically these types of notifications receive higher opt-in rates as asking customers if they would like notifications about their package is likely to result in a “yes”.

How to get started with web notifications

If you’re already using Kumulos for your mobile messaging requirements, you can use the same Message Composer which you use to create app push notifications and in-app messages. Kumulos has added web notifications to our mobile engagement platform.

Contact us for a demo to see just how easy it is to personalise web push notifications in the same way that you can personalise app notifications.

About Kumulos Mobile User Engagement Hub

Kumulos Mobile User Engagement Hub gives you everything you need to understand how customers are using your app to trigger intelligent campaigns to increase retention and grow user engagement to get better results from your app. We are the only platform that provides 360-degree visibility of user behaviour and user experience of the app, so you have the analytics to see what’s happening. And, with the recent addition of web notifications, you can engage users beyond your mobile app so they keep coming back to your business and you deliver awesome business results from your website and mobile app.