The Direct Line Advantage: How Push Ads Reach Mobile Users Instantly

ush notifications for Android messaging deliver instant, opt-in mobile ads with better timing, relevance and higher engagement rates.

Most ad formats have to deal with attention. They compete with content, other ads, and anything else that could be going on at any given moment on any given screen. Push ads don’t have to deal with any of that. They arrive straight to the consumer’s device and cut through everything to deliver the message at the exact right moment. It’s no wonder it’s become such a powerful format for mobile ads, especially when targeting people who are already focused on their devices.

The disparity in how push advertising and display ad formats are present in the user’s space is almost night and day. A banner ad on a website has to be sought out by the user. A push notification on a device makes its presence known immediately upon arrival. This alone gives the advertiser an opportunity to connect with the user in an immediate way that no other form of ad can.

Why Mobile Push Works When Other Formats Fall Short

What can mobile push advertising do that no other format can? Here’s the bad news about mobile users: they’re constantly switching between apps, responding to messages, scrolling through feeds, and a dozen other things at once. Display ads get buried. It should come as no surprise that they’ve struggled to capture attention on the small screens that users are always flipping between the different apps they have installed on their device.

Push notifications skip that entire problem. When a push ad arrives on a user’s device, it doesn’t have to compete with anything else on the screen because it takes up the entire screen (at least temporarily). The user sees it immediately, whether they’re busy in another app, on their home screen, or even if their phone is currently locked.

The format has another advantage: it feels personal. Users have an instinct to check notifications as they arrive. Advertisers want to leverage this instinct, and push ads for androidmessaging app are a strategy that frames the messaging in a way that makes the most sense to the user and creates no friction in their interaction with the ad.

Timing Creates Everything

One of the biggest reasons for push advertising’s success is timing. Other ad formats are passive and require users to find them, but push notifications are active and arrive on their own devices at the behest of the advertiser.

Think about how people interact with their devices throughout any given day. There are many naturally occurring spikes when they’re more likely to engage with their device, whether in the morning, during commutes, during lunches, and during the evening when they’re at home. Push ads can easily be scheduled around those times without creating any friction in the user’s interaction with their device because they’re already actively engaging with it around that time.

The Opt-In Factor Changes Everything

Timing ads is not just restricted to time of day and length of time. These notifications can also respond immediately to actions such as abandoning carts or expressing interest in other products.

Other ad formats simply show up whether users want to interact with those ads or not. Push notifications, however, need permission from the user in the form of them opting into those notifications. This single fact flips the entire dynamic between the user and the brand that is advertising to them.

Users receiving push notifications have already chosen to allow that advertiser to send them notifications, which means there’s a much lower barrier to engaging with those ads or notifications compared to other ad formats. The advertisers that take advantage of push ads understand the value of consent behind these ads, and use that information to improve their marketing efforts.

Mobile Behavior Has Changed the Game

Push notifications are seeing success because mobile behavior has drastically changed over the last decade or so. Users check their mobile devices an unbelievable number of times each day. Some reports say it’s over a hundred times a day. It’s not an exaggeration, and it’s simply because people are using their phones as their primary device for communication with others, shopping, and even gathering information.

Push notifications fit perfectly into this behavioural pattern. Users don’t have to go to a website or check another app for the messaging or information they want. The push notification arrives right where they already are.

This format works particularly well with Android devices, which has the largest market share for mobile devices in the world and has countless users operating on their software. The operating system handles notifications in such a way that makes them apparent without being intrusive on their devices.

What Makes Push Advertising Different From Email

Push notifications have often been compared to email marketing, and there are some similarities between the two formats. Both require users to give permission for users to send them advertisements. Both types of marketing messaging arrive straight into the user’s inbox.

Push notifications, however, unlike emails have certain advantages over other formats.

For one, push notification open rates are shockingly higher than email formats due to how easy it is to view an email compared to the endless barrage of emails that can fill an inbox compared to messages. Push notification messages are also concise and immediately consumable.

Making Push Ads Work Without Annoying Everyone

The secret behind success with push ads is not abusing that direct communication channel between the advertiser and the client. Users have given permission for their push ads to be sent to them, but that doesn’t mean they want to be inundated with push ads on their mobile devices.

While there might not be intricate rules regarding the crafting of these messages, two important aspects help these ads succeed: frequency and relevance. Users will easily opt out of receiving notifications if they feel overwhelmed by an onslaught of messaging.

Generic messages also do not work for push ads. They only succeed if they’re tailored correctly to individual users who have displayed certain behaviors or visited certain locations instead of just stumbling upon a message crafted for anyone and everyone who sees it.

Once again, this requires the appropriate targeting of messages, but these messages return much higher rates of engagement than generic messages sent via SMS or other platforms.

There has to be value added when it comes to these push ads. They interrupt whatever a user is doing when they encounter the new ad on their device. Depending on who the advertiser is and where they fit in the marketplace, if they follow these simple steps, they’ll find success using push advertising in this unique mobile format.