Push Notifications for Ecommerce: The Complete Guide
The only marketing channel with no media cost — and the easiest one to ruin.
Why this channel is different
Every other way of reaching a past customer costs something per message or per impression. A push notification costs nothing at all. That single fact changes what is worth sending: a restock alert to four hundred people is free, and would never justify a paid campaign.
The four messages worth building first
Back in stock, for anyone who wishlisted the item. Price drop, on something they viewed. A new arrival in a category they have bought from. And the order update, which is not marketing at all and is the one that trains people to keep notifications turned on.
How to lose the channel
Send daily. Send at 2am. Send the same offer to somebody who already bought it. Uninstalls are permanent in a way an unsubscribed email is not — the customer does not merely stop reading, they remove you from the device.
A frequency that survives
Start at two a week and watch the uninstall rate rather than the open rate. The open rate tells you the message was good; the uninstall rate tells you whether you still have an audience next month.
What we would actually tell you
An app earns its keep on repeat purchases. If your customers buy once and have no reason to return, no amount of design changes that, and we would say so on a call rather than take the money. If they do come back — for a new season, a refill, a replacement — then the question is only whether you reach them for free or pay for them twice.