What are push notifications and how do you use them?

Push notifications reach people faster than email and are usually read sooner, because they appear on the screen instead of waiting in an inbox. In 2019, when this post was first written, part of their advantage was novelty: the channel was still fairly free of clutter. In 2026 it is crowded, and Apple and Google let users silence, summarize and filter notifications. Push is still an effective marketing tool, in many ways more effective than traditional email, but only for senders whose messages are worth the interruption.

How did push notifications arise?

Apple introduced the Apple Push Notification service with iPhone OS 3.0, previewed to developers in March 2009 and released that summer. It let app developers alert users with sounds, on-screen text or badges on the app icon. In May 2010 Google launched its own service for Android 2.2, called Android Cloud to Device Messaging (C2DM). It was followed by Google Cloud Messaging and then by Firebase Cloud Messaging, the service Android apps use today.

Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, released in 2012, brought larger, richer notifications that users can expand and collapse. Templates let a notification show a long text, a list or a big picture, and up to three action buttons let users respond inside the notification itself, for example to reply to a message or play a song, without opening the app.

Web push came next. Apple added notifications from websites to Safari on OS X Mavericks in 2013, and Chrome 42 added the Push API in 2015, using service workers so that a site can receive a message even when none of its pages is open. Since iOS 16.4 in 2023, web apps added to the iPhone Home Screen can send push notifications too.

The latest changes give users more control. iOS 15 (2021) added Focus modes, interruption levels and the notification summary. Android 13 (2022) made notifications opt-in for new installs. In October 2024 Apple Intelligence began summarizing long or stacked notifications on the lock screen and added a Reduce Interruptions focus that shows only the notifications that may need immediate attention.

What are push notifications?

A push notification is the delivery of information from an application to a device without a specific request from the user at that moment. It is a text or rich media message, similar to a text message, sent by an app or website that the user has allowed to send it.

A typical notification has the app icon, a title, a short message and a timestamp, and often an image or action buttons. Tapping it opens the app or website, ideally on the exact screen the message talks about (a deep link) rather than on the home page.

The mobile strategy behind push notifications is about offering value, whether that is content, a coupon or a timely alert, which gives the user a reason to come back to the app.

Push notifications are characterized by:

• a low unit cost of reaching the recipient;
• a high delivery rate to users who opted in;
• high open rates compared with email;
• the possibility of communicating here and now;
• the possibility of combining them with other technologies, such as geolocation.

Push notification examples

Most of the notifications people actually want fall into a few groups:

• Transactional: “Your order has shipped”, “Your driver is 2 minutes away”, “Payment received”, a one-time login code.
• Informational: breaking news, a goal in a match you follow, a severe weather warning.
• Reminders: an appointment tomorrow at 10:00, a learning streak about to end, a subscription that renews in three days.
• Personal offers: a price drop on an item in your wishlist, your size back in stock, a reward that expires on Sunday.
• Location-based: an order ready for pickup as you arrive, or an offer when you are near a branch.
• Abandoned cart: a reminder of the products left in the cart, sent once or twice and then stopped.

Duolingo’s daily practice reminders are a well-documented case. In a 2020 paper, its researchers described an algorithm that chooses which reminder text each user gets and accounts for the way a message wears off as people see it again and again. Compared with a strong baseline, it raised total daily active users by 0.5% and new-user retention by 2%: small percentages that matter at the scale of millions of reminders a day.

How do they work?

Unlike pull notifications, where the client must request information from the server, push notifications come from the server. The end user must first agree to receive them and can manage or switch them off later. Devices and services use different delivery methods, but the steps are similar:

• The user installs the app or visits the site and allows notifications. On a phone this is a system pop-up window that the user accepts or rejects.
• The operating system or browser creates a unique token for that device and app, which the app sends to the company’s server.
• When there is something to say, the server sends the message and the token to the platform’s push service: APNs for Apple devices, Firebase Cloud Messaging for Android, or the browser’s own push service for web push.
• The push service delivers the message over a connection the device keeps open, and the system shows it, even if the app is not running.
• The user taps it, ignores it or swipes it away, and that reaction becomes data for the next message.

Companies rarely talk to these services directly. Apple developers can use the APNs application programming interface (API), but many teams use cloud services instead: a mobile backend as a service (mobile BaaS) or a push service such as Google Firebase Cloud Messaging, Amazon Simple Notification Service or Azure Notification Hubs, which handle tokens, delivery and statistics for several platforms in one place.

Users who receive a notification can still ignore it, but if it catches their attention, they come back to the app and the business gets closer to its conversion goal.

Types of push notifications

Technically there are two main kinds: local notifications and remote notifications. Developers create and schedule local notifications inside the app, and the device shows them without any server, for example an alarm or a reminder the user set. Remote notifications, the ones usually meant by push notifications, come from a server and let IT teams, marketers and developers send a message at a chosen time to a specific demographic group of their users. This also answers a common question: every push notification is a notification, but not every notification is pushed from a server.

By the device they reach, there are mobile app notifications, web push in desktop and mobile browsers, desktop notifications from installed programs, and notifications mirrored on smartwatches.

By purpose, they serve different needs. A standard push notification sends a single message to the user’s device. Geolocation-based notifications use the location the user agreed to share, so a mobile app can tell users about new places in their area. You can also schedule recurring notifications for your business needs, such as a weekly summary. Rich notifications add images, video or buttons, and on iPhone, Live Activities keep a delivery or a sports score updated on the lock screen.

Opt-in: asking for permission

No permission, no push. On iPhone, an app must ask before its notifications can appear on the lock screen or as banners. On Android, notifications for new installs have been off by default since Android 13, and the app has to request them. On the web, Safari on iOS lets a site ask only after the user has added it to the Home Screen, and only in response to an action such as tapping a subscribe button.

Marketing has an extra rule on Apple devices. Apple’s App Store Review Guidelines say push notifications must not be required for an app to work and should not be used for promotions or direct marketing unless customers have explicitly opted in through consent language shown in the app, with a way to opt out in the app.

Because the system prompt cannot be repeated at will, timing matters. Ask when the value is obvious, for example right after an order (“Want to know when it ships?”), and first explain on your own screen what the user will get and how often. A user who says no has to find the setting to change their mind later.

Why is it worth using push notifications?

Most apps lose users quickly after the download. Data from 125 million Android devices, analyzed by Quettra in 2015, showed that the average app lost about 77% of its daily active users within three days of install, 90% within 30 days and over 95% within 90 days. That is why retention is the engine of growth and one of the most important metrics for mobile app teams, and notifications are one of the few tools that can bring a user back without paying for a new install.

Web push notifications are a new channel of communication with the users of a website, meant to encourage them to visit it more often. So they are a way to bring back people who already know you, not to acquire completely new users. The tool is similar to a newsletter, but you do not need users’ email addresses to reach them regularly: you only need their consent, which takes one click. Web push works in the major desktop browsers and on Android, and on iPhone for sites added to the Home Screen. Notifications are short and hard to overlook, so unlike a newsletter they do not get lost in a promotions folder. How users react depends largely on the message itself.

Push notification best practices

• Send something useful. Every notification should answer the question “why now, and why me?”.
• Personalize it. Use what the user did, bought or asked for, not only their first name; the same rules apply as in other personalized campaigns.
• Mind the time. Send in the user’s time zone, avoid the night and learn when each person tends to open the app.
• Cap the frequency. Too many messages lead users to switch notifications off or uninstall the app.
• Keep it short. Put the key information in the first few words, because the lock screen cuts off longer text.
• Link deep. The tap should open the product, order or article the message is about.
• Use rich media and buttons where they help, such as a product photo or a “Track order” button.
• Respect the system. Mark a message as time-sensitive only if it really is, because users can turn off time-sensitive alerts for an app that overuses them.
• Test and measure. A/B test the copy and timing, and watch opt-out and uninstall rates next to clicks and conversions.

Disadvantages of push notifications

Push has limits worth knowing before you plan a campaign:

• It works only with permission, and some users will never give it.
• Every unwanted message risks an opt-out or an uninstall.
• The operating system decides what the user sees: Focus modes, summaries and notification categories can delay or hide your message.
• Space is limited, so there is little room for detail or persuasion.
• Delivery is not guaranteed: phones that are off, offline or saving battery may get the message late or not at all.
• Mobile push needs an installed app, and web push reaches only people who allowed it in that browser.
• Platform rules apply, such as Apple’s requirement of explicit consent for marketing notifications.

Should push notifications be on or off? For users, the sensible answer is selective: keep them on for apps that send things you need on time, such as banking, deliveries, security codes and messages from people, and turn them off for apps that mostly advertise. For brands, that is the test to pass: an app whose notifications the user would choose to keep.

The difference between push notifications and text messages

Although there are many similarities, push notifications are not the same as text messages. Both go directly to the user’s phone and look similar on the lock screen, but they work differently.

A text message (SMS) reaches any mobile number, with no app and no internet connection, and the sender pays for every message. A push notification reaches only people who installed your app or allowed your site, travels over the internet and costs almost nothing per message. Push can carry images, buttons and a link to the right screen of the app, while SMS is plain text unless you use a richer format such as RCS.

Push notifications must be short to appear correctly on the lock screen. Text messages can be longer, because the user opens them to read the whole message, but a push notification cut off on the lock screen can hurt your conversions. That is why push notifications with fewer words tend to get more clicks.

In practice, SMS suits messages that must reach everyone, such as appointment confirmations or delivery codes for customers without the app, and push suits frequent, interactive messages to app users.

Key conclusions

Using push notifications is not necessary, but it is worth it, and it can be a winning marketing strategy for companies. Thoughtful, relevant and timely notifications to people who are already interested in your company are a strong marketing tactic. Plan them around your business goals, ask for permission at the moment it makes sense, send less than you could and use the user’s context, such as location or order status, to add value. Done this way, they help you grow and keep your customer base at a far lower cost per message than text messages.