Increase Opt-Ins for Push Notifications – Yodel Mobile Video Series Share: Yodel Mobile Date Published 29 May 2017 Categories Blog Reading Time 3-Minute Read Push notifications are a great way of re-engaging with your users when they are outside of the app. When speaking about getting users to agree, we’re focusing our efforts solely on iOS users, as the Android ones are opted in by default. With iOS, not only can it be difficult to get the users to opt-in, but if you blow your one shot with them, you can never ask them again. There is a solution to this which an increasing number of apps are adopting, something we call… Permission Priming Asking a user through a custom message, you can gauge their interest first, before invoking the system iOS message. And as we mentioned, you need to be sure that they will say yes before you do that. Depending on the app’s functionality, you might need to onboard the users and teach about the features that your app has. Some apps do this by showing a few screens that show the UI of the app, others walk you through the features itself. The onboarding and benefit overlays are becoming very common in the market and because they showcase the benefits and the features of the app, by the end of it, you can ask users to opt in for push notifications. If they say yes, that’s great. If they say no, you still got some work to do, and you need to convince them of the benefits of your app before trying to ask them again. That brings us to the other strategy… In-App Activity You are much more likely to be successful if you trigger the prompt based on the users’ latest activity within the app. The exact situation when you want to trigger the prompt depends on the nature of your app. If you’re a news app, you might want to ask after the user has read a few articles, if you have a shopping app, you might want to ask them after they’ve ordered something. What you’re actually aiming to do is balance two things: how many users will actually see the prompt and what the conversion rate to users opting in will be. Make sure enough users will see your permission prime but optimize your conversion rate by only asking those who are more engaged. We’ve talked about when to ask. Now… How to Ask The placement of the message is best tied in with the user’s in-app activity and the same applies to the actual content of the prompt. You need to make sure that the users will understand the benefits of opting in and how it will enhance the overall experience with the app. And as with everything you do, the work never is over, you want to optimize and test to improve your conversion rates and increase the volume of users who have opted in for your push notifications. You want to A/B test your messages and visuals to ensure that the benefits are conveyed in a clear and enticing way.