Push Notification

Email Marketing

Also: Web Push · App Push · Push Alert

What it isShort alert sent to a device

Best forTime-sensitive, short messages

Watch forOpt-outs from over-sending

Reality checkOpt-in rates fall over time

Quick definition

A push notification is a short message sent directly to a user's phone, browser or app, even when they aren't actively using it. It appears on the lock screen or notification tray and is used for alerts, reminders and short promotional prompts.

How it varies across Australia

Opt-in rates for push notifications vary widely across Australian apps and sites depending on how the permission request is framed and timed. Businesses that ask immediately on first visit see far weaker opt-in than those that wait until the user has taken a meaningful action first.

See retention benchmarks across Australian industries →

What it actually means

A push notification is the marketing channel with the shortest attention window and the lowest tolerance for waste. Unlike email, which sits quietly in an inbox until opened, a push notification interrupts. It buzzes the phone, lights the screen, and demands a decision in seconds. That immediacy is the whole appeal, and the whole risk.

Because push requires explicit opt-in on most platforms, it starts from a smaller, more willing audience than email marketing or even SMS marketing. The trade-off is that this audience is also the fastest to churn. Every notification that feels irrelevant, badly timed or too frequent pushes a user closer to disabling permissions entirely, and once disabled, that channel is usually gone for good.

Push works best paired with behavioural triggers rather than blanket sends. Cart abandonment, price drops, back-in-stock alerts, appointment reminders. These map naturally to a channel built for urgency. Treating push like a broadcast newsletter is the fastest way to burn through opt-ins and tank click-through rate. Segmentation matters here as much as it does in email, arguably more, because the cost of getting it wrong is a permanently lost channel rather than an unsubscribed list.

A push notification is a tap on the shoulder. Do it too often and people stop turning around.

How it shows up

Push shows up as the small badge or banner on a lock screen, the browser prompt asking 'Allow notifications?', or the in-app permission dialog on first open. On the reporting side, it shows up as opt-in rate, click-through rate and, most tellingly, the opt-out or unsubscribe curve over the weeks following a permission grant. A steep decline in that curve is the clearest signal that send frequency or relevance has gone wrong.

The Australian context

Australian users are generally cautious about granting notification permissions, and browser-level changes from Chrome and Safari have made web push prompts easier to dismiss and harder to re-trigger. That makes the timing of the ask more important here than in markets with looser default permission handling. Apps that ask for push access during onboarding, before the user has seen any value, tend to see far weaker acceptance than apps that wait for a first meaningful interaction.

Where people get this wrong

Asking for push permission immediately on install or first visit.Users have no reason yet to trust the app with interruption rights. Waiting until after a first useful action lifts opt-in meaningfully.

Sending push at the same frequency as email.Push tolerance is lower than email tolerance because the interruption is physical, not just visual. What feels reasonable in an inbox feels intrusive on a lock screen.

Using push for content that isn't time-sensitive.General updates and newsletters belong in channels the user checks on their own schedule. Push should be reserved for things that lose value if delayed.

Push Notification vs SMS Marketing

	Push Notification	SMS Marketing
Delivery method	App or browser notification	Text message to a phone number
Cost per send	Effectively free	Charged per message
Requires	App install or browser opt-in	Phone number and consent
Message length	Very short, often truncated	Short but more room than push
Opt-out risk	High if over-sent	High if over-sent

Common questions

Do push notifications require opt-in?

Yes. Both app-based and browser-based push require the user to explicitly grant permission. Unlike email, there's no equivalent to a pre-checked box or implied consent. The user has to actively tap allow.

What's a good push notification opt-in rate?

It varies heavily by timing and framing of the request. Asking after a meaningful action, rather than immediately on open, consistently produces stronger acceptance than asking upfront. There's no single reliable industry figure worth anchoring to.

Why do people disable push notifications?

Mostly frequency and relevance. Notifications that arrive too often, or that don't feel personally useful, get switched off quickly. Once disabled, most users never manually re-enable them, so the channel is effectively lost.

Should push replace email marketing?

No. Push and email marketing serve different jobs. Push suits urgent, short, time-sensitive messages. Email suits longer content, nurture sequences and anything the user might want to revisit. The two work best as complementary channels, not substitutes.

Debrief

Get the next one

No spam. No fluff. Just the next article, straight to your inbox.

Keep exploring

About New Rebellion

New Rebellion is a marketing intelligence consultancy. We build tools, score Australian businesses on how their marketing actually performs, and publish Debrief every day. This dictionary is part of how we work in the open.

How we think →