Using push notifications is the most effective way to re-engage users that might have slipped away from your grasp. This engaging alert acts as a gentle nudge for users to get back on your app and stay loyal to your brand. Getting your push notification strategy right can have overwhelmingly positive effects for the success of your app.
More than anything, optimizing targeted push message is about understanding customer behavior You can customize your push notifications to certain user segments based on their past engagement with your app and send incentives specifically to your top grossing users. Having a tool that takes analytics seriously will enhance your ongoing performance for your campaign!
With so many tools to choose from for your push notification campaign, it can be difficult to know exactly where to start. So we have taken it upon ourselves to make the process easier and have provided a list of the best push notification tools you should consider for your business success.
1. MixPanel
Mixpanel helps you turn more users into active and loyal customers by sending them smart and automatic notifications wherever they are.
Likes:
- Works well for both Android and IOS users
- Easy to export raw data
- Integration with tons of other platforms
- Includes push notification scheduling
- A/B testing
- In depth analytics and stats
- Easy to get started
Dislikes:
- Requires technical skill
Price: Free plan, start-up plan starts at $99/month
Special Features: Mixpanel lets you send notifications based on the actions that people take in your app.
2. Facebook Analytics
Facebook Analytics for Apps helps you communicate with your audiences based on their activity, purchases and more. Update this
Facebook Analytics surfaces valuable data and trends from its very own comprehensive database to help you better communicate with your audiences and keep users coming back for more.
Likes:
- Track apps performance in terms of conversion rates and user engagement
- Access to specific demographics of audience
- Access to specific details in demographics like likes, interest, education level, job title, and more.
- Shows how far along users get in sales process
- Translated into various languages
Dislikes:
- Could not find any cons! Do you know any?
Price: Free to send push campaigns
Special Features: App makers can better target similar audiences with their Facebook ads as well as create customized push notifications for specific audience segments, aimed at increasing engagement.
3. Kumulos
A push notification service that offers the great balance between ease of use, cost, analytics, and functionality.
Likes:
- Great for mobile app development
- Lets your rebrand the system for your company
- Modern and clean interface
- Programmatic push messages based on user behavior
- Segmented push notification campaigns
- Easy to use
Dislikes:
- Weak documentation
Price: Unlimited push notifications for $50/month
Special Feature: With Kumulos you have the choice of using the service stand-alone or alongside their mBaaS.
4. Carnival
Carnival offers push notifications, in-app messaging and a rich customizable message stream.
Likes:
- Target and automate rich messages by user behavior, location, and demographic
- Support to help you set up quickly
- Best for e-commerce/retail, consumer business and loyalty apps.
Dislikes:
- Specifically focused on mobile features
Price: Basic self-service pricing starts at $250/month, Pro pricing starts at $1,250/month
Special Feature: Carnival offers auto-analytics integrations with major analytics providers like Google, Flurry, Localytics and Mixpanel so that you can import all the events you’re tracking into their audience builder for targeting and automation.
5. Appboy
Appboy is a communication platform built for mobile marketers that collect customer data for segmentation.
Likes:
- Target content is based on user behavior
- Can set up user action goals for each message
- Measure conversions
- Send geo-located messages.
- Automatically insert details like nearby movie times, customized recommendations, and proprietary content directly into messages.
Dislikes:
- Can’t find any dislikes!
Price: Quote-based pricing
Special Feature: This tool uses detailed customer segmentation better than any other service out there.
6. Urban Airship
Urban Airship offers numerous messaging types such as interactive push notifications, in-app messages, an in-app inbox, and mobile wallet.
Likes:
- Free
- No code required
- Easy to use campaign tools and templates
- Segmentation tools that allow you to personalize messages
- Audience intelligence to identify user levels trends for future campaigns
- App analytics with funnel analysis, conversion reporting, cohort analysis and RFM reporting
- Mobile data streaming service
Dislikes:
- Confusing interface (trustradius.com)
Price: 1 million pushes completely free per month.
Special Feature: Urban Airship offers audience intelligence, funnel app analytics, a-b testing, and a user-level data streaming service to power behavioral messaging in other channels like email, ad platforms and more.
7. Iterable
Iterable lets B2C marketers plan and execute sophisticated, real-time multi-channel campaigns.
Likes:
- Uses both mechanical and behavioral messages in campaigns
- Includes visual workflow for designing lifecycle and engagement campaigns
- Makes it easy to map out messages
- Great for working with consumer audience
Dislikes:
- Limiting for marketers that are not B2C
Price: Plans start at $500/month, free trial available
Special Feature: One of the only tools that allow you to map out your message with visual workflow builder for your lifecycle.
8. Kahuna
A mobile marketing automation software that enables marketers to drive mobile engagement and revenue.
Likes:
- Well designed
- Easy to use
- Ability to A/B test different push campaigns
- Email and SMS messaging
- Great customer support and success teams
- Dynamic deep linking
Dislikes:
- Needs improvements to the email tool
- Limited customization
- Data syncing can be difficult
Price: Quote-based pricing
Special Feature: Kahuna is one of the only apps that offers A-E testing and message send time optimization to make sure the highest performing message hits your audience at the right time.
9. Outbound.io
Outbound is a cross-platform tool covering email and SMS, A/B testing, and segmentation.
Likes:
- Easily customizable notifications based on device of user
- Automated, trigger-based campaigns based on user behavior
- Track any action users take in website or app and trigger an event with creating a segment in advance.
- A/B test if email, push, or SMS performs better for a particular message
- Send broadcast campaigns with a one-time message
Dislikes:
- The cheapest plan only includes 2,000 messaged users.
Price: Plans start at $134/month
Special Feature: With the Outbound API, you can automatically update user info.
10. Pushwoosh
Pushwoosh is a free real-time cross-platform push notification service.
Likes:
- Easy to use
- Good price and reliability
- Platinum version offers international languages
- Ability to create remote API’s
- Equipped to deal with 15 different platforms
- Ability to schedule batches of push notifications
Dislikes:
- Lacks concrete API for monitoring push sends
Price: Plans start at $60/month
Special Feature: PushWoosh is highly scalable and gives you the most bang for your buck compared to other free tools.
11. Localytics
Localytics is a marketing and analytics platform for mobile and web apps.
Likes:
- Target campaigns to an existing segment of users
- Simple and easy to use interface
- Push and marketing features very connected to analytics insight
- Encourages you to message users when dropping off along your funnel
- Schedule campaigns to go when you want, or set up an automated campaign that sends on a recurring, scheduled basis to newly qualified users
- Test up to 5 different messages to see which one is best
Dislikes:
- Limited amount of correlations
- Does not have an excel plugin for easy data transfer
Price: Plans start at $200/month
Special Feature: With Localytics, you can track impressions, clicks, and conversions over time for each campaign, and set up funnels to see how users from each campaign engage over time.
Who said being a little pushy was a bad thing? Push notification messages have proven to be the most effective retention tool, and finding the right one for you will help you re-engage the right users. We hope this extensive list will make it easier to choose the right push notification tool for your app! Although we have a comprehensive list outlined for you, there are tons of other tools like OneSignal, StreetHawk, Catapush and Push.io that might be worth considering! If we happen to have missed your favorite one, we would love for you to impart your push notification wisdom on us!