What are the best days and times to send mobile push messages? How long should these notifications be? What should they say?
Localytics recently set out to answer those questions by examining the click rates of more than 100 million push messages sent by mobile apps.
The analysis found the average click rate—defined as the percentage of users who actually clicked a push notification upon receiving it from an app—was 5.5% across all messages. However, the click rate for individual notifications varied widely based on the content of the messages and when they were sent.
Below, key findings from the report on which key factors impacted message click rates.
Day of Week
- The average click rate for mobile push notifications was 5.8% during the week and 3.5% on weekends—a 66% drop.
- Tuesdays and Fridays were the days of the week with the highest average click rates.
Time of Day
- Most of the messages examined were sent by apps in the evenings (after 5 PM).
- Mobile push messages sent in the afternoon (between 12 PM to 5 PM) had the highest average click rate (6.7%).
Message Length
- Shorter mobile push messages, those with 10 or fewer words, had a higher average click rate (8.8%) by a large margin compared with longer messages.
Message Content
- Push messages in the form of a statement performed nearly twice as well as those that asked a question (6% average click rate vs. 3.1%).
About the research: The report was based on data from more than 100 million push messages sent by mobile apps.
