App notification best practice and how to avoid app fatigue

'Appy Out? 

Some new research has highlighted how people are deleting news apps because of too many app notifications so, here's our top tips and some examples of how to keep your customers from un-installing. 

First of all some background:

Operation Overload With News, News and more News

In today’s digital age, news alerts have become a common part of life, with millions of mobile phones buzzing simultaneously as breaking news is pushed out. 

However, this constant stream of notifications is leading to a growing phenomenon known as “alert fatigue.” 

Users are becoming overwhelmed, with some receiving as many as 50 alerts a day, often from multiple sources about the same story due to news aggregators like Apple News and Google.

People notice more than you think - they keep a mental note

It's hard to quantity this but, we think consumers do keep a mental note of how many notifications they receive and when advertisers cross that line the first thing they do is uninstall the app ( as opposed to unsubscribing in settings). 

Apps that are deemed not necessary for everyday life are typically the fist to go and news apps are a great example of that.

People will never uninstall untility apps like Revolut or Deliveroo or even Amazon or Duolingo ( of course Duolingo the app marketing champs!).

 43% of those had actively disabled news apps 

A global study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found that 79% of respondents reported not relevant receiving news alerts in a typical week, and 43% of those had actively disabled them. The main reasons were overload and lack of usefulness.

New York Times averages 10 per day 

News alert usage has increased significantly over the past decade. In the U.S., usage has risen from 6% to 23% since 2014, and in the UK from 3% to 18%. Despite the risks of alert fatigue, certain publishers, such as BBC News, still have a powerful reach—with nearly 4 million UK users receiving each alert.

Publishers are aware of the fine line between being informative and being intrusive. While some, like The Times and Financial Times, maintain a conservative approach with limited daily alerts, others such as CNN Indonesia and the Jerusalem Post send up to 50 per day. Aggregator apps often push out even more.

Data shows wide variation in alert frequency: New York Times averages 10 per day, BBC News 8.3, NDTV India 29.1, and Tagesschau in Germany just 1.9.

Its a tightrope!

Lead researcher Nic Newman describes the challenge as a “tightrope,” where excessive notifications risk alienating users. The growing competition for smartphone lock screen attention—shared with apps, games, and social media—intensifies the challenge. 

Overuse of alerts could prompt tech platforms like Apple and Google to impose stricter controls. 

After all, Apple made about 10 Billion from The App Store last year so they don't want people spoiling the party.

Here are some tips to send the right notification to the right customer at the right time:

Here are some tips to send the right notification to the right customer at the right time:

1. Be relevant: the cornerstone of good marketing: make sure its relevant to previous preferences and behaviours
2. Be timely: jump on what is happening now especially around weather, birthdays, family events etc
3. Be brief - keep it really short, keep sharpening the blade
4. Add images and emojis to cut through
5. Consider location - where someone currently is in terms of GPS is a great signal to determine intent ( but of course don't sound creepy or like your spying on the person
6. Add humour - adding humour softens the blow if its a sales message
7. Personalise it without being creepy- adding the persons name still feels personal but more than that make recommendations based on previous usage and purchases and leverage all of the available signals like location, device type, age, time of year, weather etc.

The final word goes to Spiderman 

In the words of Spiderman ( and Voltaire!)  'with great power comes great responsibility' so marketers especially those  like Zara or H&M who rely on apps for ecommerce need to be really careful how often they send notifications or they will end up like a lot of news apps and be deleted.