Campaigns That Click: Unleashing the Power of Push-Notification Advertising on Mobile Apps
(A2025-125816)

AUTHORS

Zhuping Liu, Baruch College, City University of New York; Bicheng Yang, Hong Kong Polytechnic University; Subodha Kumar, Temple University

ABSTRACT

With the widespread adoption of smartphones, mobile push-notification advertising has become a promising tool for attracting customers. However, its efficacy remains debated. To address this, we analyzed over 200 campaigns from a major U.S. mobile-offer marketplace with 5 million active users. Our findings reveal: (1) Push messages, though brief, boost app users’ click-through rates by 560%, but this impact varies by merchant type—department stores and electronics outperform food without pushes but underperform with them. (2) Smaller brands benefit more from push notifications than established ones. (3) Android users are 86% more responsive than iOS users due to platform differences. (4) Push ads create spillover effects, increasing clicks to same-category (186%) and different-category (77%) merchants. (5) Delayed effects extend beyond the initial day, with potential underestimations of up to 165%. These insights underscore push-notification advertising’s transformative potential, offering platforms and merchants strategies to optimize its use.