Mobile Engagement Industry Benchmarks:

Push Notification
Opt-In Rates

Mobile engagement industry benchmarks:

Push notification opt-in rates
Overview
Our largest data study yet utilizes nearly 3,000 apps
and 100 billion push notifications sent to more than 500
million users through all of 2014 to shed light on corequestions facing every mobile innovator:
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How do my app’s mobile engagement rates compare
to those of my industry peers?
What’s the delta between average and top
performers?
Is the opt-in rate for push notifications remaining
steady or on the decline?
What beyond push is proving to be effective at driving
engagement?
How does message response vary by mobile OS?
How does send frequency impact notification
engagement rates?

To offer actionable benchmarks, apps were categorized
into 15 vertical industries with findings presented as high,medium and low values using the performance of apps in
the 90th, 50th and 10th percentiles. The first in this seriesof benchmark reports examines push notification opt-in
rates.

Executive summary
Why are notification opt-in rates such an important
metric? Because all of our previous Good Push Index
studies have found that users opted in to notifications are
four times more engaged with apps and are retained atdouble the rate of opt-out users. Notification opt-ins are
an important component of a healthy and growing app.

©2015 Urban Airship | Portland San Francisco London | 855 385 3151 | urbanairship.com

2Our last exhaustive study of push notification opt-in rates wasin December 2013 (Good Push Index), where data from morethan 1,000 apps in six industry verticals found the average
opt-in rate to be 45 percent. This time around, with a data
sample nearly three times as large, the median opt-in rate is
42 percent.
In and of itself, a 3 percent drop in opt-in rates year-over-year
is not cause for alarm. In fact, the true year-over-year declineis 2 percent if we had calculated the 50th percentile median
rates as averages. Also, smaller sample sizes can produce
higher results, as we saw in our May 2014 Location Opt-in
study where 70 apps analyzed for location-sharing had an
average push notification opt-in rate of 52 percent.
It’s also critical to view average or median industry vertical
opt-in rates as exactly that — it’s the middle-of-the-pack.
There’s a tremendous upside for apps that optimize theirnotification opt-in processes and follow push messaging bestpractices (check out the sidebar on Optimizing Opt-In Rates).
The latest data shows that high-performing apps achieve
average opt-in rates that are 45 percent higher than the rates
medium-performing apps see. Where an app falls on the
spectrum of high, medium and low opt-in rates—detailed in
the vertical breakout section on page 10 — should very welldictate its next immediate areas of focus.
What’s really important to understand about the 42% medianpush opt-in rate is the remaining 58% of an app’s audience
potentially left unaddressed. To be sure, many are focused on
closing this addressability gap by adopting in-app message
centers. The next benchmark report in our series will compare
user engagement rates with in-app messages, and early
results show tremendous potential to engage all app users —opt-in or not.
Media and Retail saw the biggest declines in average optin rates year-over-year. When viewed in relation to 2014holiday shopping data, as well as our December 2013 study
that identified these two industries as achieving the highest
benefit from notifications, apps in any industry can gain
valuable perspective and context.

©2015 Urban Airship | Portland San Francisco London | 855 385 3151 | urbanairship.com

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Median push notification
opt-in rates by industry

Two industries see thesteepest declines

The chart above shows median opt-in rates for iOS
apps, as Android users are automatically opted in to
notifications upon app download. Median opt-in rates
range from 58 percent for Charities to 33 percent forGames. High-performing apps across all industry verticals— the 90th percentile — have opt-in rates above 50
percent with Travel, Business and Charities topping out at
rates greater than 70 percent.

Among the six industry verticals included in our December
2013 study, Media and Retail apps saw the biggest
declines in year-over-year opt-in rates. Previously, Retail
was found to gain the highest engagement and retention
improvements comparing opt-in users to opt-out users,
while Media achieved the highest six-month ending
retention rates, keeping 50 percent of its opt-in users.
To offer an apples-to-apples comparison year-over-year,
our data scientists recalculated the median opt-in rates
as averages, finding Retail going from 46 percent to 37
percent and Media going from 50 percent to 42 percent
opted-in.

©2015 Urban Airship | Portland San Francisco London | 855 385 3151 | urbanairship.com

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So what has changed
between 2013 and 2014?

Notifications havegone mainstreamIt’s no small wonder that practically every app asks forthe privilege to send push notifications. Notifications
extend app life cycles, driving greater engagement andretention — and that’s just part of the story. Increasingly,
businesses across every industry are realizing theimmediacy and greater response that notifications deliver
over other marketing channels like email marketing,with click-through rates that can be twice as high. Other
customers have seen 10 times higher click-through rates
and 1200 percent greater conversion than their email
campaigns. Even for average-performing apps, it’s quite
likely that push response rates are multiples of what
they see in other channels (more on that in an upcoming
benchmark report).
This mainstreaming of notifications was brought into full
focus, when we tracked Retail’s use of push notifications
over the 2013 and 2014 holiday seasons using the same
150 Retail apps. The two key findings:••

Retailers doubled their notification send volumes on
key shopping days in 2014.
Customers responded to those messages at double
the rate of 2013.

There’s no other marketing channel that’s seeing thistype of growth. There’s also no other marketing channel
where well over one-third of the audience opting in toongoing communications could be called out as anaccomplishment let alone the new average. Consider how
many people visit websites and how many of them sign
up for email communications — industry estimates peg it
at 2 percent.
For the 2014 holidays, consumers were most engaged
with notifications the Saturday before Thanksgiving, but
retailers focused on sending more notifications on key
shopping days, including Thanksgiving, Black Friday andCyber Monday — an overt focus on mobile’s immediacy.
In addition, the vast majority of 2014 holiday notifications
were of the generic broadcast variety, offering 40% off or
free shipping for a limited time. Had Retail apps focusedmore on pre-shopping activities they could have tapped
into higher upfront engagement rates to determine
shoppers’ interests and tailor subsequent notifications.
Maybe they would have gone from doubling response©2015 Urban Airship | Portland San Francisco London | 855 385 3151 | urbanairship.com

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rates over the 2013 holidays to achieving 4X-7X greater
response that highly targeted notifications receive overmessages broadcast to everyone (Good Push IndexTargeting, May 2014). Perhaps even more important,recipients might view notifications as offering them
personalized value versus just another business-centric
promotion.
There’s nothing wrong with sales promotions, or inMedia’s case, breaking news headlines, but as more
apps implement broadcast-type shouts to get users’attention, it’s natural that consumers will become pickier
about which apps they allow to do that. ABC News has
introduced story-starring functionality that curates apersonalized stream of notifications on story updates —another innovation that contributes to its app seeing onethird of all traffic directly attributable to notifications.

Optimizing opt-in rates
The majority of apps just serve up standard iOS
language on first app open before users have had
the chance to explore the value of the app or any
explanation of the value of opting in. From the app user’s
perspective it can be a bit annoying and generic to seethat same message pop up the moment they open an
app for the first time. This default approach to asking
for the opt-in is very likely the key reason, or at least thevery first reason, we see such a massive delta between
high- and low-performing apps.
A better approach is to describe the value of optingin through interactive walkthroughs shown on first
app open. Victoria’s Secret does a nice job explaining
the value of opting in to both push notifications and©2015 Urban Airship | Portland San Francisco London | 855 385 3151 | urbanairship.com

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location-sharing.You can also get creative and think aboutother places in the app or customer journey where asking
for push and location opt-in might be more contextually
relevant than during the initial app open, such as the firsttime users access app functionality that benefits from
opting in. Alaska Airlines, for example, waits until theuser has booked a flight and viewed the flight in the app
to encourage opting in to flight notifications. If the user
previously opted out, they provide instructions to navigate
to the phone settings and turn push notifications back on.
Even serving up a single customized message before
the default iOS language can have dramatic impact on
opt-in rates, setting users’ expectations for the types of
notifications they might receive.

For example, the NHL grew its opt-in rate nearly 10
percent since implementing a customized screen before
the default iOS language.
What about app users that have previously opted-out?
With in-app messaging, brands can reach opt-ins andopt-outs to ensure they are aware of the most relevant,timely content each time they open the app. These in-app
messages can also be used to ask the app user to reenable notifications when the time is right. For example,
when opt-out users purchase an item an automated inapp campaign can ask if they’d like to receive alerts when
their order ships, with “Yes” taps deep-linking them to thesettings screen.

©2015 Urban Airship | Portland San Francisco London | 855 385 3151 | urbanairship.com

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Industry opt-in
benchmarks for iOS
The following are high, medium and low notification opt-in
rates by the 15 verticals included in this study.

100%

Business

75%
73%

Charities,
Foundations,
Non-Profit
72%

Education
66%

Entertainment
64%

Finance65%

Gambling

58%

Food & Drink

54%

55%

50%

49%

51%

42%

41%

34%

25%

39%
36%

24%

22%
19%

23%
17%
14%

0%

©2015 Urban Airship | Portland San Francisco London | 855 385 3151 | urbanairship.com

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Travel &Transportation
78%

SocialGambling

Media
GamingMedical,Health &Fitness
58%

55%

55%

67%

Retail

58%

56%

48%

41%

47%

46%

41%

40%
36%

32%

33%
24%

66%

Sports52%

39%

Utility &Productivity

30%

26%
23%
20%

14%

15%

16%

©2015 Urban Airship | Portland San Francisco London | 855 385 3151 | urbanairship.com

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Methodology
Urban Airship analyzed customer data in aggregate to identify
apps with at least 5,000 downloads that had sent at least
1,000 cumulative pushes in one month. Analysis included
2,946 apps that had collectively sent more than 93 billion
notifications to more than 533 million users. For industryspecific insights, apps were manually categorized into 15
industry verticals. To offer performance benchmarks, results
were grouped into high, medium and low ranges using 90th,
50th and 10th percentiles.
This report was generated by Urban Airship’s Strategic
Consulting group and its data scientists. Strategic Consulting
partners with brands to deliver tailored, relationship-based
mobile strategies that increase app engagement and boost
business metrics. Please contact Urban Airship to schedule abenchmark review.

About Urban Airship
Urban Airship is leading the movement of mobile innovators,
helping them build high-value relationships through mobile
apps and mobile wallets. Its mobile engagement and insightproducts mobilize all aspects of a business, powering
exceptional mobile and omnichannel customer experiences.
Studies have found that Urban Airship’s engagement
solutions can drive an 878 percent return on investment
for customers and overcome APPathy by increasing app
user engagement 4X and doubling retention. Thousands ofcompanies and some of the most demanding brands in retail,media & entertainment, sports and travel & hospitality, trust
Urban Airship to deliver the mobile moments that matter totheir customers and their business.

For more information,
visit www.urbanairship.com andfollow us on Twitter @urbanairship.

©2015 Urban Airship | Portland San Francisco London | 855 385 3151 | urbanairship.com

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Industry verticals
BUSINESS
Apps that offer a B2B or B2E utility for use by B2B
customers or employees of businesses. Includes app
interfaces or versions of B2B SaaS platforms. (88 apps invertical)CHARITIES, FOUNDATIONS, NON-PROFIT
Apps that provide an interface between the end user anda non-profit entity, charity, foundation, and/or apps whose
purpose is to generate revenue for a cause.
(15 apps in vertical)
EDUCATION
Apps that provide training and learning opportunities for
consumers, and apps for schools or learning institutions.
(49 apps in vertical)
ENTERTAINMENT
Apps that provide entertainment in the form of video
streaming, music, movies, TV and radio, as well as artist
apps.
(309 apps in vertical)
FINANCE
Apps to manage finances, banking, investments andinsurance. (43 apps in vertical)
FOOD & DRINK
Apps managed by restaurants and beverage companies
as well as recipe and cooking content apps.
(62 apps in vertical)
GAMBLING
Apps that allow you to place bets and/or gamble.
(82 apps in vertical)

GAMING
Apps that offer free and paid gaming. (195 apps in vertical)
MEDIA
Apps that include national and breaking news, local news,
newsstand, books, magazines and radio.
(973 apps in vertical)
MEDICAL, HEALTH & FITNESS
Apps for fitness tracking, health management, pharmacy
and health reference. (90 apps in vertical)
RETAILGrocery, discount and deals, specialty retail (e.g. greetingcards or toys), fashion, big box/warehouse.
(239 apps in vertical)
SOCIAL
Apps for networking, messaging, dating andcommunication.
(102 apps in vertical)
SPORTS & RECREATION
Apps for team info, sports news and recreation. (274 apps
in vertical)
TRAVEL & TRANSPORTATION
Apps for airline, automotive, hotel, bookings, rail, vacation
rental and public transportation. (115 apps in vertical)
UTILITY & PRODUCTIVITY
Apps for navigation, reference, weather, and productivity
tools. (302 apps in vertical)©2015 Urban Airship | Portland San Francisco London | 855 385 3151 | urbanairship.com

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