Overview

This guide is based on a Pugpig mini masterclass delivered in March 2026. You can watch the full recording on Vimeo.

Push notifications are one of the areas we talk about most with publishers — but also where we consistently see the biggest gap between what's possible and what's actually happening. This guide gives you a practical framework you can start using straight away. For anything mentioned here, reach out to your CSM for guidance.

Summary

• 95% of users who opt in to push but receive nothing in the first 90 days will churn. One push improves retention by 147%; more than one per day improves it by 285%.
• Around 1 in 3 app users only open the app after receiving a push.
• Top-performing campaigns achieve open rates of 16-44%, versus an industry average of 5.17%.
• The risk for most publishers is sending too little, not too much as the data shows that opt-out rates do not rise meaningfully until you exceed 10 notifications per day.
• Segmentation by subscriber status and engagement level is the fastest route to better performance.
• Every push needs a unique campaign label — without it, you lose the data that tells you what is working.

Why Push Matters More Than Ever

In the current digital climate, you have to build your strategy around being chosen — directly, habitually, repeatedly.

Your app is your most powerful owned channel. There's no algorithm that determines whether you get seen; no platform that can change the rules overnight. And crucially, push notifications are what keeps that channel active, turning a passive download into a daily habit.

Push is a Retention Engine: The Data

Airship analysed 10.5 million media app users across 727 apps:

• 95% of users who opt in to push but receive nothing within their first 90 days will churn.
• Send just one push in that first 90-day window and retention improves by 147%.
• Send more than one push per day and 90-day retention improves by 285%.

Our Data:

• Top-performing apps in the Pugpig network have up to two in three users opening a push every month, averaging up to 15 notifications each — and that cohort averages 25 sessions per user per month.
• Around 1 in 3 users only open the app after receiving a push. If you are not sending consistently, you are potentially invisible to a third of your audience.

What Good Looks Like: Benchmarks

• The industry average for mobile push click-through rate in 2025 was 5.17% (PushPushGo). 
• Top-performing campaigns were hitting open rates of 16-44%.

Data from the Pugpig Media App Report shows that while the percentage of all pushes opened is fairly low (so do not be disheartened if your figures are below 10%), the percentage of users who open at least one push per month is much higher. 

For news publishers, users who engage with push regularly open on average between 5-9 pushes per month.

Optimising Push: Deep Linking

A deep link takes a user directly from a notification into a specific article or screen inside the app. Without it working correctly, users land on the home screen — and many simply will not bother finding the content when that happens. More importantly, it erodes trust: a push that does not deliver what it promised trains users over time that your notifications are not worth tapping.

Tips:

• Use GUID-based deep link URLs, not slug-based ones — slugs break when headlines are edited.
• Make sure canonical links in your RSS feed are correctly set — contact support if you need help.
• Always try and test the outcome on both iOS and Android before sending a manual push, if you can.
• Webview content (Today tab, external pages) needs extra configuration — contact support if you need help.

Documentation for Deep Linking can be found here.

Automated vs Manual Push

Which should you use? The answer is generally both — they serve completely different purposes.

• Automated push fires when Pugpig processes a new story from your RSS/Atom feed tagged to send a push. Supported with Airship and Firebase. Provides consistency without editorial overhead — critical for retention in those first 90 days.
• Manual push can be reserved for major exclusives or breaking news — it will feel more impactful, more tailored and more effective than an automated headline.

Documentation for Automated Push can be found here.

Push Best Practices

Copy

• Keep headlines under 50 characters to avoid truncation.
• Be specific and direct.
• Include images where you can — they drive up to 25% higher open rates (Airship).

Timing and Frequency

• Tailoring to user habits can increase reaction rates by up to 40% (Airship).
• Opt-out rates do not meaningfully rise until you exceed 10 notifications per day.
• Test, test, test — every app and audience is different.

Opt-In Prompts

• The native OS prompt triggers after 3 non-help screen views or on second app open — you only get one shot at it.
• Use an in-app soft prompt first that explains the value — e.g. Get alerted the moment we break a big story — so users are primed before the OS dialog appears.
• Strong onboarding correlates with significantly higher opt-in rates.

Documentation on Welcome Screens can be found here.

Segmentation

Sending the same push to your entire audience is leaving a lot on the table. Relevance is the single biggest driver of push performance. Combine three dimensions:

• Declared preferences — topics users actively choose via a preference centre. Only offer topics you will actually send pushes to.
• Behavioural signals — what users actually read and click. A niche sport push sent to your whole audience might get a small CTR; sent only to users who read every sport story, it will skyrocket.
• User status — subscriber, registered user, or anonymous visitor. The right message for each group is completely different.

Subscriber Status

Engagement Status

Win-back campaigns targeting at-risk users can recover up to 26% of lapsed customers. 

Preference Centres

The most common reason users turn off all push is that they cannot turn off the specific type of notification they dislike. Without granular control, the only option is to disable everything.

• Keep it to 4-8 topic toggles.
• Offer frequency options: as-it-happens, daily digest, or breaking news only.
• Add location-based alerts where relevant.
• Only offer topics you will actually send pushes to – If a user signs up to get something, you need to make sure you're sending out pushes!

Pugpig supports this through the Bolt Preference Centre for OneSignal and Pushly customers, and the Airship Preference Centre for Airship customers. 

Documentation on the Preference Centre is available here.

(Note the Preference Centre is not currently available for Firebase on Pugpig Bolt)

Reporting: Key Metrics

If open rates are consistently low, look at three things: what the notification said, who it was sent to, and when it went out. All three are potentially quick fixes.

Campaign Tracking

Open rates tell you someone tapped — but not what happened next. To understand real impact, track behaviour in your app analytics and tie it back to the specific campaign.

Tag your pushes with “PPCampaign” and assign a unique label. This will mean you can track it in Mixpanel.

• For Airship: enable customer keys.
• For Firebase: use key-value pairs.
• This lets you track BoltNotificationOpen events by campaign in Mixpanel.
• Golden rule: every push must have a unique campaign label before you send it. It takes 30 seconds, but without it all push traffic looks identical.

What to Look for in Mixpanel

• Content engagement after the tap — page views per session, session duration, feature engagement.
• App recirculation — do users go beyond the first article?
• Conversion events — paywall impressions and subscriptions from push-driven sessions.
• Audience behaviour by segment — comparing subscribers vs. non-subscribers after a push almost always reveals something useful.

The Pugpig Mixpanel masterclass recording is worth a rewatch too - a link to the vimeo recording can be found here!

Next Steps: A Typical Push Engagement Plan

Quick Wins

• Review your open and opt-out rates to establish a baseline.
• Start labelling every push campaign with a unique label.

Short-Term

• Move toward a two-track system blending automated and manual push.
• Identify your top audience segments and run one targeted campaign to each.
• Review your opt-in prompt setup and consider an in-app message to reach users who have opted out.

Longer-Term

• If on Airship or OneSignal, build a preference centre to give users granular control.
• Get subscription status data flowing through to your push provider for subscriber vs. non-subscriber targeting.

Useful Resources

• Push notifications in Bolt — Pugpig documentation
• The Art of the Nudge: Perfecting Push in 2025
• Pugpig Media App Report 2025

Your CSM is always the first port of call — do not wait to reach out if you have questions. If you have technical concerns, our support team is an email away at support@pugpig.com!