Benchmarks Provide a North Star for Mobile App Experiences


by Dino Michetti

Customers keep moving and changing their minds, but brands need to get a fix on the mobile app strategy that works for them. That’s hard, because you’re not sure what’s possible. Airship provides a push notification benchmark report every year to help you find a north star for customer experience — how to connect with customers, how you can level up your strategy and where you stand in relation to your peers. 

For our latest report — Mobile App Push Notification Benchmarks for 2023 — which is based on internal customer data, we analyzed more than 665 billion notifications to more than 2.5 billion users across 13 verticals. What we found out was this: 

  • Push opt-in rates are increasing 
  • Direct open rates are increasing 
  • Brands are sending fewer notifications per user

What does all of this mean for you and your business? 

Push opt-in rates are increasing

Brands are  tasked with providing the best possible customer experiences. And that means putting control into the hands of customers. Brands do that by gathering product feedback, understanding how to leverage the Airship platform and staying in touch with what matters to customers. 

Customers are willing to opt in if they believe you’ll send them the information they want. That’s where preferences come into play. As more brands adopt the use of Airship’s AXP Preference Center, giving users control over the purpose, frequency and channel of communication, data show a greater willingness to opt in. 

Direct open rates are increasing

Based on past Airship research, we know that highly personalized messages perform better. And it’s pretty clear that personalization becomes even more effective with greater access to the first-party data and new ways to collect zero-party data without developer support, which Airship provides. 

App customers are looking for you to show them you know them. When you accomplish that, you’ll start to see increases in engagement. At the end of the day, we all want good experiences that are relevant to us. 

Brands are sending fewer notifications per user

To understand the importance of this finding, look at why brands are sending fewer notifications. If they have bigger audiences and more opted-in customers than ever, shouldn’t they be sending more notifications, not fewer? 

The fact is, brands are now being more strategic than they have been in the past. They’re sending fewer notifications, but depending much more on segmentation. More and more, the right messages go to the right audiences. As a result, more of these app customers stay opted in and engaged with the content. 

We’re always working to help brands better understand their mobile maturity. Have you taken the Mobile Maturity Assessment? In our work around the globe we’ve seen a significant increase in mobile maturity over the past two years, and believe many brands are accomplishing this through better segmentation and journey optimization, in addition to thoroughly thinking through their engagement strategy upfront. If you’re interested in learning more about how Airship can help you increase opt-in and direct open rates and improve your overall mobile maturity — please let us know. We’re always eager to help. 

Navigator is Airship’s customer newsletter covering the latest mobile app industry trends, product updates, use cases and best practices, and other learning resources. It’s yet another resource to help you deliver better mobile app experiences and create greater value more quickly. If you’d like to receive our monthly Navigator newsletter please sign up here.