The key to communicating better with your users is to send the right content to the right audience at the right time.
When is the right time? Here are some hints:
1. Send your notifications before/after other apps/websites
Our clients have been sending push with Batch for years now. We analyzed their habits and discovered that they mainly send push notifications at three specific moments of the day:
Early morning, from 7 AM to 9 AM
Mid-day, during the lunch break from 12 PM to 2 PM
Early evening, from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM
Knowing that, do not hesitate to send your push notifications a little bit earlier than most of the other apps. For instance, you can schedule your push notification at 11:55 AM to make sure your users receive it before they receive alerts from other apps at 12 PM sharp.
2. Make sure you pick the right scheduling mode
You can pick between two options when scheduling a simple or recurring push campaign:
Local time: This option lets you send a push notification that will be received based on the user's timezone so at the same hour in every country. This ensures that marketing efforts target your users at a uniform time.
Global time: This option allows you to send a push notification to your users at a specific UTC regardless of their location. Every user will receive the message at the same time.
3. Send your notifications when users are most likely to engage with your app/website
Go to the Analytics > Audience page and set the dates for 3 days maximum. This way, you will be able to see the analytics, hour by hour. The "Starts" chart (blue) shows when your app is most opened by your users (in UTC):
Take a look at the peak hours (red arrows): your users spontaneously come to your app at that moment of the day. It means that they usually are available around that time and that they are more likely to be willing to open your notification.
Note: You can find the same information in your dedicated analytics tool (e.g. Firebase Analytics, AT Internet, etc).
4. Check the influenced opens
If there are more influenced opens than direct opens, it might mean that your push campaign has been sent too early. Users didn't open your push notification directly after it was sent but opened your app within 3 hours.
To see the rate of direct and influenced opens, go to the analytics of the campaign:
Note: if you are seeing no direct opens in your campaigns, we recommend you read that guide as this may come from an integration issue.
5. Match the send time with the audience and the content
Remember that the previous pieces of advice are generic and need to be adapted to your audience and to the message you are about to send. You should always think first about the specificity of your market, your app and your users' habits.
While media apps are likely to send push notifications early in the morning during weekdays, fashion and lifestyle e-commerce or entertainment apps get better results by sending notifications at the end of the afternoon and during the weekend.
Need more help?
Feel free to send your questions or to share your use cases with your Customer Success Manager or on the live chat.