Push Notifications That Drive Black Friday Conversions: Strategies for Higher Engagement

We are a month away from Black Friday – is your mobile marketing strategy in place? Like any other headlining main event, setting the stage early is key to making the most of the spotlight. And what a spotlight it is – In 2024, 81% of shoppers plan to do their Black Friday and holiday shopping via mobile app, up from 68% in 2023 and 65% in 2022.

As mobile commerce continues to grow, push notifications have become an indispensable tool in reaching users with personalized, real-time offers. But you’re far from the only ones who know this! With so many brands competing for attention, how are you to ensure your push notifications stand out, engage your audience, and ultimately lead to conversions?

1. Crafting Compelling Push Notification Messages

Focus on Urgency and Scarcity

Black Friday is all about urgency — flash sales, limited-time offers, and exclusive deals. It doesn’t matter if you’re offering a steep discount, promoting a new app feature, or both. The point is, that you are suggesting the potential for missed value.

Smartphones provide instant access to information, and push notifications are your most impactful channel for triggering instant reactions. When a well-timed push notification hits, users can quickly open your app, engage, and convert, taking advantage of fleeting offers. The convenience of mobile shopping combined with the fear of missing out creates a sense of instant gratification for users, reinforcing these quick decisions.

Use this to your advantage by incorporating urgency and scarcity in your push notifications:

• FOMO-Vocabulary: Words like “Only Today,” “Hurry,” or “Last Chance” create a sense of urgency and compel users to take immediate action.
• Highlight Limited Stock: Use phrases like "Almost Gone" or "Only a Few Left" to highlight scarcity.
• Countdown Timers: Include real-time countdowns in notifications (e.g., "Sale ends in 2 hours") to visually reinforce time limits and push users to act faster.
• Early Access for Loyal Users: Offer VIP or early-bird access to certain deals. This “front of the line” treatment makes loyal customers feel exclusive and incentivizes early engagement.
• Tiered Discounts: To encourage multiple visits, send push notifications that escalate discounts throughout the day (e.g., "10% off now, 20% off later!").

Personalization is Key

Notifications that use personalized content have a 344% higher engagement rate than notifications that don't. During Black Friday’s frenzy, personalized messaging grabs attention, removes user friction, and entices your different audience segments with the value they are more likely to act on.

Use customer data to tailor your messages based on users' previous browsing or purchase behavior. By offering products or deals that are specifically relevant to each user, you increase the chances of conversion.

This strategy is especially impactful this time of year because it leverages personalization during a season when consumers are bombarded with generic, mass-market deals. By tailoring notifications to individual preferences and past behaviors, you cut through the noise and offer something highly relevant to each user or user segment. This not only boosts engagement but also lifts conversion rates, as shoppers are more likely to act on deals that feel curated for them, rather than sifting through countless unrelated promotions.

Looking for some message personalization inspiration? Our Mobile Personalization Companion breaks down the most impactful ways to custom-tailor campaigns for each mobile industry.

Keep it Short and Sweet

Your push notifications must be concise while delivering maximum value. Avoid lengthy messages that might overwhelm or bore your users. The goal is to spark interest immediately — highlight the key value proposition in as few words as possible.

• To grab attention, notifications should immediately emphasize the main value — whether it’s a discount, an exclusive offer, or limited availability.
  
• Let your visuals do some of the heavy lifting! Include an image of a specific product the user previously viewed, combined with a short, enticing message.
  
• Keep the title around 30-40 characters. This ensures the key message or offer is immediately visible in the notification preview.
  
• Aim for 90-120 characters in the body of your message. This keeps it short enough to avoid overwhelming users, but long enough to deliver the main point.
  
• CTAs should be brief, around 10-15 characters. Phrases like “Redeem Here,” “Grab Deal,” or “Claim Offer” work well because they are direct and actionable.
  
• Emojis can replace words and convey emotions or actions, saving space and making the notification more visually appealing. For instance, instead of saying “time is running out,” use “⏳.” Emojis can increase message open rates by an average of 85%!

Our guide to writing better CTAs walks you through the art of the crafting calls to action that are short, sweet, and to the conversion!

2. Designing High-Impact Push Notifications

Use Rich Media for Higher Engagement

Rich push notifications — those that include images, videos, or GIFs — are significantly more eye-catching and engaging than text-only notifications. Black Friday is a visually driven shopping event, so leverage imagery that showcases your deals, discounts, or limited-time offers.

Mobile users often rely on images, videos, and product showcases to quickly assess the value of a deal. Unlike generic text-based notifications, rich push notifications that include images of products or countdown timers, immediately grab attention and can convey more information at a glance. Rich media enhances the emotional and urgent appeal of your offers, ultimately leading to higher click-through rates and conversions.

Use these best practices to design a push notification that demands attention:

• Highlight the Offer Visually: Make the discount or deal the focal point of the image. Use bold, contrasting fonts or banners that immediately showcase the promotion.
• Incorporate a Sense of Urgency: Use visual cues like countdown timers or clocks to reinforce the deal's time-sensitive nature.
• Feature Popular or Trending Products: Use eye-catching images of your most popular items, products from users' wishlists, or recently viewed items.
• Use High-Contrast, Festive Colors: Black Friday is associated with bold, eye-popping visuals. Leverage contrasting colors like black, red, and gold to make the offer stand out and align with the theme of the event.

Optimize for Mobile Experience

Mobile shopping during Thanksgiving 2022 accounted for 55% of online retail sales, higher by 8.3% from the previous year. With more and more Black Friday shoppers browsing via mobile, it’s critical your push notifications are optimized for mobile screens.

Compress images without compromising quality to ensure they load quickly on all mobile devices, even those with slower connections. Fast-loading images prevent user drop-off, ensuring a smoother mobile experience during high-traffic periods like Black Friday.

Keep text clear and easy to read on small screens by using large, high-contrast fonts and optimizing for Dark Mode. Ensure the message is concise, using no more than 90-120 characters, so users can grasp the offer immediately without scrolling.

Ensure that call to action buttons are large enough for easy tapping, ideally around 44x44 pixels. Place them in prominent positions with ample white space around them to avoid accidental clicks, improving user interaction and conversions.

Remember, you won’t always fully optimize your notifications on the first try. Test different layouts and formats to determine what performs best with your audience. A/B testing can help you identify which design elements — like button colors or image placement — lead to higher engagement.

3. Timing Your Black Friday Push Campaigns for Maximum Impact

Early-Bird Campaigns: Build Anticipation

Start your Black Friday campaign early by sending teasers or sneak peeks a week before the big day. By giving users a glimpse of what’s to come, you build curiosity and excitement, keeping your brand top of mind as they prepare for the event. This sense of anticipation makes users more likely to engage with your app or website once the sale starts because they’ve been primed to expect valuable deals. Additionally, early notifications create a sense of exclusivity for users who feel they’re getting inside information before the general public, which can increase loyalty and engagement.

These types of lead-in campaigns are also a great opportunity to combine other channels with your push strategy:

• Use in-app messages or banners to reinforce the upcoming sale, building excitement for active users.
• Send short, targeted SMS alerts to users who have opted in, reminding them about the event or offering early access to deals.
• Use email alongside push notifications to deliver more detailed sneak peeks, exclusive discounts, or countdown timers to build sustained interest.
• Don’t forget to incentivize early-bird shoppers by offering exclusive access to deals before they’re available to the public.

Timing Your Notifications on Black Friday

When Black Friday finally arrives, timing is critical. You want to reach users when they’re most likely to shop, but not so frequently that you overwhelm them. Consider breaking your push notifications into time-sensitive segments throughout the day. For instance:

Morning Push (8-10 AM): Highlight your best deals or doorbusters to get early shoppers excited.

Midday Push (12-2 PM): Offer flash sales or time-sensitive discounts for users who may have missed the morning rush.

Evening Push (6-8 PM): Remind users that Black Friday is coming to an end, and offer last-chance deals to capture late shoppers.

Post-Black Friday: Extend Engagement

Don’t stop on Black Friday — extend your push notification strategy through the weekend and into Cyber Monday. One common tactic is to remind users of deals they may have missed on Black Friday, creating a "second chance" urgency. This helps re-engage those who didn’t make a purchase during the main event.

Additionally, you can promote exclusive Cyber Monday deals, offering discounts on different product categories or new bundles that weren’t available during Black Friday, maintaining excitement.

Remember to target users with abandoned carts or wishlist items, offering last-minute discounts or incentives like free shipping to convert hesitant shoppers. Flash sales over the weekend can also create urgency, encouraging users to act fast on new offers leading up to Cyber Monday, and keeping the engagement alive.

4. Don’t Overwhelm Your Users

While Black Friday is an exciting time for deals, sending too many notifications can lead to user fatigue and cause them to turn off notifications altogether. To avoid this, create a well-timed schedule that spreads out your notifications without being too frequent. Aim for high-impact notifications rather than bombarding users with repetitive messages.

Not only does OneSignal’s Intelligent Delivery pull historical engagement data to automatically determine the optimal send times for your notifications, but Frequency Capping allows you to define the maximum number of push notifications that can be sent to a user within a specific time period.

Black Friday shoppers are bombarded with offers from multiple brands. Sending notifications at a time when a user is most likely to engage helps cut through the noise and increases the likelihood of conversion. It avoids sending notifications during low-engagement periods, which would risk being overlooked.

By limiting how often users receive messages, you avoid frustrating your audience, reduce app uninstalls, and increase the relevance of each notification you send. This balance between engagement and restraint leads to higher overall effectiveness of push campaigns throughout the Black Friday period.

Pushing Boundaries, One Send at a Time

With Black Friday just around the corner, preparing your push notification strategy now is crucial for driving engagement and conversions. If you are looking for a more nuanced way to approach mobile engagement without breaking the bank, OneSignal may be the right match.

Our developer-friendly API, combined with an arsenal of omnichannel messaging tools, creates a much-needed bridge between your engineering and marketing teams. It’s why one in five apps chooses OneSignal for their engagement solution. Consider trying us out for free to see if we’re a good fit – if so, we’re more than happy to work with you to unlock further value tailored to your needs.