One in three consumers still saying 'no' to brands' app push notifications

One in three UK smartphone or tablet owners are still out of reach to brand marketers using app push notifications, according to new research published today [3 July 2014] by the DMA.

According to the DMA’s inaugural study into app push notifications, which polled 1,000 UK adult consumers, 31% said they had never enabled push notifications on their smartphone or connected devices. Of this group, one in five (21%) said they ‘have no knowledge of what a push notification is’, and one in three (30%) cited ‘they don’t like being notified’ as the reason for not enabling push notifications.

The research also reveals that brands must tread carefully when contacting the seven in 10 (69%) who have enabled push notifications; 78% of those polled said ‘they would immediately delete the app or disable the notification’ if they were unhappy with the push notifications they receive. Consumers would also welcome greater control, with one in four (73%) stating they would personalise app notifications if they were given the option.

According to Douglas McDonald, member of the DMA Mobile & Connected Marketing Council and director of Underwired Limited, marketers must now place greater focus on making app push notifications in campaign planning:

“For those brands with apps, push notifications are now an important tool in the customer communications box. It’s still isolated from many companies’ comms strategy and planning. It’s time to make it part of the planned customer journeys alongside email and other methods.”

In other findings, 34% of smartphone owners using brand apps would welcome notifications about sales promotions, while 26% would welcome push notifications for new products/launches updates and location-based offers. Consumers welcomed alerts from supermarket and music/radio apps, closely followed by TV/film apps, as their most preferred push notifications.

The findings of the DMA’s Mobile push notifications report can be viewed by downloading the infographic from http://www.dma.org.uk/mobilepush

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Notes to Editors

Methodology

The survey was conducted amongst 1,000 UK consumers. 37% of the respondents were male whilst 63% were female. 39% were 18-34 years-olds, 39% were 35-54 year-olds and 22% were over 54 years old.

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Contact

Ed Owen, Head of PR
Tel. 020 7291 3324
Email ed.owen@dma.org.uk