The Best Push Notification Software Platforms for B2C Marketing

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Finding a push notification software that actually works for B2C marketing isn’t as easy as it sounds. Marketers often grapple with low CTRs, limited targeting options, poor automation, and tools that simply don’t fit well into existing workflows and systems.

So, to help you cut through the noise, we’ve curated a list of some of the best push notification platforms currently available in the market, along with the features that make them stand out.

Read on to understand how these tools can help you drive better engagement and more conversions with less stress!

What is a Push Notification Software Service?

A push notification service is a software tool that allows you to send real-time notifications to devices used by your customers. Push notifications appear as pop-ups or banners on smartphones, desktops, or web browsers. They usually contain information about offers, discounts, product launches, and more.

Marketers can create custom messages within push notification software services and add text, images, CTAs, and targeting parameters of their choice. Usually, when a customer lands on a website or downloads an app, they’re asked to allow or block push notifications.

If the customer decides to receive web or mobile push notifications, they will receive messages in the notification box or on their screen, prompting immediate action. These notifications will be delivered via services like Firebase Cloud Messaging for Android or Apple Push Notification Service for iOS devices.

Push notifications are a great way to re-engage inactive customers, drive immediate action such as sales or sign-ups, send targeted messages based on customer behavior, and reduce cart abandonment.

Top 5 Benefits of Using Push Notification Software

Using push notification software helps marketers connect with customers instantly — even with emojis in notifications! Unlike traditional marketing channels like email, push notifications ensure that customers see the message right away instead of requiring them to actively check their inboxes.

Whether you’re looking to boost sales, improve customer retention, or drive app engagement, push notification software can be a game-changer.

Here’s how:

1. Instant customer engagement

Customers see mobile and web push notifications the moment they pop up on their screens. This makes them highly effective for time-sensitive campaigns like flash sales, news updates, or event reminders. Customers are more likely to take immediate action with real-time alerts than respond to an email buried deep in their inbox.

2. Increased conversion rates

You can customize rich push notifications and add elements like videos, images, and CTAs to create a sense of urgency and inspire immediate action. It essentially removes friction from the decision-making process and can convert passive customers into active participants.

3. Personalized targeting

Advanced push notification tools allow you to segment customers by their browser behavior, location, preferences, and previous interactions. You can then use this information to tailor the message so it feels relevant to the customer. This way, instead of generic messages, customers receive location-based push notifications, or alerts about an item they left in the cart or updates about their favorite products. It makes them more likely to engage with the brand. It’s one of the most effective push notification best practices marketers follow.

4. Reduced cart abandonment

If you find that your customers are constantly adding items to their carts but never checking out, automated push notifications through push notification software can be a great way to remind them to complete their purchases. You can add special discounts or offers for products in their cart or use urgency-driven messaging like ‘Only two left in stock!’ or ‘Your coupon code expires in 24 hours!’.

These cart recovery messages may be an effective way to recover lost sales by nudging customers to take that last step and complete the transaction.

5. In-depth campaign analytics

Finally, push notification software helps you improve your campaigns effectively over time. These platforms give you valuable insights into how your campaigns are performing. Specifically, they allow you to analyze different push notification metrics like open rate, conversion rate, and so on. Armed with this information, you can tweak your campaigns as and when needed.

5 Features to Look for in a Push Notification Service

When considering a push notification service, look for features that can actually improve customer engagement and streamline your marketing operations. Here are some of the key features to take into account:

1. Personalized notifications

Look for a platform that allows you to segment your customers based on past purchases, browsing behavior, transaction history, app activity, and geography. Granular segmentation enables you to create content tailored to each customer segment.

Personalized push notifications are key to sending targeted promotions or recommendations. For instance, let’s say a customer spent some time browsing for a particular item on your website. You can send them an urgency-driven message, saying that the items they viewed are selling out fast, and ask them to complete their purchase.

Why this is a key criterion: Personalized notifications contain messages that resonate better with your audience and feel less intrusive than generic messages. In fact, push notifications can cause 88% more app engagement. If your push notification service lacks in-depth personalization features, you might face lower engagement, higher opt-outs, and missed conversion opportunities.

2. Behavior-based automation

Behavior-based automation allows you to reach your customers with the right messaging at the right moments in their journey.

Choose a push notification software that offers capabilities to monitor activities such as cart abandonment or app inactivity. You can set up an automated workflow to trigger a mobile or Chrome push notification in response to specific customer actions and behaviors. For instance, you can set up a campaign that automatically triggers a push notification when a customer is inactive for more than 10 days on your app. The notification can encourage such customers to revisit the app.

Why this is a key criterion: Behavior-based automation is crucial for sending out timely, relevant, and conversion-driven messages to customers. If used right, behavior-based automation can help recover lost revenue and keep customers engaged, reducing churn. Besides, it can save you hours of manually tracking your customers’ activities and help you set up efficient and scalable campaigns.

3. AI-powered delivery optimization

One of the most critical tasks with push notifications is to ensure that the messages are sent when customers are most likely to engage with them. If you aim to maximize customer engagement, a push notification service enhanced with AI-powered delivery optimization can help you optimize the timing and the content of your notifications.

AI algorithms can analyze customer data and determine the right time and message. It can also automatically schedule the message to be delivered right when a customer has completed a desired action.

For example, a fitness app using AI-powered delivery optimization can boost engagement by analyzing app usage, workout times, and time zones. The AI learns that some customers respond best to workout alerts at 7 AM, while others ignore reminders, but engage with new challenges. It then personalizes notifications accordingly — early risers get “Kickstart your day with a quick 15-minute HIIT session!” at 7 AM, while challenge seekers see “New 7-day workout challenge unlocked! Are you in?”.

This tailored approach enhances engagement, reduces notification fatigue, and improves customer experience.

Why this is a key criterion: AI-powered delivery optimization ensures customers receive personalized content at the right time. The AI tailors both timing and content, depending on customer behavior. It can also analyze A/B test results and refine its messaging strategy, improving engagement and conversions — all without any manual intervention.

4. Push notification templates

You can use push notification templates to create notifications without much effort. Rich notification templates take this one step further by allowing you to add images, carousels, and other interactive features to your notifications for better engagement.

Using rich notifications is a great way to highlight your products and make them more visually appealing to customers. You can use rich text and bright colors, design non-intrusive notifications, and even add carousels to make your messages attractive and engaging.

Why this is a key criterion: Your customers receive dozens of push notifications every day. So, you need to make your messages stand out. Visually rich notifications ensure that your messages capture customers’ attention. Plus, pre-designed templates make it much easier to create campaigns that are optimized for the kind of content you want to send out.

5. No-code campaign creation

Another key feature to look for in your push notification tool is a user-friendly interface that allows you to create and deploy push notification campaigns at scale without extensive coding.

Look for drag-and-drop editors that enable you to create campaigns quickly, test different approaches, and iterate as needed.

Why this is a key criterion: Most marketers are less than familiar with code and may often need to rely on developers to launch campaigns. Tools with drag-and-drop interfaces allow these marketers to create campaigns independently, which, in turn, accelerates the marketing process. It also enables them to swiftly launch campaigns at scale and A/B test campaigns to find which approach works best for them.

5 Best Push Notification Services and Software for Engaging Customers

The right push notification software can make a huge difference in terms of boosting engagement and driving conversions.

Below, we’ve listed some of the best push notification services available in the market and their standout features:

1. Best for AI-driven personalization and omnichannel engagement: MoEngage

Clearly, we’ve got some bias here. But we want to lay it on the line anyway.

MoEngage is an AI-powered customer engagement platform designed to help brands create seamless, personalized experiences across multiple channels. The platform enables marketers to send hyper-personalized messages to their customers to increase retention and conversions.

Not to mention MoEngage’s powerful AI engine, Sherpa AI, can analyze customer behavior to recommend the optimal message, timing, and channel to ensure maximum engagement.

Price: MoEngage offers multiple plans, and the pricing can be customized to your unique needs.

Standout features:

• Customer insights to gain a 360-degree view of your customers
• Cross-channel marketing
• Web and app personalization
• Real-time transactional alerts
• Journey orchestration

Best for: Enterprises and high-growth brands. MoEngage is particularly useful for industries like Ecommerce, fintech, media, and SaaS. No wonder they’ve got over 1,350 customers worldwide, including Poshmark, SoundCloud, and 1Weather. Case in point, 1Weather achieved a 10% higher CTR on their push notifications after switching to MoEngage.

Bonus: Got an Ecommerce app? Why don’t you try these 13 push notification templates?

2. Best for basic push notifications: OneSignal

OneSignal is a customer engagement platform that offers robust features like real-time messaging, automation, A/B testing, and advanced segmentation. It allows marketers to deliver targeted push notifications across mobile apps and websites. However, its options to customize push notifications as per your needs and preferences are limited.

Price: OneSignal offers a free plan with basic features. The platform also has a paid plan that starts at $9 per month with custom pricing for its professional and enterprise plans.

Standout features:

• Cross-channel messaging
• Visual workflow tool to design customer journeys
• Advanced segmentation features with audience cohorts and detailed filters
• Event tracking and in-depth engagement data

Best for: SaaS platforms, mobile apps, and Ecommerce brands looking for real-time engagement and automation.

3. Best for Ecommerce: PushOwl

PushOwl (acquired by Brevo) is a super user-friendly tool packed with features like automation pre-sets, an SMS marketing suite, and more. It is designed to support diverse marketing strategies through email, push notifications, and SMS. The tool features an easy-to-use interface, powerful segmentation, and a drag-and-drop editor to help create push campaigns.

Price: PushOwl offers a free plan and paid plans starting at $19 per month.

Standout features:

• Web push notifications
• AI-powered campaign editor
• Behavior-based segmentation
• AI email generator

Best for: Shopify store owners, WooCommerce businesses, and online retailers who want to increase conversions.

4. Best for regulated industries: Pushwoosh

Pushwoosh is designed for businesses that need secure, scalable push notification software. It lets you connect with customers across various channels, including email, push notifications, SMS, in-app messaging, and WhatsApp. With robust data safety features, it’s ideal for industries with stringent privacy requirements, like the healthcare industry.

Price: Pushwoosh’s free plan includes a limited number of features. Pricing for paid plans depends on the number of subscribers you want to reach out to.

Standout features:

• Customer journey orchestration
• Push and web notifications
• Data safety
• Marketing segmentation tools
• Actionable customer data platform for mobile apps

Best for: Large enterprises, gaming, Ecommerce, subscription-based businesses, and fintech.

5. Best for mobile apps: Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM)

Previously known as Google Cloud Messaging, FCM is a push notification API for iOS, Android, and web applications.

The FCM API allows you to send notifications, data messages, or both with a single API call.
It supports targeting individual devices and customer segments. You can also broadcast to all devices subscribed to a particular topic. This makes it helpful in sending news alerts, content updates, or promotional offers to a large audience.

Pricing: The FCM API is free, although you may need to pay extra for storage, monitoring, and authentication.

Standout features:

• Customizable for different customer segments
• Robust and scalable
• Real-time analytics
• Comprehensive guides, SDKs, and sample projects

Best for: Mobile applications that need to engage customers through personalized, timely notifications while leveraging the broader Firebase ecosystem.

Elevate Customer Messaging with the Right Push Notification Platform

Choosing the right push notification software is instrumental in designing powerful campaigns that go beyond just basic messaging and drive meaningful engagement. Features like advanced automation, AI-driven personalization, and seamless omnichannel messaging can help you deliver tailored content to the right audience at the right time.

If you’re looking for a comprehensive platform that encompasses all of this and more, MoEngage’s personalized mobile push notification platform is an excellent choice. With its intelligent segmentation, behavior-based automation, and real-time analytics, MoEngage helps brands create push notifications based on highly personalized customer journeys that drive engagement and growth.

Ready to elevate your push notification strategy? Explore MoEngage today with an in-depth product demo and unlock the full potential of customer engagement!