DATA STUDY:

How News & Media Apps

Send Push Notifications
CTR Frequency
Opt-in rate iOS vs. Android

Benchmarks & Tips for 2023

About the study 3
News & media apps’ metrics 5
CTR and opt-in rate: how we calculate them 6
Number of pushes sent daily: the more, the better? 7
Correlation between opt-in rate and CTR 9
Segmentation: what helps to deliver relevant news & content at a scale 11
Best time to distribute news & content 12
Average metrics for news & media apps per user base
Does the size of the user base even matter? 14
<10k subscribers 15
10–50k subscribers 16
50–100k subscribers 17
100–500k subscribers 18
500k–1M subscribers 19
>1M subscribers 20
The best push notification metrics revealed for news & media apps on iOS and Android 22
What helps the top news & media apps engage their audiences effectively 24
Companies that have grown their app metrics with Pushwoosh 25
The current study is based on exclusive data
researched and analyzed by Pushwoosh Team

Anonymized per-platform statistics of 110 active news Geographically, the study covers the following
& media apps, powered by the Pushwoosh platform, countries: Belgium, Canada, Estonia, Germany, India,
were taken for three months: from January 1, 2023 to Israel, Poland, South Africa, and the USA.
March 31, 2023.

CTR, opt-in rate, and frequency (the average number

News & media apps’ audiences vary from under 10k
of push notifications an app sent per day) were chosen
up to 10M+ active subscribers. as the core metrics for push notification campaigns.

The study highlights push notifications performance

on two main mobile platforms: iOS and Android.
NEWS &
MEDIA APPS’
METRICS
 2.7%
An average news &
media app
iOS
CTR
sends 8 pushes a day

iOS CTR (%) ANDROID CTR (%)

2.7 6.9 6.9%

iOS OPT-IN RATE (%) ANDROID OPT-IN RATE (%)

Android
49.9 72.2 CTR
How we calculate CTRs and opt-in rates

users who opened a push

To calculate push notification CTRs for our customers at
Pushwoosh, we divide the number of users who opened a
CTR = *100%
push-enabled users single push by the number of push-enabled users – users
who potentially received a push.

push-enabled users To calculate an app’s opt-in rate, we divide the number

Opt-in rate = *100% of push-enabled users by the overall number of app
all the app users users.
Number of push notifications sent per day
varies from one news & media app to another

According to the Pushwoosh data,

# Apps vs. Messages
a large part of publishers sends
0 to 1 push notification daily.
50
<1 At the same time, there are as
many publishers who send 1 to 10
40
pushes daily.

30 And then, there are apps that send

1–3
10 to 40 (or even more!) pushes
# Media

per day.
20
5–10
Apparently, each news & media
10 3–5 20–40 app has to derive its own ideal
10–20 >40
frequency.

A hint from Pushwoosh: the

Messages daily
number of pushes per day will
depend greatly on whether you use
segmentation or not.
Sending more pushes per day keeps users opted in
News & media apps sending the highest number of pushes per day are also the ones with the highest opt-in rates.

# Pushes per day vs. Opt-in rate

iOS
iOS Android
100%
100% 100%

75%
75% 75%
Opt-in rate, %
Opt-in rate

Opt-in rate
50%
50% 50%

25%
25% 25%

0%
0% 0%
0 20 40 60 0 25 50 75 100

Messages daily Messages daily

Prompt alerts are a common reason why users install news & media apps in the first place. So it’s little wonder users stay
opted in for push notifications when an app sends many of them daily.
A high opt-in rate doesn’t guarantee a high CTR

Without looking at the graphs, we could have assumed that a media app successfully promoting an opt-in would be
capable of sending engaging pushes (and vice versa).

In the reality, this is not always the case. Our data shows no strong correlation between an app’s opt-in rate and the CTRs
its push notifications receive.

iOS Android
Opt-in rate CTR Opt-in rate CTR
100% 100%

75% 75%

50% 50%

25% 25%

0% 0%
High CTRs may come to those who send a lot of pushes per day
There isn’t one magic number of pushes that guarantee high average CTRs. Leaders in CTRs on Android send either less than 20 or
more than 40 messages per day, while on iOS, there is an interesting peak in CTRs for the apps sending around 60 messages daily.

# Pushes per day vs. CTR

iOS Android
iOS
100% 100%
40%
100%

75%
30%
75% 75%
75%
Opt-in rate, %

CTR
%

%
CTR
Opt-in rate,

Averagerate,
50% 50%
Average

20%
50%

Opt-in
25%
10%
25% 25%
25%

0%
0% 0%
00 20
25 40
50 60
75 80
100
0 20 40 60

Messages daily Messages daily

How is it possible for an app to send an impressive load of news & content daily and achieve high CTRs? The answer is:
segmentation.
Essential segments for news & media apps

High-speed segment Segments by interest Segments by subscription

Why use it: Why use it: Why use it:

To enable Pushwoosh’s To send relevant updates to the To differentiate the content you
High-Speed Push Notifications users subscribed to receiving deliver to free users and
delivery. It allows sending up to news & content on their preferred premium subscribers. Also, to
500k pushes per second, topics: breaking news, world or promote upgrades eventually.
meaning you will be the first to local news, and thematic updates
spread the news on the decisive (politics, culture, etc.). How to use it:
goal or the winning candidate. Keep track of your
How to use it: (non)subscribed readers with
How to use it: 1. Display an in-app message Pushwoosh’s RFM Segmentation
Ensure you have High-Speed suggesting to opt in for or regular segmentation based
Push Notifications included in notifications from certain news & on events and attributes.
your Pushwoosh package. If not, content categories and update
please contact our team. user profile with this preference.
2. Send pushes on the selected
topic to determined user
segments.
Does it matter when a push notification is sent?

According to the Pushwoosh data,

Average CTR & day of the week
push notifications sent on
weekends have the lowest CTRs.
6
On weekdays, CTR fluctuations are
5 less significant.

4
As for the exact time when pushes
receive the highest CTRs, it
Average CTR, %

depends on the promoted content.

3

For breaking news, obviously, the

2
best time is as soon as possible +
sooner than other media.
1

For regular digests and op-eds,

0
you can rely on the Optimal time
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday to send feature in Pushwoosh.
BENCHMARKS
BY AUDIENCE
SIZE
Do average metrics depend on the size
of the news & media app audience?

To give you a data-driven answer,

# Apps vs. Size bucket we’ve broken down the statistics
and derived the averages for small
35 33 33 publishers and established media
apps separately.
30

25 In our sample, the majority of apps

20 are small (0–50K subscribers) and
# Apps

20
medium-sized (100–500k
15 subscribers), so you may find the
benchmarks for this group the most
10 9 common.
8 7
5 4
Nevertheless, the trends we’ve
0 observed for other app sizes, less
<10k 10–50k 50–100k 100–500k 500k–1M >1M represented in the sample, still look
Size bucket solid, as our data analysts confirm.
 4 pushes a day Media apps with a small audience
usually send a limited number of pushes
per day. However, the CTRs they achieve
iOS CTR (%) ANDROID CTR (%) are comparable to the overall averages.

< 10k 4.2 17.7 The small publishers analyzed in this

subscribers study have higher opt-in rates than most
media apps have.
iOS OPT-IN RATE (%) ANDROID OPT-IN RATE (%) There are several tactics they may be

59.8 75.1
using to extend their subscriber list.

Read more on how to increase push

opt-in rates in our blog post.

10k
 3 pushes a day Publishers with growing readership
appear to apply more effective methods
for both user activation and user
iOS CTR (%) ANDROID CTR (%) engagement.
High CTRs and opt-in rates indicate this
10–50k 3.9 9.7 clearly.
subscribers
However, you may need to get into more
iOS OPT-IN RATE (%) ANDROID OPT-IN RATE (%) detail when assessing your push
campaigns’ effectiveness.
54.8 79.5
Learn which metrics to track for push
notification campaigns on our blog..

50k
10k
 12 pushes a day At the growing stage, media apps tend
to be focused on acquiring subscribers
rather than keeping them engaged with
iOS CTR (%) ANDROID CTR (%) relevant communications.
As a result, CTRs may show a decline.
50–100k 2.96 3.7
subscribers To raise the numbers, a publisher needs
to gain an unguessed knowledge of its
iOS OPT-IN RATE (%) ANDROID OPT-IN RATE (%) audience. This is possible with A/B

47.3 73.77
testing.

Read the blog post to learn more tips to

increase your CTRs.

100k

50k
 8 pushes a day Medium-sized publishers need to keep
the balance between the quantity and
the quality of the content they’re
iOS CTR (%) ANDROID CTR (%) pushing.

100–500k 4.22 1.8 A useful idea is to find a way to speed up

subscribers and ease up the editorial routine.

iOS OPT-IN RATE (%) ANDROID OPT-IN RATE (%) Learn how you can promote news in two

56.1 71.5
clicks from our blog post.

500k

100k
 32 pushes a day From our experience, large media usually
send a great number of pushes daily.
Breaking news, updates, and opinion
iOS CTR (%) ANDROID CTR (%) pieces — to deliver them in time, both the
editorial team and the technology should
500k–1M 0.8 0.8 run like clockwork.
subscribers
Learn how a media app can send 300k+
iOS OPT-IN RATE (%) ANDROID OPT-IN RATE (%) pushes per second and even break this

38.9 59.6
record without breaking their editorial or
business processes.
1M

500k
 15 pushes a day To keep readers engaged, major media
apps have to be granular in
segmentation and personalization. At this
IOS CTR (%) ANDROID CTR (%) scale, event-triggered marketing
automation is a must to track various
> 1M 2.7 5.1 user paths.
subscribers
Learn how to segment subscribers by
IOS OPT-IN RATE (%) ANDROID OPT-IN RATE (%) their preferences and real-time behavior

66.0 79.1
to send them the updates they will be the
most interested in.
1M
Average numbers are good to know,
but surely, you don’t want to be
an average
 The best-performing … its Android version is
news & media app as effective:
on iOS

sends 1 push a day

iOS CTR (%) Android CTR (%)

11.0 4× the average 9.7 1.4× the average

iOS OPT-IN RATE (%) Android OPT-IN RATE (%)

49.4 = the average 84.0 16%+ the average

 4.43%

The best-performing … its iOS version is not

news & media app far behind:
on Android

sends 10 pushes a day

Android CTR (%) iOS CTR (%)

26.0 3.8× the average 7.0 2.6× the average

5.08%

Android OPT-IN RATE (%) iOS OPT-IN RATE (%)

80.4 11%+ the average 38.1

 What helps the top news & media apps
engage their readers effectively
Pushwoosh can accommodate the needs of news & media
apps of all sizes and help publishers up their game:

Spread the news across the platforms in a couple of Be the first to deliver news, even when you scale up.
clicks with the Promote News feature. Send up to 500k notifications per second with the
High-Speed Push delivery.

Tell the stories your audience wants to hear: let readers

Communicate with your subscribers like you are their fan:
opt in for the topics of their choice.
personalize your messages with Dynamic Content
to increase push open rates and app engagement.

Alert your audience of the content they are most likely

to click on: segment your app users based on their Avoid spamming: set Frequency Capping in your
attributes, real-time behavior, and RF(M) segmentation automated messaging workflows.
“Pushwoosh was essential in bringing fans to
our official World Cup apps”
Benjamin Gallais, Digital Product Manager, FIBA
The first to deliver sports news to its
Hebrew-speaking audience.

+250k 60k+
active userbase growth/year unique readers/day

5–25M 350k+
notifications daily unique MAU

Read the success story

Updates its multi-million audience
on the weather conditions users
care about the most.

6M 3×
push subscribers audience growth/year

70M 7–9%
pushes/month average CTR

Read the success story

 The good news?
We can help you grow your news & media app metrics too.

REQUEST A DEMO
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