At AIQ, we believe that the future of effective marketing lies in mastering both breadth and depth—integrating omni-channel strategies with specialized tools and knowledge to meet the evolving needs of today’s consumers.

The Journey of Omni-Channel Marketing

Omni-channel marketing is the natural evolution of multi-channel marketing, which focuses on engaging customers across various platforms like email, social media, and physical stores. However, the key difference with omni-channel marketing is the integration and consistency across these channels. Consumers today expect a unified brand experience, whether they are shopping online, browsing through an app, or visiting a physical store.

The journey of omni-channel marketing began with the realization that customers don’t interact with brands in a linear fashion. Instead, they move fluidly across different platforms, expecting the same level of service and engagement wherever they are. This shift prompted brands to rethink their strategies, leading to the development of more sophisticated, customer-centric approaches that prioritize consistency and convenience.

Why Specialization Matters in Omni-Channel Marketing

As the omni-channel approach has become the standard, the market has also become more saturated. With countless brands vying for consumer attention across the same channels, standing out requires more than just being present—it requires being exceptional. This is where specialization comes in.

1. Tailored Customer Experiences: Specialization allows brands to go beyond a one-size-fits-all approach. By understanding the unique needs and preferences of their target audiences, brands can create personalized experiences that resonate more deeply with customers. This might mean using data analytics to understand shopping behaviors, tailoring content to different customer segments, or optimizing communication strategies for each channel.

2. Mastery of Specific Channels: While omni-channel marketing requires a presence across multiple platforms, it’s crucial not to spread resources too thin. Specialization enables brands to become experts in the channels that matter most to their customers. For example, a brand might focus on mastering SMS marketing, ensuring that every message is perfectly timed, personalized, and aligned with the customer journey. By doing so, they can drive higher engagement and conversion rates, even within a broader omni-channel strategy.

3. Efficiency and ROI: Investing in specialized tools and technologies can streamline marketing efforts and improve ROI. By focusing on the channels and strategies that deliver the best results, brands can allocate resources more effectively, reducing waste and increasing overall campaign efficiency. 

At AIQ, we empower brands with advanced tools designed for precision and efficiency, helping them maximize their marketing investments.

4. Building Stronger Customer Relationships: Specialization fosters deeper connections with customers. By delivering relevant, timely, and personalized interactions, brands can build trust and loyalty, which are essential for long-term success. Customers are more likely to engage with and remain loyal to brands that understand their needs and provide value across all touchpoints.

AIQ: Your Partner in Omni-Channel Specialization

At AIQ, we recognize the power of combining omni-channel strategies with specialized expertise. Our platform is designed to help brands navigate the complexities of modern marketing by providing the tools and insights needed to excel in specific areas while maintaining a cohesive, integrated approach.

Whether it’s refining your SMS campaigns, optimizing your email marketing, or leveraging data analytics to better understand your customers, AIQ equips you with the capabilities to not only be present across channels but to excel in each one. We believe that the future of marketing is not just about being everywhere—it’s about being exceptional wherever you are.

In summary, as omni-channel marketing continues to evolve, the brands that succeed will be those that understand the importance of specialization. By mastering specific channels and delivering tailored experiences, they can stand out in a crowded market, build stronger customer relationships, and achieve greater ROI. 

At AIQ, we’re committed to helping you navigate this journey, providing the tools and expertise needed to thrive in the age of omni-channel marketing.If you’re ready to elevate your marketing strategy and achieve omni-channel success with specialized precision, connect with us today. 

Together, we can create the future of customer engagement.

Understanding Campaign Metrics and Their True Impact

Today, we’re diving into the significance of data reliability and how vanity metrics often mislead marketers, putting data reliability at risk with overly simplistic and misleading reports.

The Importance of Reliable Data

When it comes to direct-to-customer messaging through SMS and email, the tools and metrics you use to measure performance are crucial. The data you rely on for performance tracking is everything, and understanding what it truly tells you is imperative for operational success.

Reliability and relevance should always be your top priorities when it comes to data, especially campaign reports. Campaigns are powerful marketing tools influencing customer behavior, brand loyalty, retention, and ROI. Thus, reliable data and relevant metrics are essential for driving growth.

Vanity Metrics: What They Are and Why They Matter

Vanity metrics are superficial metrics that look impressive but don’t provide insights into core drivers of success. These metrics are overly simplistic and often misleading, giving a false sense of achievement without offering actionable insights. 

Common vanity metrics in retail CRM platforms include:

1. Messages Sent: Reflects the number of customers targeted, not the number of messages actually delivered.
2. Total Clicks: Often confused with Click-through Rate (CTR), this metric merely shows how many people opened your message.
3. Total Visits: Indicates the number of target segment customers who visited the store post-campaign, without proving direct attribution to the campaign.
4. Total Visitor Spend: Shows the total spend of visitors during the attribution window, misleadingly presented as campaign ROI.

The Problem with Vanity Metrics

Vanity metrics deceive marketers by presenting data that seems relevant but lacks depth and accuracy. For example, “Messages Sent” doesn’t account for deliverability, and “Total Clicks” often substitutes for CTR without providing real engagement insights. Similarly, “Total Visits” and “Total Visitor Spend” fail to accurately reflect conversions and ROI due to the lack of precise attribution data.

Actionable Metrics: The Real Indicators of Success

Unlike vanity metrics, actionable metrics provide meaningful insights that inform strategy adjustments and drive growth. Here are some essential actionable metrics:

1. Deliverability Rate (Failed Sends): Shows the honest deliverability of your messages.
2. Open Rates: Measures the percentage of successfully delivered messages that were opened.
3. Click-through Rates (CTR): Indicates the effectiveness of your content in driving recipients to engage with your message.
4. Conversion Rates: Provides direct insight into the success of your campaigns in driving desired actions.
5. Conversion by Engagement Type: Breaks down conversions by specific engagement actions, offering deeper insights into customer behavior.
6. Strict & Broad Attribution: Measures conversions based on both direct engagement and mere receipt of the message.
7. Top Converted Products: Identifies products with the highest conversion rates from campaign engagement.
8. Campaign ROI vs. Total Revenue Generated: Differentiates between the financial return of your campaign and the total revenue generated.

The AIQ Advantage

AIQ’s robust campaign reporting offers detailed analytics that distinguish between vanity and actionable metrics. Our platform provides a granular view of campaign performance, helping marketers understand the entire engagement journey from message receipt to conversion.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, reliable data is the backbone of effective marketing strategies. By focusing on actionable metrics and understanding the true impact of your campaigns, you can make informed decisions that drive growth and enhance customer engagement. 

If you’re new to AIQ, consider connecting with our team to explore the extensive possibilities our platform offers. Let’s transform your retail customer experience together.

Schedule a demo to learn more about how AIQ can revolutionize your campaign reporting and drive your marketing success:

Ready to take your discount experience to the next level? 

AIQ’s Unique Coupon Code Generator, the newest addition to our Discount feature, brings the power of single use redemptions to our platform for Shopify, WooCommerce and BigCommerce retailers. With this new alternative to traditional, static discounts, users can create limited volumes of unique codes to better manage and control the customer redemption process. 

AIQ Unique Coupon Code Offers & Static Discounts Buildout Options

Our Unique Coupon Code Offer come with the same extensive discount options available with AIQ’s traditional Discount features, supporting highly segmented targeting and strategic buildouts that truly transform your customer experience.

• $ Off Rewards: Establish $ amount to take off cart total 
• % Off Deals: Input a flat total % to discount cart total
• Redeem Points for Discounts: Require specific points balance to redeem offer 
• Custom Expiration Options: Select specific data & time stamp OR relative timing for discount expiration
• Cooldown Periods for Reusable Discounts: Enable discounts to be redeemed more than once with cooldown periods available to put time in between redemptions. Both hour & day time frames are available. 

Unique Use Cases of Unique Coupon Codes

• Automate limited availability promotions: Think ‘Grand Opening Special: First 50 customers get $50 reward.” With this new feature, the amount of codes generated reflects the number of customers this offer will be sent to. This gives retailers significant control over redemption count without the heavy lifting. 

• Cap steep discounts for limited-time incentive: Retail periods that experience upticks in foot traffic, like black Friday for example, are a great time to launch aggressive win-back campaigns as a means to bring back gone customers while leveraging your big promotions. By utilizing unique coupon codes. 

Attaching an AIQ Discount to Your Marketing Campaign

Alongside this, both static discounts and unique coupon offers can be attached to any AIQ Campaign. Simply attach the Discount Macro associated with the offer, and we’ll notify your customers directly when a new offer is available upon falling into the target audience.

The reward offer also gets added into the customer’s Web or Native App Wallet at the same time they’re being sent the message. Offers built with AIQ Discounts are added to customer wallets the moment they fall into the audience attached to the reward, just like campaigns.

By combining the use of campaigns and discount offers to target the same audience, customers are able to be personally notified that a new discount is available, while ensuring it’s easy to acess and readily available to redeem directly in their AIQ rewards wallet.

Attaching discounts to AIQ Campaigns is great for promoting: 

• Abandoned Cart Incentives
• Customer Win-back Offers
• New Customer Opt-In Rewards
• Exclusive Loyalty Member Perks

Here’s how to add unique coupon code offers to your AIQ Campaigns:

Now, let’s explore exactly how to start building your unique coupon code offers in the AIQ platform so you can begin leveraging this exciting new feature.

Building a Discount With AIQ’s Unique Coupon Code Generator

• Step 1: Create target audience via AIQ Audiences

• Step 2: Create new discount in AIQ Discounts builder, targeting the audience made in step 1. Begin by filling out discount information on page 1 of the builder followed by designing your discount on page 2.

Before you move forward, make sure you click ‘Create’ in the upper right corner before proceeding, otherwise the unique coupon code generator won’t run.

• Step 3: Next, you’ll select your redemption method on page 3 and begin creating your unique coupon codes.

• Step 4: Proceed to the discount review page & click ‘save’ in the upper right corner once complete. 

Learn more about our brand new AIQ Discounts Unique Coupon Code Generator and more by connecting with our team today!

Looking for a refresh on static AIQ Discounts? Walkthrough the buildout process and feature breakdown by checking out our Product Session below.

Loyalty programs offer a powerful means of capturing zero-party data (information intentionally shared with a business by a customer), and utilizing it to enhance customer experiences. When implemented correctly, these programs can foster trust and encourage data sharing. 

If you’re ready to use a loyalty program to boost your data strategy, here are three essential tip:

1. Capture Data Creatively Through Simple Signup & Surveys

Avoid overwhelming customers with extensive data collection forms when they sign up for your website or loyalty program. Long forms can deter participation, making customers feel it’s not worth their time. 

AIQ’s Custom Signup Forms are a great tool to leverage in accomplishing this. Whether it’s posted in-store via QR code, accessible on a sales floor kiosk, or embedded into your website, our signup forms give retailers and brands control of their customer data collection with a fully branded experience.

Once customers are in your database, incentivize them to provide more information. With the right technology, rewarding customers for completing profiles or surveys can be straightforward. Gamifying the process with engaging functionality and user interfaces makes data sharing more enjoyable for customers. 

Checkout the features of AIQ’s Custom Surveys to begin incorporating them into your customer journey and loyalty flow today.  

2. Highlight the Benefits Clearly

Loyalty programs serve as an excellent means to showcase benefits and encourage data sharing. Customers are more likely to share their data if they perceive tangible benefits in return.

To maintain a balanced relationship, ensure customers feel valued. Create a table outlining the benefits of your loyalty program, highlight the tiers, and emphasize the rewards members can access. When customers see the value they receive, they are more willing to share their data.

3. Use Data Wisely

Once you have collected valuable data, ensure you use it effectively. Irrelevant communication can erode trust. For instance, if a customer has indicated their product category preferences, sending promotions for a different category can be frustrating for them and a waste for you. 

The goal of data collection is to ensure relevance. When customers provide information, they expect personalized and pertinent communications. Delivering on this promise helps build and sustain trust.

By leveraging AIQ’s Audience feature and Campaign tool, it’s easy and efficient to deploy targeted, ongoing messages directly to your customers, catered to their preferences so you can effectively implement a personalized experience.

Why Data Sharing is Important: The Mutual Benefits 

Understanding the mutual benefits of data sharing is crucial for both companies and customers.

From the Retailer’s Perspective: Knowledge is power when it comes to understanding your target audience. More data enables precise targeting, optimized content, and a higher level of personalization throughout the marketing process. This leads to increased sales opportunities and better ROI.

From the Customer’s Perspective: Customers need to see value in sharing their data. They expect a value exchange, where they receive offers and rewards tailored to their needs. For example, if a customer wears size XL, they don’t want promotions for size M clothing. If they’re allergic to peanuts, they expect relevant product recommendations. By providing data, customers enable companies to understand their preferences and offer personalized experiences.

In summary, Incentivizing data sharing through well-designed loyalty programs benefits both companies and customers. Brands gain valuable insights to improve targeting and personalization, while customers receive tailored experiences and rewards. By capturing data creatively, highlighting benefits, and using data wisely, businesses can build trust and foster long-term customer loyalty.

Discover how AIQ’s toolsuite fuels retail loyalty programs & enables powerful personalization for marketers by connecting with our team today!

SMS/MMS messages go through the most robust filtration process in comparison to other channels like email, push-notifications and voice-drops, especially in regulated industries. On top of this, flagging methods and filtration standards are 100% controlled by wireless carriers, both of which are the key determinants of a message being approved for delivery or not. 

Because of this, it is increasingly difficult to develop reliable best practices for SMS/MMS that can be incorporated into a long term messaging strategy.  

In order to best optimize your messaging strategy, it is important to first understand the role of carrier filtration when it comes to campaign performance. 

As mentioned, the filtration process led by wireless carriers determines the deliverability of your SMS/MMS campaigns almost entirely. To effectively develop an optimized messaging strategy, understanding the vetting process and how deliverability works is imperative for success, especially when it comes to combating carrier filtration.

SMS & Telecom-Related Terms to Know 

Before we dive in, review our glossary of SMS & Telecom related terms to help support as you read along. 

• Aggregator: A company that provides a bulk SMS (short message service) solution to brands and enterprises.
• API: An abbreviation for “Application Programming Interface,” an API is a set of programming instructions that allow software to interact with other software. In the context of messaging, an API would allow a chat app to connect with a carrier in order to send and receive SMS messages.
• Carrier: Carriers, or wireless service providers, are the companies that you buy your cell phone service from. Some major carriers are AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon. They are responsible for building and maintaining the networks that your messages travel on.
• Direct-to-carrier: As the term suggests, this is a direct connection between a sender and a carrier. This is the most reliable way to ensure that messages are delivered, but it’s also the most expensive.
• Filtration: In the context of this article, filtration is also called message filters. These are special software programs that scan messages for certain keywords or content and can block them from being delivered if they are found to be in violation of regulations.
• Routing: In telecoms, routing refers to the process of delivering messages from the sender to the intended recipient.
• SMS: An abbreviation for short message service, an SMS refers to a text message that is limited to 160 characters.
• Telecom: An abbreviation for telecommunications, telecoms refers to the electronic transmission of data, usually in the form of text or voice messages.

Now, we’re ready to break down the filtration process and explore how messages get sent from AIQ to the intended recipient.  Let’s break it down.

Step-by-Step: How AIQ SMS/MMS Vape Shop Campaigns Get Delivered 

Step 1: Marketing campaign is built in AIQ & scheduled to be sent. 

Step 2: AIQ sends the campaign through a carrier aggregator (i.e: Twilio, InfoBip, Sinch, etc.) in order to push the message from our platform to wireless carriers. Aggregators are essentially gatekeepers to carriers and maintain complex backend systems that allow platforms to build on top of them through API’s. 

Step 3: The aggregator pushes the text to the wireless carrier, who then sends it to the end consumer. In some cases, aggregators block usage before it even ends up at the carrier, however, AIQ has a best in class partner reputation that bypasses aggregator filtering.

Step 4: Message reaches each wireless carrier (180+) to undergo a system of checkpoints to determine deliverability.

Step 5: Filtration

Once the carrier receives requests to send to the intended recipients, your campaign content is put through an algorithmic validation process to determine if the message could be considered spam, violate any terms of service, etc. 

If your message is flagged as spam, it will be blocked by the carrier, prohibiting it from being delivered.

If the message passes the filtration checkpoint and is not flagged as spam, it is then delivered to the intended recipient by the carrier.

Step 6: Message Delivery

Once your message passes the filtration checkpoints, it will be sent out for delivery to the recipient’s phone. 

It’s important to note that ALL carriers charge you for your message whether it delivers or not. This process occurs for every message or bundle of messages of a certain scale depending on the carrier. This is the reason why sometimes you will receive a message but other consumers might not. 

Why Carrier Filtration Occurs for Vape Shops

In short, carriers are bombarded with spam messages via aggregator APIs constantly. 

These messages are typically phishing hacking attempts, payday loan offers, and other undesirable actors that utilize burner accounts and backdoors to gain access to send via carrier aggregators to customers without their consent. 

Unfortunately, some legitimate markets (regulated or not) are caught in the crossfire, and filtration algorithms adversely affect them. 

In between 2021-2022, a term called “10DLC” was introduced to the telecom community. Essentially this meant that all legitimate use cases could be registered with the carriers and their filtration + fees would be far lower. Think of this like a TSA precheck at the airport. You do a large upfront screening and then it’s much more efficient moving forward. 10DLC registration is available in the AIQ system for applicable industries. 

Unfortunately, some regulated markets cannot register due to their federal status even though a product or service might be acceptable via state laws. This means your traffic must run in an “unregistered” state where spam/ phishing/ etc cause filtration.

Learn more on 10DLC Registered & Unregistered Traffic.

Main Methods of Carrier Filtration 

To optimize your campaigns & maximize deliverability, let’s break down the three main methods of filtration used by carriers so you can structure your messaging accordingly:

Image Recognition: Carriers use advanced bots to scan for any content that may be deemed inappropriate, such as certain symbols or words. This is especially important for marketers in regulated markets to keep top of mind when curating any visual content for campaigns.

Brand Name Recognition: Carriers are able to identify messages that use the brand names or logos of companies that are not authorized to use telecom networks for messaging. Most commonly, this occurs for marketers who work in an industry not yet federally legal. Removing your brand name or logo from all text message content is the most effective workaround here. Any relationship to an unauthorized company in your message will most likely lead it to being flagged and therefore, fail to send.

Keywords: The most common filtration method, and easiest to vet is keyword filtering. This is when carriers block messages containing words and/or phrases that could be potentially inappropriate, seem like spam, or go against regulatory guidelines. 

Although there is no definite list of every word that will get flagged, it is a good idea to keep your messages as simple as possible, refraining from including terminology like:

• Promotional language like discounts, offers, and rewards (Advanced carriers also read your text with AI for “promotional intent”. Even if it contains no bad keywords, it will break apart your message intent) 
• Regulated product types and/or product names 
• “Payday loan”, “donate”, “gift card” etc.

Numbers/ Domains/ IP addresses and attached assets: 10DLC users typically use 49 numbers and assign each of them to a group of users who they message. This allows them to send the maximum number of messages out per second. Unregistered traffic is also limited by per second intervals for sending and is closely watched. This is why AIQ automatically buys numbers and assigns them to your CRM user list ahead of time.

Let’s look at an example message you might send:

This message seems harmless enough. Unfortunately it has promotional intent, potentially flagged product names, and it has a link to an unknown domain. It’s plausible that this message bypasses carrier filtration for a period of time, but it will eventually be flagged for one of the reasons mentioned. 

One of the things a lot of providers do not tell you in unregistered environments is that carriers have manual auditors. When an algorithm thinks something might be spam, it will surface that to an auditor. These auditors click your links and read your message. 

They then can hit a giant red button that flags that content from sending in the future. This will database all of your messages with the carrier and flag not only that message but also the image in it, the domain, the phone numbers, etc.

This is why AIQ buys dedicated domains/ servers/ IP addresses and phone numbers for your account only. It means you are “fresh” to the carrier and don’t have previous infractions. 

Some providers in the market do not possess AIQ technologies to protect your company assets when sending. If you are unregistered and send out your brand’s domain via text, you will likely get that domain banned on every platform across every telecom vendor for future sends. 

If you experience filtration on your assets, you can simply refresh them under Settings -> Text settings in the AIQ dashboard. You can do this in bulk automatically as your system follows your filtration profile or you can do this manually by buying/ releasing numbers.

there is still no guarantee a text message will be delivered. For 99% of 10DLC registered users, texting is a walk in the park, but on unregistered pipelines this is much more time consuming. 

Here’s why:

• Varying Standards: Carriers filtration standards are different across the board. A message that is not considered spam by one carrier could potentially be considered spam by another. 
• Evolving Standards: Carriers are continuously evolving and updating their filtration systems and standards for flagging. What was allowed yesterday, may no longer be allowed tomorrow. 

This makes it increasingly important to diversify your marketing channels and move away from SMS/MMS messaging.

Diversifying Channels to Combat Vape-Related Filtration 

To truly combat filtration, the most effective method is to begin incorporating new marketing channels into your messaging strategy overall. Prioritize obtaining opt-ins for email, push-notifications, and voice-drops from customers to optimize your campaign performance and maximize reach, using more reliable channels to deploy customer communications to sustain growth long-term.

For more information on diversifying your marketing channels, checkout Communications Beyond Texting.

Cart upsell is a technique commonly used in online retail to encourage customers to add additional items or upgrade their existing selections while they’re in the process of checking out. This feature is now available for all AIQ Ecommerce users, giving retailers the ability to optimize their online shopping experience with strategic product recommendations based on three primary data sources: purchase history, brands, and price. 

AIQ Ecommerce Cart Upsell Data Sources:

1. Purchase History: Populates product suggestions based on the customer’s previous ten orders. 
2. Brands: Select up to five brands, with the option to prioritize selections, showcasing certain brands first. 
3. Price: Set a price range for products to upsell. Pricing is pre-discount, therefore discounted items will only upsell if they fall into the price range established prior to being placed on sale.

Users can implement any combination of the three data sources, with prioritization tools available when more than one is in use. This is so retailers can be more strategic with their upselling efforts. By giving users the flexibility to leverage more than one data source, retailers can effectively maximize their upselling opportunities while still being able to prioritize one product recommendation over the other. 

This feature ultimately benefits both the retailer and the customer by increasing average order value, maximizing revenue, moving inventory more efficiently, and improving the customer experience with enhanced product discovery. Let’s break it down. 

The Benefits of Cart Upsell

• Increase Average Order Value (AOV): Giving customers recommendations at checkout entices shoppers to add more items to their cart, increasing AOV. 
• Improve Customer Experience: Upselling gives customers the opportunity to learn about products they may not have known about, discover new drops from popular brands, or be reminded of products they enjoyed from previous purchases. This has the potential to increase customer satisfaction as it connects customers to more products.  
• Maximize Revenue from Existing Traffic: New customer acquisition is an expensive part of retail. Upselling to shoppers actively in the check out process is a cost-effective way to increase revenue without having to invest heavily into acquiring new traffic.
• Move Inventory Efficiently: Upselling is a prime opportunity to strategically highlight products that need a push. Whether it’s an item that’s overstocked, or a product about to expire, upselling is a great strategy to help move inventory more efficiently. 
• Enhance Product Discovery: Strategic upselling increases visibility on products, generating awareness for items that shoppers may have missed if they’re not navigating through your entire menu. 

Ready to get started with AIQ Ecommerce? Schedule a demo today. 

Here’s what to expect:

Discount Builder

• Enhanced UX experience 
• Step-by-step flow
• Defined discount title inputs
• Double confirmation for redemptions 
• Updated redemption method structure
• Detailed review page / overview
• Unique coupon codes – *coming soon*

With the introduction of our new Discount Builder, it’s more simple than ever to craft custom reward offers in AIQ. Through a more guided approach using a step-by-step flow, our goal is to ensure retailers are comfortable leveraging the power AIQ’s Discount tool while gaining a better understanding of its features.

Campaign Reports

• Strict attribution vs broad attribution conversion metrics
• Online vs in-store 
• Granular visibility of engagement and conversion metrics both in dash and via download

What is strict attribution? 

Metrics showing revenue generated only after a message recipient has engaged with your campaign. Meaning, they interacted with your campaign before converting.

What is broad attribution? 

Conversions that happen after receiving a message. Meaning, these metrics are absent from engagement with your campaign.

With these additions to AIQ Campaign Reports, marketers gain deeper insight into the impact their campaigns have on different areas of business. Moreover, these metrics help inform smarter decision making when it comes to customer messaging and promotional campaigns to optimize performance and subscriber engagement. 

Stay up to date on new AIQ product enhancements and upcoming changes!

• Wide reach and high delivery rate: In a study, web push notifications were seen to reach 80% of internet users, both on desktop and mobile.
• High ROI: In the same study, it’s been found that it increases the return of investment (ROI) up to a staggering 2200%.
• High CTR: Users are more than likely to take action with web push notifications. In fact, its click-through rate (CTR) can reach up to 30% if you employ automation and highly targeted transaction campaigns to your strategy.
• Content is easier to digest: Messages via web notifications are short and succinct by nature, which works well with the shortening attention spans of internet users today.

Additionally, web push notifications are fairly quick to implement and easy to maintain. They are also the perfect complement to your app push notifications, if you have one. 

If you’re considering implementing web push notifications, here’s all you need to know about it:

FAQ #1: What are web push notifications?

Web push notifications, also known as browser notifications, are short notification-style messages. They are sent from web browsers onto users’ devices (mobile or desktop), regardless if users are actively using your website or not. 

FAQ #2: What’s the difference between web push notifications and app push notifications?

Reach: 

• App push notifications require a native app installed on a user’s device in order to function. As such, its reach is limited to mobile devices (smartphones and tablets).
• Web push notifications only require a website with a web push code installed in order to function. Its reach is not only limited to mobile but to desktop as well.

Usage of device features:

• App push notifications can utilize users’ device features, such as the GPS, camera, contact list, etc.
• Web push notifications, however, cannot tap into those features yet.

Rich media:

• App push notifications support rich media, such as images, videos, and audio, among others. 
• Web push notifications can only support large images and are limited only on Chrome (version 56 and above).

FAQ #3: How do web push notifications work?

Alpine IQ will install a service worker on the browser of an individual after they optin. This service worker creates a connection between the browser and Alpine IQ messaging systems.

This code then prompts an API call from your backend and triggers a subscription/opt-in notification when users visit your website. Once they opt-in, users will start receiving push notifications from you on their devices (both desktop and mobile). Keep in mind that browsers only allow you to request the user optin to get notifications a single time. Alpine IQ automates when to ask for an optin to make sure you get as many conversions as possible.

When they click or tap on your notification, users are taken to your chosen landing page. 

FAQ #4: Do users have to opt-in?

Yes. As web push notifications fall under the category of “electronic message,” GDPR laws require consent/opt-in from users before you can send them notifications. 

Web push notification opt-ins are from the user’s web browser, usually appearing at the top. This is called a browser prompt or browser-level opt-in prompt. It may also be a good idea to display a “soft ask” before displaying your browser prompt. Soft asks also appear at the top of the browser, explaining the benefits of receiving web push notifications from you.

FAQ #5: Can I send one when the users are not on the website?

Yes. Regardless if users are actively using your website or not, as long as the browser is open, users can receive a web push notification from you.

FAQ #6: What is the anatomy of a web browser push notification?

Depending on the operating system and browser, web push notifications vary in appearance. However, a typical web push notification includes the following:

• Title: This is equivalent to an email subject line. 
• Description: Describes what the content is about. Character count varies depending on the browser. However, the more concise the description, the better.
• Website URL: This is the domain sending the notification.
• Icon: This is usually your brand logo.. 
• Image: An optional large image on your notification will increase your click-throughs.
• Action Buttons: You can provide two options for your CTA. Users can either choose to ignore or “Read Now” (or any desired action you want users to take).

FAQ #7: Where do these notifications appear on desktop and mobile?

On desktop, web push notifications usually appear at the top of your screen or sometimes at the bottom, depending on your operating system.

On mobile, they appear on your device’s notification tray and look similar to the notifications you receive from mobile apps.

FAQ #8: What devices and browsers support browser push?

On desktop (PC and Mac), Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera, and Edge.

On Android mobile, Chrome, Opera, and Firefox.

Apple mobile devices (iOS) do not support web push notifications as of this writing. 

FAQ #9: How are web push notifications delivered to a user’s device?

Following the answer to FAQ #3, when a user agrees to opt-in to web push notifications from your website, a subscriber ID is generated. Push service providers then store the subscriber IDs/keys, along with additional data points, to uniquely identify each subscriber. 

An API call from your backend then triggers a push message to the user’s device/browser. If the browser is offline, the message is queued until the browser is online. However, if you’ve set expiration rules to your message and the message expires before the devices come online,  the push service removes the message from the queue and will not be delivered.

FAQ #10: What kinds of messages are best to send through web notifications?

• Educational: These messages are often used by publishers to notify users of new content or breaking news. It can also be used by e-commerce or other product/service-oriented brands to educate users about new products and offerings.
• Promotional: This is common for e-commerce brands as a way to promote special or time-limited offers. Another way is to use push notifications for behavior-based product recommendations.
• Transactional: These messages are in response to a user’s previous interaction with your website (e.g., purchase, shipping, delivery, etc.). Some examples include abandoned cart notifications and delivery/shipping updates. 
• Lifecycle: This is also common for e-commerce brands. Some examples include welcoming a new visitor, offering discount vouchers for their first purchase, and incentivizing repeat customers.

Want to learn more about Alpine IQ’s messaging features?

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Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA):
A Canadian federal privacy law that regulates how private-sector organizations handle personal information when engaging in “commercial activity”.

Commercial activity is defined as: “any particular transaction, act or conduct or any regular course of conduct that is of a commercial character, including the selling, bartering or leasing of donor, membership or other fundraising lists.” You must follow PIPEDA if you are located in Canada and do business with Alpine IQ.

Your main concerns should revolve around your ability to provide customers with:

1. How their personal information is collected & stored
2. How their personal information is used
3. Who has access to it
4. How do they correct it or delete it if requested

Alpine IQ customers are responsible for their own compliance with PIPEDA, but we understand and take our role in the transfer of data across borders very seriously.

At Alpine IQ, all Personally Identifiable Information (“PII”) is stored in a highly secured cloud infrastructure managed by Google.

With that said, Google has a whitepaper to help you understand how PII is secured in Google Cloud and how it correlates to PIPEDA.

Google Cloud Platform has passed the following audits for security standards:

• SSAE 16 / ISAE 3402 Type II:
  SOC 1
  SOC 2
  SOC 3
• ISO 27001
• ISO 27017
• ISO 27018

Alpine IQ also automates some aspects of PIPEDA by providing you with a data preferences page specific to your organization and the integrations you have connected with your Alpine IQ data infrastructure. This custom page URL should be placed in the footer of your site to give customers the option to opt-out, delete, or lookup their currently stored PII. For information about finding your data preferences page, please contact your Alpine IQ account representative.

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It is the responsibility of the Alpine IQ account owner to follow local laws and regulations regarding “Do Not Call” lists. Alpine IQ does not handle these lists and we do not refuse attempts to call and send messages to these phone numbers.

We recommend that the project owner maintain and update their own calling and SMS messaging lists so that it is up to date with the phone numbers on the “Do Not Call” lists. We also recommend that you maintain a “Do Not Call” policy and train all employees on the ramifications of that policy.

To assist you with creating these policies, please see a sample PDF here:

If you try to send a text message to numbers on a “Do Not Call” list, Alpine IQ will attempt to send these messages. Messages may show up in your analytics as “Sent” and not errored. However, if the ‘To’ number is on a Do Not Call list, these messages may be filtered by the recipient’s carrier.

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