Do push notifications still meaningfully drive engagement despite widespread notification fatigue?

Severin Hacker · May 19, 2025

Push notifications still make a huge difference to engagement despite notification oversupply

Whenever the service that sends push notifications goes down, you can see the dip in usage

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Cem Kansu · Jun 20, 2025 · hedged

Push notifications remain an incredibly powerful retention mechanic that every app has to figure out how to do well, while email has become a much weaker channel for most products

Email was a heavy channel ten years ago but has faded; push is where the leverage is now

Scope: he walks back 'email is dead' as an overstatement; Duolingo still invests meaningfully in email

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Cem Kansu · Jun 20, 2025

Push notifications are far more optimizable than they appear — timing, content, personalization and even emoji usage all move metrics, and there is still a lot of headroom every year

Despite the tiny real estate, deep experimentation across these variables keeps producing gains

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Phil Carter · Sep 20, 2024

Increasing notification or email volume produces a short-term lift in metrics but repeated too often it kills the channel

It works like a sugar high — a short-term pop that degrades the channel if overused

0:00 Increasing notification frequency produces short term lift but degrades the channel long term

Phil Carter · Sep 20, 2024

Every incremental notification must earn its place: a statistically significant lift in DAU or retention is not sufficient, the lift must be large and the notification must fit the holistic user experience

Heaping notification on notification makes metrics keep rising until they suddenly collapse; notifications that genuinely improve the experience both lift metrics and build the product

45:04 Notifications must clear a high bar of large lift and holistic fit not just statistical significance

Harry Stebbings · Sep 20, 2024

Sending fewer notifications will not make users value each one more, because they are already drowning in notifications from every other provider

In a world of notification overload, restraint doesn't buy attention — users simply pay less attention to everything

46:36 Reducing notification volume does not increase per notification value given ambient overload

Phil Carter · Sep 20, 2024

The zero-sum mindshare argument for sending more notifications fails in practice because notification fatigue makes users disable notifications or delete the app entirely

When a product bombards users in a way that feels inorganic to their natural usage frequency, they at minimum turn notifications off and may rage quit

47:22 Notification fatigue causes opt outs undermining the zero sum mindshare case for volume

Harry Stebbings · Sep 20, 2024

Notifications only work if they educate or inspire; urgency-based ones that just warn what happens if you don't act fail because they offer no learning or inspiration

The good examples (a sleep score, a new album release) teach the user something they didn't know; the bad ones carry no information

48:37 Notifications must educate or inspire to work urgency alone fails