A great push notification is three things: timely, personal and actionable.

It’s so hard today to develop a cadence where an app becomes a daily habit

That’s because once someone closes your app, it doesn’t matter if there’s a magical experience they missed on the fourth tab of the app. If they never open it up again, they’ll never know what they missed out on.

don’t forget that that experience only happens if users open the app in the first place — and keep returning to it.

The takeaway: Deliver on users’ first notification experiences or they’ll shut down the channel for good.

Build safety nets into all experiments, because any misfire can burn for a long time

To assess your notification strategy, nail down three metrics: 1) the rate of users opting out of your notification permissions, 2) the uninstall rate and 3) actions per hundred pings.

iOS open rates are much, much lower than Android; they can show up to five times more open rates for identical pings on iOS

Fill your notifications with personalized tidbits, so they sound like they came from a close friend.

Once Weiss launched an experiment to test emoji-heavy pings to users. “We cut down the length of text by half and added relevant emoji. In the first couple weeks of the experiment, our metrics shot through the roof. Users and ping opens were up significantly.

If a notification vibrates a user and she doesn’t find it urgent, the likelihood of the app being uninstalled immediately skyrockets

While notifications are great for boosting retention and engagement rates, don’t start off by looking at them as a growth hacking tool.