Understanding mobile push notification performance

Push does not use email-style sender reputation. Its reported delivery rate reflects whether Klaviyo successfully passed notifications to Apple’s or Google’s push notification service, while each recipient’s notification settings control whether and how a notification appears.

Factors that affect whether a push notification reaches a device include:

• The recipient has removed consent for push notifications or uninstalled the app.
• Your app is properly connected to Klaviyo (or other push marketing provider).
• The recipient’s phone is temporarily unavailable (e.g., turned off or not connected to the internet). This can delay device delivery even after the push provider has accepted the notification.

Delivery rate is not a perfect measurement of device reach. Phones and other mobile devices don’t always report when a push notification was delivered or not. For instance, Klaviyo shows messages as “sent” when the notification is successfully passed to Apple or Google’s messaging service; however, it does not guarantee that these services delivered the notification to all intended devices.

If your delivery rate is low, it could indicate an issue with how your app and mobile push provider are connected. Subscribers deleting your app can also lead to invalid push tokens, which can cause notifications to bounce and lower your delivery rate. Subscribers removing consent can reduce the audience you can reach, but notifications skipped because consent was removed are not included in the delivery rate calculation.

As next steps, check on your delivery rate for multiple campaigns or flows.

• If the delivery rate was low only once (and not consistently), it may have been a temporary issue (such as with a server).
• If it is consistently low, investigate the reported bounce reasons:
  • In the campaign or flow message report, select Recipient activity > Bounced. Review the Bounce type and Bounce reason columns and address the reported cause.
  • To exclude recipients who frequently bounce:
    1. Create a segment of profiles with at least 2 Bounced Push events over all time.
    2. In your next campaign’s audience settings, select this segment under Don't send to.
    3. After sending the campaign, review its delivery rate.
       • If your delivery rate increases, review the excluded group’s bounce reasons before deciding how to follow up. For temporary issues, you can try:
         • Sending to this group at different times of the day or week.
         • Asking this group about their notification preferences.
         • Creating a new campaign for affected subscribers after the temporary issue is resolved and confirming that they still have push consent.
       • If your delivery rate is still low, follow the developer investigation step below.
  • Work with a developer to investigate why notifications are failing.

Push open rate measures the percentage of recipients who tap a notification to open your app. It may seem low compared to email open rate because the two channels count different actions:

• Email open: recipient opens the email to see the full message.
• Push open: recipient taps the notification to open the app. Depending on their device and notification settings, recipients can read some or all of your message without taking this extra step. For example, someone may read your sale announcement and dismiss it without opening your app. They’ve seen your message, but this does not count as an open. This is why a lower push open rate than email open rate doesn’t necessarily mean your push marketing is performing poorly.

Android and iOS can display notifications differently, and recipients’ settings affect where notifications appear:

• Android: notifications appear in the notification drawer and can also appear on the lock screen if the recipient’s settings allow it. Recipients can open or dismiss notifications from these locations.
• iOS: notifications can appear on the lock screen, in Notification Center, or as banners, depending on the recipient’s settings. Preview settings also control how much content is visible while the phone is locked.

In general, this difference doesn’t significantly influence your open rates.