One of top questions we get asked – what are the subscribe rates for Web Push Notifications? Of course, they are different in each sector, country and website, but today we will have a look at finance sector & online lending sites.
We analyzed 50 websites with total traffic of 3.6 million visitors per month, and used only the most recent data, starting from January 1st, 2020.
Most of our clients are from Europe, so for this region we created a map that gives a good overview of average subscribe rates in each country:
For finance sector the average subscribe rate for browser push notifications range from 10% in countries like Hungary, Bosnia and go up to 28% in countries like Germany, Sweden – which is very high.
| Country | Avg. Subscribe Rate |
| Albania | 16% |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | 10% |
| Bulgaria | 18% |
| Croatia | 12% |
| Czech Republic | 20% |
| Denmark | 15% |
| Estonia | 17% |
| Finland | 14% |
| Germany | 28% |
| Hungary | 10% |
| Latvia | 15% |
| Lithuania | 13% |
| Macedonia | 17% |
| Moldova | 20% |
| Netherlands | 25% |
| Norway | 23% |
| Poland | 13% |
| Romania | 26% |
| Spain | 17% |
| Sweden | 27% |
| United Kingdom | 26% |
| Average | 18% |
Overall average subscribe rate for desktop push notifications for finance/lending sector in Europe is 18%.
Europe vs other regions
What about other parts of world? Turns out, that web push subscribe rates elsewhere are even higher – you can expect to see about 25-30% subscribe rates in Latin America, Central Asia and South East Asia:
| Region | Avg. Subscribe Rate |
| Europe | 18% |
| Latin America | 25% |
| Central Asia | 26% |
| South East Asia | 30% |
Default prompt vs 2-step prompt
The subscription process for web push notifications can be set up in 2 ways:
a) default prompt
If website is using browser default prompt or 1-step opt in, the subscribe process is very simple. Website visitor is shown a prompt like this:
And only 1 click on “allow” is needed to subscribe to web push notifications.
b) 2-step opt in
By using 2-step opt in, then subscribe process is a bit longer and consists of 2 steps. At first visitor is shown a small overlay like this:
And if visitor clicks “Allow” on this overlay, then he needs to do the same with browser default prompt as well:
In short – the process is the same, but adds one more step in the beginning – the customizable overlay, where you can set title, description and button names.
What is the impact for subscription rates?
We did a test for 3 lending sites for 1 year – for 6 months all 3 websites used 2-step optin to gather web push subscribers, and after that for next 6 months subscribers were collected with browser default prompt.
When 2-step opt in was used, average subscribe rates were from 3.85% to 5.20%, but when default prompt was used – they increased almost 3 times and ranged from 11% to 15.26%:
| 2-step optin, 15.05.2019-15.12.2019 | Default prompt, 16.12.2019 – 15.05.2020 | Change? | |
| Website #1 | 4,96% | 11,76% | 237% |
| Website #2 | 5,20% | 15,26% | 293% |
| Website #3 | 3,85% | 11,00% | 286% |
| Avg change: | 272% |
As you can see from this test – on average you can expect 2.72 times higher subscribtion rate when using browser default prompt instead of 2-step optin.
What about browser limitations?
Web Push is a new technology and web browsers keep updating their policies all the time. Right now Safari and Firefox browsers don’t allow to trigger default browser prompt straight away, so for these 2 browsers you should use 2-step opt in, but for Chrome and Edge it is better to use brower default prompt.
Recommended prompt settings below:
How many new subscribers can you get per month?
There are several factors that impact, how many new subscribers website can expect to get:
- Was Web Push enabled recently or has been active for a while?
- How many new vs returning visitors website gets?
- How many visitors use devices that support Web Push notifications?
If website gets lot of new visitors from devices that support Web Push technology, new subscribers per month will be around 7-11% from total visitor amount. In this example: if website has 100k monthly visitors, it can expect around 7000 to 11 000 new web push subscribers per month.
What are the average numbers for websites that have been using web push already for some time?
| Subscribe prompt | New subscribers from visitor amount |
| 2-step opt in | 1.14% |
| Default prompt | 3.68% |
So a typical lending site with 100k monthly visitors that uses recommended prompt settings can expect about 3680 new web push subscribers each month.
And a lending website with 100k monthly visitors that uses 2-step optin for all browsers, can expect about 1140 new web push subscribers each month.
Key takeaways
- Web Push subscribe rates for lending sites are very high: 18% to 30% depending on region
- To get best results, use default prompt for Chrome & Edge
- You can estimate, how many new Web Push subscribers you will get each month, multiplying your visitor amount by 3.68%