The situation
A news site lives on traffic, and web push brings readers straight back to new articles. We looked at 30 days of results from one news platform on Aimtell, which covers both domestic and international news, to see which campaigns drove its clicks.
What 30 days looked like
In 30 days the site added more than 370,000 subscribers and got more than 1.5 million notification clicks, at an average click rate of 2.1%. Readers subscribe to hear about breaking news. The site sends some campaigns to everyone and targets others at smaller groups.
The strategy: RSS plus manual
Most sends come from RSS feeds, so new articles go out without anyone pressing send. Some campaigns go to every subscriber. Others are segmented, so readers only get content they are likely to want.
The biggest campaign sends breaking news from an RSS feed to all subscribers. It has more than 20 million clicks all time, at a 2.69% click rate. A site that publishes a lot each day can set a frequency cap to limit how many RSS pushes go out per hour or per day.
Manual campaigns on breaking news
For the biggest stories, the team sends a manual campaign to everyone. Two of them stand out.
A campaign about pandemic restrictions reached a 4.6% click rate and more than 36,000 clicks. The news affected almost every reader, so it went to the whole list.
A breaking alert about a 7.1 magnitude earthquake reached a 4.96% click rate and more than 25,000 clicks. A story like this is only news for a few hours, and push puts it in front of readers straight away.
Where it left them
RSS campaigns handle the everyday flow of articles, and manual sends cover the biggest stories. Segments keep niche content like video for the readers who want it. Together they took the site past 600,000 subscribers and 1.5 million clicks a month.