In a recent survey by Responsys, a global marketing cloud service agency, it was revealed that consumers value push notifications. Around 70 percent adults, and more than 70 percent young adults agreed to enable push notifications from their favorite brands' apps. That's precisely why this blog is written. In this blog post, you will get a hands-on guide with a popular push notification tool, PushCrew, and three more PushCrew Alternatives that are equally popular.
Marketing is all about catering to each consumer personally, and what better way than push notifications. These notifications keep consumers updated about the upcoming sales, new offers, and other such information that can catalyse sales. Responsys, in its survey, tried to get a clearer picture of what kind of notifications interest consumers most; and needless to say, it was an eye-opener!
Believing that push notification is only for smartphones and tablets is wrong. In a bid to reach out to consumers, marketers will need to opt for all the available avenues. Hence, it is viable that push notifications are applicable beyond smartphones and tablets.
As marketers turn to push notifications for higher click-through rates and open rates, Wingify launched Pushcrew in 2015. Pushcrew allows anyone to send push notifications from any website. Ofcourse, to send notifications you need to own the website!
Wingify is the maker of the conversion rate optimisation tool Visual Website Optimiser. It is one of the most full-featured CRO vendors in the market. Pushcrew was launched in December 2015 as a separate but a related tool. Ever since its launch, Pushcrew has garnered rave reviews. Simultaneously, Pushcrew also paved way for few other alternatives to compete with it in the market. In this article, I will discuss three alternatives to Pushcrew. Prior to that, let's quickly go over what and how Pushcrew is helping its users.
Pushcrew: Features Highlight
Pushcrew has all the basic answers covered on its website. You might ask questions like Why push notifications are useful? What are these notifications all about? Who should use it? How to use it? All these questions are addressed on their Push Notifications product page. And trust me, they have explained it so well! So before you sign up for their 14-Day trial, you must check this page. Time to take a look at the features. Oh! And the features page has some nice image depictions. It will just increase your interest to keep scrolling and check out all the features.
Schedule your notifications
Using PushCrew, you can also schedule your notifications for a selected time. If you know when your audience is most active, you can just schedule a notification for that time duration. This will result in the maximum viewing of your notification, more engagement from your customers, and consequently more traffic.
Custom Image For Better Context
A Visual treat is always welcome. An image not just adds more context to your notification, but also appeals the eyes. With PushCrew you can add custom images to your messages, and see better engagements.
Segment-specific Notifications
By using the segmentation feature of PushCrew, you can group your audience into different buckets or segments, based on any condition like geography, interests, or unconditionally. You can then send notifications to specific segments. Targetted notifications is the way to go!
No-holds-barred Support
The PushCrew support team is available to answer your queries either on Skype or via emails. However, if you face an issue you are unable to solve, then the team readily conducts a video call or a TeamViewer session to solve the issue real-time.
Multi-website, Multi-user support
Do you have multiple websites? Or, you require multiple people to access a particular platform? PushCrew has it all covered. You can have a single account for multiple websites or multiple people can access your platform using a single account.
Notification Consultant and Implementation Engineer
If you are using the Enterprise account on PushCrew, this feature will be available for you. A notification consultant will engage with you to devise a notification strategy. The Implementation engineer, on the other hand, will assist you in all the technical requirements. For instance, if you want to implement a use-case with the APIs, the implementation engineer can do that with you.
JavaScript API and REST API
These two powerful APIs will let you implement a sophisticated use-case seamlessly. For instance, you can send particular notifications to an individual, or map internal data about your audience with their PushCrew IDs and send contextual communications.
PushCrew for Bloggers, Publishers and Content Creators
RSS-to-Push Notifications is designed for content creators and publishers to increase subscribers. This feature lets you increase your page views and generate more traffic. Your readers will not miss out a single blog post or video that you make live on your platform. The RSS-to-Push Notifications will help you engage your readers more, and you will see the spike in your subscriptions, downloads and revenue.
- Schedule your RSS Push Notifications for later date and time, according to the time zone of your audience.
- Smooth interface and integration with Android device.
- Easy one-click subscription for your audience.
If you are unaware of how to activate the RSS-to-Push Notification then you can look up the step-by-step guide available on PushCrew site. Its a three step process:
- Create your Free PushCrew account.
- Add website URL to RSS-to-Push.
- And you are done!
PushCrew Browser Notification
You can send push messages from your browser as well. The new Push Notifications for Web Browsers will let you reach out to a massive audience easily. These messages are clickable and appear to website visitors. You can reach out to a huge online audience without having to capture them via email IDs.
PushCrew can be used on Chrome and Firefox browsers on desktop and mobiles. If you are wondering how it will benefit you, then here it is:
- Twice the opt-ins in comparison to emails.
- Better engagement with your audience; consequently better retention.
- Increased viewership.
PushCrew gives you a hands-on guide on how the browser notification works and what are the steps to activate it-
- Sign up for a free account and wait for a smart code.
- Once you receive the smart code, place it before closing the </head> tag.
That's it. Now you are ready. So how does this work?
Once your code is placed, your audience will see a message like this when they visit your website.
If they click on Block, then case closed. But if they select 'Allow', then we proceed to the next step.
On clicking 'Allow' the visitor grants you the permission to send push notifications. They don't need to input an email ID for this. It's a one-click step. Now you can begin with your first push notification. How?
Go to the PushCrew dashboard -> compose the title and message -> Send! It will look something like this:
PushCrew does not ignore metrics. So you can see how your notifications are performing, what are the subscription rates, opt-in rates, etc.
Few other aspects to consider Push Notifications:
- You don't need a mobile app to send push notifications.
- Easy installation means no-fuss at all.
- Exceptional backend support from PushCrew for a smooth experience.
PushCrew works great as a WordPress Plugin and also on Joomla. The installation process is very similar for the CMS(s). You just need to add the PushCrew plugin and start using it right away.
The PushCrew API has two versions: one is for the HTTPS website and the other for HTTP website. You can also check some of the projects made with PushCrew API.
PushCrew Price Plans
PushCrew has four basic pricing plans. The first one is the Startup Plan and it is free. This plan includes few basic features that will give you just 1/4th of the experience that PushCrew promises. My suggestion would be to sign up for a free trial of the paid plans. If you have just 500 subscribers or less, then the Startup Plan is great.
The Paid plans are of three types: Premium, Business, and Enterprise/Agency. The pricing is decided based on the number of subscribers/month. For instance, the below pricing are for 2K subscriber each month. The further you pull the bar to the right, the value increases. So, it is a simple calculation- You pay according to the number of subscribers you have each month.
If you own an enterprise or agency, then you will need to directly contact the PushCrew team. After all, for an agency or enterprise, a customized quote is of great help.
PushCrew Alternatives
Now that all the features and other details have been discussed, it will be easy to compare it with other available alternatives in the market. Here are the three main PushCrew Alternatives I will talk about: PushEngage, OneSignal, and GoRoost. Before I jump to any conclusions or start the comparison, here are few cons of PushCrew that I noticed:
- It sometimes feels pricey!
- You cannot schedule notifications during the free trail.
- No Geo-targeting feature.
- Social sharing is absent.
PushCrew Alternatives: PushEngage
PushEngage is touted as the best PushCrew alternative in the market. Starting with the pricing plans to its robust features, PushEngage gives a tough competition to PushCrew. Here's how both the tools are similar to each other:
- Easy installation process means less hassle and quick work.
- High click through rates.
- You can send personalised messages.
- Schedule notifications seamlessly.
- Multi-user and multi-website support.
- REST and JavaScript API
- Custom segmentation
- Also available as WordPress plugins.
- Supports Chrome and Firefox browsers.
PushCrew Alternatives Comparison: PushEngage vs. PushCrew
Despite being similar in many ways, PushEngage and PushCrew have some striking differences. I will start with the pricing plans first. I think PushEngage takes the cup, courtesy the Free Forever Plan. This is the most robust free plan and it includes so many of the features. Not just the basic ones but almost all that you might need to send some cool push notifications to your audience. Also, the free plan supports 2,500 active susbcribers. In case of PushCrew, the free plan allows up to 500 active susbcribers only.
In terms of paid plans, again PushEngage will win. The paid plans start at just $29/month for 10,000 active subscribers and up to 2 sites. PushCrew, on the other hand, starts at $25/month but for just 2,000 subscribers only. Also, PushEngage has a separate plan for Large Businesses at $99/month for 150,000 subscribers, up t0 5 users and 5 sites. That's huge. And then, it offers an Enterprise plan for which you need to request a quote. With PushCrew, there is no such segmentation.
Coming to the features, PushEngage has few features that are absent in PushCrew.
You can re-engage with our users anywhere with PushEngage, irrespective of the whether they are on your website or not. This helps in increasing repeat users. Your users will get notifications real-time right into their browser.
Like multiple websites and users (available in PushCrew too), you can also have multiple call-to-actions in each notification. For each notification, you can add custom images. For instance, in the image below, you can opt according to your gender roles.
While both the tools offer custom segmentation, only PushEngage has the Geo-segmentation feature. Based on the geography, you can personalise your messages. You can easily look up from which region you are getting maximum traffic and mould your notifications accordingly.
PushEngage serves over 115 countries. This means that PushEngage speaks your language. The Multi-language feature is unique to this tool.
PushEngage has another intelligent feature. Suppose your subscriber did not login for a long time into the browser. Technically this means the moment he/she logs in, he/she will be flooded with notifications!
Well, no. PushEngage has a Frequency Capping feature that caps the old notifications. This helps in reducing the chances of your subscribers to unsubscribe.
Both PushEngage and PushCrew are available as WordPress plugins, but only PushCrew is available for Joomla too.
PushCrew does not have affiliate programs, unlike PushEngage.
You can become an affiliate member of PushEngage. This is a great option for digital marketing agencies and bloggers with a large audience. Here is how affiliate program on PushEngage works:
You, as an affiliate, will refer customers to PushEngage. When these customers will sign up for a paid plan on PushEngage, you will receive a Sale Commission which is 50% of the plan price they choose.
The affiliate program gives you 60-day attribution window and auto-deposit with instant reporting. You can try this for free. All you have to do is: register to the program and get your referral link. You, then, place this link on your blog or site or email and start sharing. You can get detailed reports on sign-ups and paid customers.
On a whole, I think PushEngage takes the winning trophy in this case. If you are still not convinced, maybe the fact that PushEngage integrated with Zapier sometime back will change your mind!
PushCrew Alternatives: OneSignal
Time to check the second out of the three PushCrew alternatives.
OneSignal is a high volume and consistent push notification service for mobile applications and websites. OneSignal is supported on all major native and mobile platforms by offering a dedicated SDKs for every platform, a RESTful server API, and an online dashboard for marketers to create and send push notifications to customers. It supports cross-platform push notification delivery.
The benefits of using OneSignal are:
- Push notification setup is very easy
- Non-corporation users can direct unlimited notifications for free of cost
- It provisions for real-time tracking
- You can fix segmented targeting and carry out A/B test
- The plugin will routinely send notifications whenever there is an event of a new post.
OneSignal has a different feel altogether. The website design is clean and precise to the hilt. The features include:
- 15-minute setup time.
- Real-time tracking of conversions.
- Easy to scale for millions of users.
- A/B testing to know which message works best.
- Segment targeting to help create personalised messages and have them delivered to each user at the ideal time of day.
- Automated delivery means you can just set it and then let OneSignal manage the rest for you.
Short and crisp, OneSignal avoids jargons and gives you exactly what you are looking for. I think the most convincing part is where they have listed their trusted developers that include names like Uber. Zynga, CISCO, Product Hunt and MTV, along with more. Also, OneSignal makes it explicitly clear that it works on Android, iOS (even on the latest iOS10) and the Web. Additional platforms include Windows phone, Amazon Fire, and Chrome extensions.
OneSignal vs. PushCrew
Both the tools have their core in creating push notifications and helping you in increasing traffic. However, needless to say, they are quite different from each other. Here's how:
OneSignal supports Safari along with Chrome and Firefox, unlike PushCrew. Also, OneSignal allows you to schedule automatic notifications for any new post. Once the post goes live, your subscribers will get notified automatically.
Another point of difference is the A/B Testing feature that is absent in PushCrew.
Now comes the difference in pricing plans. OneSignal has freemium plans. The FREE plan has all the features covered for you. In case you need premium support, you can engage in a little chat with the OneSignal support team.
This is a big deciding factor as OneSignal provides all the features under its Free plan while PushCrew has a restricted free plan and 14-day trials for other plans. Add to this, the elaborate documentation and especially the GitHub repository is just great. However, I still think PushEngage is the best among all other PushCrew alternatives.
PushCrew Alternatives: GoRoost
This is the last of the Pushcrew alternatives which I will talk about in this article.
GoRoost provides you with the capability to reach your web audience when they are not online. This tool is influenced by the whole concept of push notifications. Offsite notifications are currently available in Chrome (both for desktop and mobile) and in Safari (for desktop only). GoRoost has features like:
- Your audience can discover your most recent content via the notification centre that GoRoost provides.
- GoRoost allows social sharing from within the reader. This means you can expect a better share and better reach.
- The Roost reader enables to add customised image placement and headline display.
- Your push subscribers can easily control the notification feed right from their settings panel. This means opting in and out is easy!
You can engage and re-engage with your audience even when they are not online. This makes GoRoost a very powerful tool. It is very easy to set up and start using it. Other features include Personalised 1:1 messaging on a large scale. This increases relevance, conversion and puts the focus on the quality rather than quantity. Like all its counterpart, GoRoost also provides a comprehensive guide and documentation.
GoRoost vs. PushCrew
Talking about the pricing plans, GoRoost pricing plans are not mentioned on its website. And in terms of features, PushCrew takes the limelight.
PushCrew alternatives conclusion:
This brings us to the end of the comparisons. PushCrew alternatives are many, but there is no doubt that PushEngage is one of the most viable PushCrew Alternatives. If you are looking to send push notifications and looking for PushCrew Alternatives, you must try PushEngage first. Also let me know in the comments below if you come across any other tool that surpasses PushEngage, GoRoost, OneSignal and ofcourse, PushCrew.