How COVID-19 is affecting notifications and ads in newsletters

With marketers just beginning to get stats about how COVID-19 is affecting consumer behavior – in such areas as media consumption, time on devices or video streaming – new data is now indicating the effects on notifications and ads in email newsletters.

Customer engagement platform Airship (formerly Urban Airship) reports an 18 percent growth in mobile messaging volume on its platform from February to March, when COVID-19 began to really take hold.

This represents a 58 percent increase over the growth rates for the same time next year.

“People are so tuned in,” SVP Mike Herrick told ClickZ, attributing the increased tune-in to staying at home.

Open rates for push notifications in mobile apps grew 22 percent over the same two months, compared to a minus 3 percent drop in the same period last year.

Web sites, message (Read more...)

But it’s not just messaging or app notifications. In March, Airship found a 58 percent increase in web site visits over the previous month, resulting from direct opens of notifications on web sites.

Opt-ins for web notifications grew by 14 percent in March over February, compared to 4 percent growth over the same time last year.

As for in-app message centers, where app users can read messages at their convenience, the number of delivered messages jumped 42 percent, compared to the same February-March period last year.

Email marketing platform LiveIntent has similarly released data about how ads in publishers newsletters distributed through its platform are being affected by COVID-19.

From March to April, food and drink marketers increased ad spend in newsletters by 43 percent.

That investment is paying off, LiveIntent said, as the click-to-conversion rate almost doubled in that period, because stay-at-home consumers are looking for buy groceries online and have them delivered.

Tech, travel, education

Advertisers in the tech and computing industries are seeing a huge jump in conversion rates – 460 percent. LiveIntent says this is driven by software that helps consumers find and apply discounts for online shopping.

Two categories’ results are unsurprising. Travel ad spending dropped by 100 percent, while ad spending for Law/Government/Elections increased by 88 percent, obviously driven by the coming election and by governmental notices about COVID-19.

Finally, advertisers in the Hobbies & Interests category are seeing a 32 percent more efficient cost-per-acquisition, while advertisers in Education are seeing a decreased cost-per-acquisition of about 60 percent.

The reason, LiveIntent said, is that consumers are “hungry for distraction and self-improvement.”