Mobile app notifications are still horrible. Without sufficient carrots or sticks, most developers fall back to waaaaay too many in order to juice engagement. And the notion of “user control” is a whole bunch of toggles in the app menu and iOS settings. Blech.

Has anyone shared data on whether the number of users who default out of app notifications at point of install is increasing? I know it’s my natural reaction these days, causing the loss of an important communication channel. Developers can tell which users have disabled notifications but I’ve seen very little exploration on how to reactivate these users other than the occasional (and very generic) “this app is more fun/useful/etc with notifications turned on. enable here” dialogue.

Some ideas for reactivating:

How about popping up an in-app dialogue periodically when I open the app, or even email message, which shows the user what kind of notifications they’re missing? Not examples, but actual high-quality and actionable notifications they would have received? (if the notifications possess neither of these qualities = bigger problems).

What about using some psychology/behavioral voodoo via signup or reactivation, such as, “95% of your friends have notifications turned on. Don’t miss their messages.”

Even the nuclear option: disable the app if they don’t turn on notifications. I know this sounds crazy but for some categories of apps (messaging?) wonder if turning notifications off correlates so highly with inactive users that a developer should just force them to have a consistent engaged experience.

Any examples of mobile apps that take an interesting approach to managing notification opt-outs?