How often should you send notifications?

Google's documentation for businesses that issue cards into Google Wallet says: "You may send a maximum of 3 messages that trigger a push notification in a 24 hour period."

Every card issued through native.cards has the same limit, on Apple Wallet and on Google Wallet: three notifications in any 24 hours. A fourth is held back. It is not sent later, and the Notifications page counts it under Held back.

Three a day would be about ninety a month, which no shop intends. The limit matters on an ordinary busy day. A member who joined last week, has a reward waiting and agreed to offers is in every audience you can choose. If your welcome, your reward reminder and your Saturday offer all go out one morning, that member has had three. The notice you write at noon to say the outlet is closing early will not reach them. Keep scheduled notifications on different days, and leave room for the one you did not plan.

Cost will not hold you back either: Zero notification fees. The restraint has to come from you.

The best public evidence is a survey, and it is American. In June 2021 YouGov asked 1,167 adults in the United States about notifications on their phones. Nearly half, 47%, said they get too many. When an app sends too often, 42% said they change its settings, 39% said they turn its notifications off entirely and 8% said they delete it.

Promotions were the least welcome kind. A few a week seemed appropriate to 19%, once a week to 18% and less often than that to 17%. Only 6% thought more than one a day was reasonable. For comparison, 62% were content to get personal messages several times a day.

That is what Americans told a pollster about apps in 2021. It does not measure what Malaysians do with a Wallet Card. What carries over is the pattern. A message from a brand gets far less patience than one from a person, and the usual answer to too many is to switch the sender off.

Airship sells the software that apps use to send notifications, so its figures are a vendor's, and they are about apps. Its 2026 benchmark covers more than 3 billion app users, and its own consumer survey gives the top reason people opt out as messages sent "too frequently".

We found no sound evidence on which kinds of notification a shop's own members value, or on the best hour or day to send. Advice that names ten o'clock on a Tuesday is one company's data about its own customers, or a guess. The rest of this Article is judgement, and is offered as that.

The first you can see. In their membership on your Business page, under Your choices here, a member can turn off Offers on my Wallet Card. Offers stop. A notice that a reward is ready, or that you are closed on Monday, still reaches them. On your side the Agreed to offers figure falls by one.

The second is in their Wallet, where a member can turn notifications off for your card. After that nothing from you alerts them, including the notice that a free drink is waiting. You are not told. Delivered on the Notifications page means, in its own words, "Google accepted the notification, or Apple accepted the iPhone card update that carries it", so a card that has been silenced still counts.

An unwanted notification can therefore cost more than being ignored. It may be the last one that member's phone shows from you, and your figures will look the same the next morning.

A notification is worth sending if it passes one of two tests.

The member can use it. A reward that is already theirs. A benefit that comes with membership and may have been forgotten. An offer, if they agreed to offers, that says what it is, when it applies and how to get it.

It changes their plans. You are closed for the public holiday. Hours are shorter during Ramadan. The outlet has shifted two doors down.

A greeting with nothing attached passes neither test. Nor does last week's offer sent again, or news about you that changes nothing for them: an anniversary matters to a member only if something comes with it.

The composer's What is it about? has four answers. Five notifications worth sending to your members works through an example of each kind.

Only an offer needs the member's agreement: the composer says it "Only reaches members who agreed to offers." The other three reach every card holder in the audience you choose.

Once a week is the most often we would send offers. In the survey above, a few a week suited fewer than one person in five. Add it up for one member: two offers, one piece of news and one reward reminder make four notifications in a month. The limit would have allowed about ninety.

There are three audiences and no others: Everyone, New members ("Joined in the last 30 days.") and Members with a reward waiting. You cannot send to regulars only, or only to people who have stopped coming. So anything sent to Everyone has to read well to your most loyal customer and to your most distant one.

An example with made-up numbers. A bakery has 600 members. Of those, 520 have its card in a Wallet. Of the 520, 310 agreed to offers and 45 hold a reward they have not used.

The offer reaches just over half of the 600 members. The composer shows the same sum for your own program before you send: how many members match, how many have your card and, for an offer, how many agreed to offers. If your program was set up without marketing wording, members were never asked, and an offer reaches no one.

It is tempting to file the offer as news so that it reaches all 520. Do not. The other 210 did not agree to offers. A member who declined offers and gets one anyway has every reason to turn off notifications for your card in their Wallet. New wording is also checked by native.cards before it goes out.

Neither the Headline nor the Message may contain a web address, so a notification has to be complete in itself. The headline takes up to 80 characters and is, as the composer puts it, "The line they see first, on the lock screen." Write it so that a member who reads nothing else knows whether it concerns them. The message takes up to 500 characters. It should say what to do next, which is usually to show the card at the counter.

Tapping it opens sets where a tap leads: Your business page, One reward or benefit, Their recent activity or Nothing. Keep it on the card for sets how long it stays on the card: 1, 3, 7, 14 or 30 days. Match that to how long the words stay true. An offer for Saturday should not be sitting in a Wallet on Wednesday.

The wording check happens once for each wording. Approved wording can be chosen again and "can go out without waiting for a person to review it", so a reminder you send every month waits only the first time. Check the day and the date before you submit. Once the Wallets accept a notification it cannot be recalled, and a correction is one more notification to the same members.

On timing there is only common sense: send when the member could act on it. A kopitiam's breakfast set is no use at three in the afternoon, and nothing is welcome at midnight.