Enticing notification text & the impact on engagement

Abstract

Push-notifications are a design tool used by mobile and web apps to alert subscribers to new information. In recent years, due to widespread adoption of the technology and the shrinking level of user attention available, marketing techniques have been deployed to persuade subscribers to engage positively with notifications. One such technique, known as the curiosity gap, exploits Lowenstein's Information-Gap theory. This paper explores the impact of enticing notification text, instilled by the curiosity gap, on subsequent engagement actions. A classifier was defined to identify enticing language in notifications. Features commonly paired with enticing text were identified. Intelligent notification delivery agents, trained using data captured in-the-wild, were evaluated using enticing and non-enticing notifications to demonstrate the influence of enticing text. Additionally, a solution was proposed and briefly evaluated for limiting subscriber susceptibility to enticing notifications.