Crowdfunding promotion by web push. Zrzutka.pl and PushPushGo

Zrzutka.pl, a crowdfunding portal, started using web push notifications in May 2019. We talked to Joanna Jakubicka, Senior Marketing Specialist at Zrzutka.pl, about her experience with web push notifications, situations when this channel works best, sending strategy, subscribers and much more.

Tell us about Zrzutka.pl and your position in the company. 

Zrzutka.pl is a crowdfunding portal where you can collect money for every purpose. I'm responsible for marketing: from advertising to social media, to push notifications. 

You implemented push notifications in 2019. What encouraged you to take that step? 

First of all, we were looking for alternative channels to reach our users. Previously, we'd communicate a lot on social media, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to get a wide reach. We wanted to continue working towards our goals, to keep our users on the portal longer, and encourage them to visit more often. 

Tell us about the implementation process. 

I admit I was a little apprehensive at first. I had never worked with any automation. But it turned out that the process is very easy. The website takes you through the implementation step by step. And If I had any questions at any stage of the process, I could ask our designated consultant, who helped me with everything. So I would rate the implementation as fast, easy, and available to everyone. 

How long did it take before you've seen improvements in your KPIs?

We were quite sceptical at first. In the beginning, we were just going to test the tool and see if it makes sense on our portal. But as it turned out, the subscriber base grew rapidly. Currently, we have over 200 thousand subscribed users - that's a huge number. We've noticed that web push brings a lot in terms of visits to the website and clicks - less so when it comes to actual payments. But it's still very valuable to us that Zrzutka.pl users keep us in mind, remember about our portal and return here.

Tell us about your web push subscribers. 

In social media, there are particular topics that people find interesting. Charities collecting donations for animals or sick children are the most popular and clickable. With other types of projects, getting the necessary attention can be more difficult. And this is where web push comes in handy. 

We've noticed that with web push it's not the goal that matters, but a way of phrasing the subject line. Users look for interesting news and compelling histories they can explore by clicking on the push notification. Those are the types of messages that get the best results.

We've noticed an impressive spike in subscriptions every January. Do people have a New Year's resolution to do good? 

It's a common trait in all crowdfunding businesses. The Winter season is the busiest, and a slowdown occurs in the summer months. This is a result of a correlation. 

When does web push work best?

It's certainly useful with campaigns that have interesting, storytelling descriptions. If we have something interesting or shocking to use, a push will gather more attention.

Another situation in which web push works is when you want to include two links: one to the campaign, and another to the article describing it. Social media favors only one link (the one displayed in a preview), while the second one can be missed. Web push allows us to use two action buttons leading to different places. That's how we can present our subscribers with different content and allow them to choose their destination. 

The ability to send a notification in reaction to a particular event on a website is brilliant. For example, when we see that a user created a campaign but didn't add the description (so it wasn't activated), we can notify them and encourage them to finish the operation. 

Tell us about your web push strategy 

We use the notifications in two ways. Firstly, we send daily news promoting the most interesting campaign. Every day our subscribers receive a notification in which we try to encourage them to click by creating interesting headlines.

Secondly, we use automation triggered by specific events. This is even more important than mass campaigns. For example, if a user created a campaign but didn't finish the process to activate it, we send an automatic web push encouraging them to finalize the creation. We advise them to fill in all the descriptions and finish editing. That's the whole series of notifications based on specific actions performed on our website. It's invaluable because we can't achieve those goals via any other communication channel.

What's your opinion on web push?

I am very pleasantly surprised. As I mentioned at the beginning, we were quite sceptical at first. But as it turned out, there are many people using web push and clicking on the notifications. And, as I was saying, the implementation is very easy. I think it's a great addition to a marketing strategy. I highly recommend it! 

How can you describe your experiences with PushPushGo?

I think that the website is very intuitive and easy to work with. I also highly appreciate the help of our consultant who would message us with suggestions on how to improve things, introduce changes in our profile, and advised us to add or change things. He came up with those proposals on his own.