Push Advertising 2025: What Works, What Doesn’t, and Why?

In 2025, push traffic has finally evolved from a “simple testing channel” into a полноценный инструмент масштабирования. At the same time, requirements for creative quality, segmentation, and audience management have significantly increased.

In this article, we analyze the results of A/B push tests over the past year: which hypotheses worked, which failed, and how to build a more stable traffic strategy based on these insights. This material will be useful for both advertisers and publishers working with push traffic.

What Did A/B push Tests Teach in 2025?

The main takeaway for advertisers in 2025 is that personalization is no longer optional — it is a baseline requirement.

Personalized creatives consistently deliver 25–40% higher CTR. But this is not only about relevance — testing methodology plays a critical role:

one variable at a time
sufficient traffic volume
comparison within the same audience segments

This approach allows you not only to improve performance but also to understand why a specific creative works.

At Kadam, we see the same pattern: campaigns built around segmentation and clear hypotheses scale faster and deliver more stable CR.

What Types of A/B push Tests Were Used Most Often?

The main focus shifted to:

testing notification content
experimenting with landing pages via URL changes
multivariate creative testing

At the same time, post-click optimization is still underestimated, even though up to 40–60% of users leave the landing page without completing a target action.

AI-driven optimization tools have also become more common, showing 20–30% higher CTR compared to manual campaign management, especially at scale.

What Changed in Campaign Launch Approaches

Advertisers moved away from chaotic testing.

The current working model looks like this:

start with a narrow segment
test hypotheses
scale only after validation

This reduces the cost of mistakes and helps identify winning setups faster.

How to Evaluate a push Network and Creative Quality

One of the most common mistakes is evaluating a network based only on traffic volume. In practice, creative quality and audience control matter much more.

What to look at:

• eCPM by GEO — if it’s below market without a clear reason, the network may have weak advertisers
• Fill rate — low fill rate means lost revenue
• Moderation — наличие фильтрации clickbait и агрессивных офферов
• Reporting — access to CTR, unsubscribe rates, and complaints

At Kadam, for example, advertisers go through moderation, and campaign-level statistics are available. This allows you to quickly disable low-performing or harmful creatives and protect your audience.

What Actually Impacts CR and CTR

The key factor is how well your offer matches the user’s current intent.

It’s not just about showing ads — it’s about:

delivering a relevant offer
at the right time
in the right context

Additional factors include:

segmentation
timing
landing page quality

In push, small details have a significant impact on CR.

Which push Hypotheses Failed

The main reason for failure is poor testing methodology.

Typical mistakes:

testing multiple variables at once
lack of segmentation
using the same creative for too long

Such campaigns often show CTR 2–3 times lower than segmented ones.

Creatives: What Works Best

The strongest performance drivers are:

numbers in headlines
visual elements
clear value propositions

For example, specific numbers (“up to 15% annually”) consistently outperform abstract messaging.

For Android:

images with people give +15–18% CTR
growth charts add +12–15%

On iOS, performance depends almost entirely on text, making the headline critical.

Which Combinations Drive Growth

The most effective formula is simple:

specific number + user benefit + deadline

In crypto campaigns, performance improves further when adding dynamic data (price changes, growth over time, etc.).

Audience and Targeting

The best strategy is to start with a narrow segment and scale.

Why:

higher CR
faster learning
lower risk

It’s also important to understand: even strong offers fail on low-quality traffic.

How Segmentation Works

Effective campaigns combine multiple types of filters:

• profile-based — language, GEO, device
• behavioral — clicks, visits, interests
• transactional — registrations, deposits
• calendar-based — time, day, seasonality
• contextual — current page or recent actions

The more precise the segment, the higher the CR.

Frequency and Timing

One of the most underestimated areas.

Too frequent → раздражение
Too rare → loss of attention

Finding the right balance is critical.

When Frequency Hurts Performance

Increasing frequency without considering user response leads to:

lower CTR
higher unsubscribe rates
declining audience quality

This is one of the main reasons for push traffic degradation.

Subscriber Base Health Metrics

Push revenue depends not only on audience size but also on its quality. Track these key metrics:

• Churn rate — unsubscribe rate per period. A healthy level is 3–5% per month. Above 10% means your audience is burning out faster than it grows.
• Lifetime — average active duration of a subscriber (typically 30–90 days).
• Active share — percentage of users who clicked at least once in the last 30 days. Below 20% indicates a declining audience.

Monitor these metrics regularly. Sudden changes signal issues with creatives, frequency, or traffic sources.