Push notifications for affiliate marketing

By Pushnami. Published February 21, 2021, updated September 30, 2026.

Push notifications give you a direct line to people who asked to hear from you. You pick the affiliate offers that fit each segment of your list. Then you send each segment a short message about them, or tie an offer to a piece of your content.

We updated this post for the browser rules that changed since it first ran.

Ways to use push for affiliate offers

Promote products that sit next to yours

Look for markets next to your own that you have not tried yet. A pet food site might find its subscribers click on dog training offers or pet health services.

One offer can lead to the next. A subscriber who clicks a moving company offer may want internet service at the new address next, and home security after that.

Your subscribers may respond to products you did not expect. Share what each segment clicks with your affiliate partners. Keep subscriber personal data out of what you send them. The more campaigns you run together, the more pairings you find.

Use calendar hooks

Awareness days such as National Cat Day give you a reason to send. Not every one fits your list. When one does, it gives an offer a timely hook.

Why push suits affiliate offers

Push keeps you in front of your subscribers between visits. You can send daily deals or weekly sales across products beyond your own, picked to match what each subscriber likes. You stay visible, and your affiliate partners get exposure in return.

Subscribers asked to hear from you

Every subscriber clicked Allow in a browser prompt. They already showed interest in what you send. An opt-in is also a higher bar for fake traffic than a page view. It does not rule bots out, so keep screening the clicks it sends.

Notifications show outside the page

A notification appears even when your site is not open. Chrome and Edge support an option that asks it to stay on screen until the subscriber clicks or dismisses it. Safari does not support that option, and Firefox supports it only on Windows, according to MDN.

The format is short and easy to test

A notification needs a title, a short message, and a link. Chrome and Edge can also show a large image. Firefox and Safari do not show it, so make sure each message works without one. Short messages make A/B tests quick to set up.

It brings visitors back

Some visitors leave before they buy, subscribe, or download. If they opted in first, a notification can bring them back to the page they left.

What changed since this post first ran

Browsers now police push more closely. Sites that send too much or mislead lose access.

The prompt needs a click

Firefox rejects a permission request that does not follow a click, tap, or key press, as Mozilla explains. Safari on iPhone and iPad has the same rule. Chrome may replace the prompt with a quiet bell icon in the address bar, per Chrome Help. Put the ask behind a button your visitor chooses to press.

iPhone and iPad need the Home Screen

On iPhone and iPad, web push works only for sites the visitor has added to the Home Screen. A visitor reading your site in a Safari tab cannot subscribe.

Chrome cuts off sites that send too much

Chrome now removes notification permission from sites that send a high volume of notifications and get very low engagement. Google says less than 1% of all notifications get any interaction. Chrome also rate limits push messages from sites like that. Send fewer messages, and make each one worth opening.

Misleading notifications get blocked

Google flags notifications that look like chat messages, warnings, or system dialogs, along with phishing and malware. If a site stays in Failing status, Chrome blocks its notifications and permission requests. Write each message so it reads as what it is, an offer.

How to run it

Build the opt-in into the page

A visitor who opts in has weighed your value proposition and wants to hear more. Test different value propositions on different pages. Track the opt-in rate by page and use it to plan your next campaigns.

Create segments

When a visitor opts in, record how they reached your site, which value proposition appealed to them, how long they stayed, and which pages they read. Add what they clicked and what they skipped, and you can sort them into segments.

A/B test one change at a time

Change one thing, such as a line of copy or the image. Send the original to a random half of the segment and the new version to the other half. Keep the winner and test the next change. Share what wins with your affiliate partners so both sides pick better offers.

Where Pushnami fits

1,000+ publisher websites run Pushnami push. Our AI engine, Pushnomics, picks the offer and the send time for each subscriber. New ad creatives go to human review before they serve. Publishers have always been paid on time.

If you have traffic, send it to our pay per lead program and get paid per lead. If you want to reach opted-in subscribers, buy push traffic from Pushnami.