What are Push Ads and How to Choose the Best Push Ads Network
Push notification advertising is the latest way to push your message out to potential customers. It’s a proven and effective tool, but it’s not for everyone. If you intend to use push notification ads for your business, this article can help you understand more about this ad type.
Let’s talk about push ads, specifically how it all started, the different types available now, verticals where it can be used, and how to choose the right push network.
What are Push Notification Ads?
A push notification is a small message that appears in real-time on a user’s mobile device or desktop. This ad type has seen its boom just a couple of years ago. It is a hot advertising style because of the level of engagement it brings and the native feel of the notification. It doesn’t interrupt the user experience, and it guarantees 100% human clicks.
Push notifications consist of the following elements: a title, an icon, a description and an image.
They intend to grab attention and encourage users to visit a website, enticing them with offers of new content or products they might like.
Explore these articles for insights on creating impactful notifications that truly resonate and engage your audience:
- How to Make Push Notifications: Best Practices, Tips and Common Mistakes
- 11 Common Push Campaign Mistakes: Avoid Them for Success
- 25+ Best Push Notification Examples and Templates for Affiliate Marketers in 2025
Recognizing the potential of this technology to deliver not only regular notifications but also advertisements, websites, and apps began gathering subscribers. When push ad networks emerged, it became possible not only to send notifications to subscribers but also to “sell” or “rent” them to other businesses.
This way, both advertisers and publishers benefited. Ad networks for advertisers could help reach a much wider audience since they deliver millions of daily impressions through push ads. Ad networks for publishers, on the other hand, offer substantial monetization opportunities.
How Push Ads Networks Work?
When push notifications became a viable option for advertisers, many push traffic networks were born to cater to this new form of advertising. After all, it would be difficult for advertisers to search the Internet for people or companies that sell or rent their subscribers list and buy from them directly. As such, the main purpose of push notification ad networks is to act as a middleman between publishers and advertisers.
In essence, push traffic networks work in the following (simplified) manner:

Advertisers collaborate with ad networks, which, in turn, have connections with publishers or site owners. Publishers offer users the option to receive push notifications, and when users opt-in, the publisher sells these subscriptions to the ad network. The ad network, in return, sells advertising space to advertisers who create and showcase ads to the subscribed users.
Payments follow a clear path – advertisers pay the push notification traffic ad network, and the ad network compensates the publisher. It’s a straightforward and mutually beneficial model within the push notification ecosystem.
Start digging deeper into push ad networks with our knowledge base:
- Push Traffic: Definition and How Does it Work?
- How to Monetize a Website with Push Ads
- Top 5 Verticals for Push Ads in 2025
- How to Choose Push Ad Network: Comparison Chart
If you’re looking to save money, choose from the top ad networks with cheap push traffic.
How Do Push Ads Networks Bill Advertisers?
Push ads networks typically use two primary cost models when charging advertisers for their services: Cost per Click (CPC) and Cost per Mille (CPM). Using CPC, advertisers only pay for each click they receive, no matter how many times ads are displayed to different users. In the CPM model, advertisers are charged for every thousand impressions or views of their ad.
Discover valuable insights on push ad platform pricing in these articles:
Regardless of what business model you choose, keep in mind that your creatives have a high CTR, otherwise, your campaign may be paused.
Push Ads Networks Pros & Cons
There are a multitude of reasons why working with the best push service you find can be advantageous. Here are some of them:
Pros:
- Eliminates the need to manually search for sources
Push ad networks were born out of the need for someone to bridge the gap between publisher and advertiser. You won’t have to waste your time searching for traffic sources or even building your own subscribers list: a network solves that for you.
- Wider Reach
What if today you are focusing on one country, the next, you want to shift to a different one? Just as traffic volume is important, so is reach. And we’re not just talking about geolocations, but also device types, traffic types (adult and mainstream), and more.
- Provides Advertisers the ability to choose sources
Since advertisers can monitor the performance of their ads, they can also determine which traffic sources perform adequately or poorly.
You can then use the data you gathered to do one of the following:
- Blacklist or prevent ads from showing up on specific supply groups, publishers, or websites;
- Whitelist or create a campaign focussing solely on chosen supply groups, publishers, or websites.
Advertisers will have complete control over where their ads will appear, allowing them to optimize their ad spend and improve their conversion rates.
- Can deliver immense traffic volume
Even if you manage to find a publisher willing to rent his subscriber’s list, what are the chances that you can scale your campaigns? You won’t have a problem when trying to scale if you’re working with a push notification ads network since they have the volume to support your traffic needs.
- Provides advertisers with the capacity to pinpoint and target the right audience
Who would want to waste time and money showing ads to people who are not likely to respond because the offer is not for them? For instance, you wouldn’t want to display an ad for Samsung users to LG users, right? The secret of every successful marketing campaign is being able to narrow down to the right audience based on different targeting options. The best push ads networks can help you with that.
- Ensures monitoring capabilities
While a push traffic network’s reporting capabilities vary from one network to another, it is common practice for such platforms to provide a way for their advertisers to see how well their ads are performing. This way, you can see which sources are delivering the most impressions, clicks, and conversions (if conversion monitoring is turned on).
Cons:
- Advertisers will not own the push subscribers
One major disadvantage of working with a push notification network is that you won’t have subscribers of your own. You are only “renting” the ad space and would have to continue paying per click or per view.
- Fluctuating Cost per Click
Most push ad networks work on a bidding model, which means the price per click depends upon the traffic availability, the number of competitors, and your competitors’ bids. Nevertheless, push networks still make life much easier for advertisers seeking to utilize push notification ads. The benefits far outweigh the drawbacks.
How to Choose the Best Push Ad Network: Conclusion
In reality, you can join multiple push ad networks and run campaigns on several of them, but a focused approach to understanding the chosen network deeply can lead to more effective campaigns. Whether it’s increasing brand awareness or driving conversions, push notifications continue to be a valuable tool in the evolving landscape of digital advertising.When choosing the best push ad network, focus on ad formats, reach, optimization and tracking tools, pricing models, and niches the network specializes in. The alternative way to pick the matching ad platform is to pore over push ad network reviews.