Most advertisers treat ad formats like they’re interchangeable. Throw up a banner here, test a push notification there, see what sticks. But here’s the problem with that approach—each format works differently, reaches people in different mindsets, and delivers results under completely different circumstances. Running the wrong format at the wrong time doesn’t just waste the budget. It can actually hurt your brand perception.
Traditional display ads and push notifications both have their place in a smart marketing strategy. The trick is knowing when to use each one, and more importantly, when not to. Because while display ads excel at certain goals, push notifications dominate in situations where display would completely fall flat.
Understanding the Core Differences
Display ads and push notifications operate on fundamentally different models. Display advertising shows up while someone’s actively browsing a website or app. The person sees your ad alongside content they’re already consuming. It’s contextual, visual, and part of the browsing experience itself.
Push notifications work the opposite way. They reach users even when they’re not actively browsing. A push ad can land on someone’s device while they’re checking email, scrolling social media, or doing absolutely nothing online. This creates a direct line to attention that doesn’t depend on someone visiting the right website at the right time.
That fundamental difference changes everything about how these formats perform. Display ads benefit from context and visual real estate. Push notifications benefit from immediacy and guaranteed delivery to opted-in users.
When Display Ads Actually Win
Display advertising dominates when visual storytelling matters. If you’re launching a new product that needs to be seen to be understood, display gives you the canvas to show it properly. Banner ads, native placements, and rich media formats let you use images, video, and interactive elements that just don’t exist in push notifications.
Brand awareness campaigns almost always perform better with display. You’re not trying to drive immediate action—you’re building recognition over time. Display ads let you control the visual identity, place your brand in relevant contexts, and create associations between your company and the content people are already consuming. Push notifications can’t really do that effectively.
Retargeting scenarios also favor display. When someone visits your site but doesn’t convert, showing them display ads as they browse other websites keeps your brand visible without feeling intrusive. It’s passive reinforcement that works because it happens in the natural flow of their online activity. Advertisers looking to capture attention across multiple touchpoints often find that push notification ads complement display strategies by reaching users in different contexts, creating a more comprehensive approach to audience engagement.
Display also wins when you need granular contextual targeting. Want your ads to appear on finance websites, sports blogs, or tech news sites? Display networks make that possible. You’re buying placement in specific environments that align with your audience’s interests.
Where Push Notifications Completely Dominate
Push ads crush displays when you need immediate action. Limited-time offers, flash sales, breaking news, event reminders—anything time-sensitive performs better as a push notification because it reaches people instantly. They don’t need to be browsing the right website. The message comes to them.
High-intent campaigns benefit massively from push. If someone opted into your push notifications, they’ve already shown interest in what you’re offering. That’s a warm audience. Conversion rates on push campaigns often run circles around cold display traffic because you’re starting from a position of permission and prior engagement.
Push notifications also win when you’re working with smaller budgets but need reach. Display advertising requires significant spend to achieve meaningful impression volume, especially if you’re targeting competitive audiences. Push ads typically cost less per engagement and can reach opted-in users without competing in expensive bidding wars.
The mobile-first advantage matters too. Most people interact with push notifications on mobile devices, where they’re designed to grab attention. Display ads on mobile often struggle with viewability, ad blockers, and tiny screen real estate. Push cuts through all of that with native OS-level delivery.
The Engagement Reality Check
Here’s where things get interesting. Display ads typically have click-through rates somewhere between 0.05% and 0.35%, depending on the industry and format. That’s not a criticism—it’s just the reality of passive advertising. Most people scroll past display ads without really processing them.
Push notification CTRs can range from 2% to over 10% when done well. The difference comes down to opt-in intent and delivery timing. Someone who agreed to receive push notifications is already more engaged than a random website visitor seeing a banner ad.
But—and this is important—higher engagement doesn’t automatically mean better results. A push notification might get more clicks, but if those clicks don’t convert into actual customers or revenue, the format isn’t winning. You need to match the format to the business objective, not just chase better vanity metrics.
The User Experience Factor
Display ads blend into the browsing experience. When they’re done right, they’re non-intrusive and sometimes even helpful. Native display ads especially can feel like natural extensions of the content people are already reading.
Push notifications interrupt by design. That’s both their strength and their weakness. An interruption can be valuable when the message is timely and relevant. It becomes annoying when it’s not. Over-sending push notifications burns through goodwill fast, and there’s no easy way to win back users who disable notifications completely.
This means push ads require more careful strategy. You can’t just blast messages constantly and expect good results. Frequency capping, segmentation, and actually valuable messaging become critical. Display ads are more forgiving—people can ignore them without taking action against your brand.
Budget Considerations That Matter
Display advertising usually requires higher minimum spends to test effectively. You need enough impressions to gather meaningful data, and impression costs add up, especially in competitive verticals. Small businesses often struggle to make display work simply because the testing phase eats their entire budget.
Push notifications let you start smaller. The cost per engagement tends to be lower, and because you’re reaching opted-in users, you can learn what works without burning through thousands of dollars in testing. That makes push more accessible for advertisers who don’t have massive budgets.
The flip side? Scaling push campaigns has limits. You can only reach people who opted in. Display advertising has essentially unlimited scale potential—you can keep increasing spend and reach more people indefinitely.
When to Use Both (Strategically)
The best campaigns don’t pick one format exclusively. They use both strategically at different stages. Display advertising works well for top-of-funnel awareness and cold audience reach. Push notifications excel at re-engagement and conversion for warm audiences who’ve already shown interest.
A common pattern: run display ads to introduce your brand and capture initial interest. Use that traffic to build your push notification subscriber list. Then use push to drive repeat visits, promote offers, and maintain engagement over time. Each format handles the stage where it’s strongest.
Another effective approach uses display for branding and push for response. Let display ads build recognition and familiarity. Then use push notifications for specific calls-to-action that require immediate response. The combination creates both awareness and urgency.
The Format Selection Framework
Choose display when you need visual storytelling, broad reach, contextual targeting, or passive brand building. It’s the right format for reaching cold audiences, creating associations with specific content environments, and campaigns where immediate action isn’t the primary goal.
Choose push when you need immediate engagement, have an opted-in audience, want cost-efficient reach to warm users, or run time-sensitive offers. It’s the right format for retention campaigns, repeat customer activation, and situations where direct response matters more than brand exposure.
Don’t choose based on what’s trendy or what you’ve heard works well for other businesses. Choose based on your specific campaign objective, audience temperature, budget constraints, and measurement goals. The format that wins is the one that aligns with what you’re actually trying to accomplish.
