Email Loyalty vs Push Notifications: Which Drives Better Engagement?
Feb 6, 2026
You've been sending loyalty emails. Monthly campaigns. Special offers. Birthday rewards. "We miss you" messages to lapsed customers.
You check the stats: 15% open rate. 3% click-through rate. Maybe 1% of recipients actually visit.
You're starting to wonder: Is there a better way to communicate with loyalty customers? Something people actually see and act on?
Here's what you need to know: Email worked for loyalty in 2010. In 2026, push notifications via wallet-based loyalty cards deliver 3–5x better engagement at zero per-message cost.
This isn't about email being "bad." Email still has a role. But for time-sensitive loyalty communications — "Come in today," "You're close to a reward," "We miss you" — push notifications dominate on every metric that matters: open rates, visibility, action rates, and cost.
This guide explains what email loyalty actually delivers (honestly), what push notifications via Apple Wallet and Google Wallet achieve instead, the engagement reality across open rates and action rates, when email still makes sense, and how to choose (or combine) both.
By the end, you'll understand why businesses switching from email to push notifications see 200–400% improvement in customer response.
What Email Loyalty Actually Looks Like
Let's start with reality.
Email Loyalty: The Traditional Approach
How it works:
Customers provide email addresses when joining loyalty program
You build an email list
You send campaigns through email marketing platform (Mailchimp, Klaviyo, etc.)
Customers receive emails in their inbox
Some open them. Fewer click. Even fewer visit.
Common email campaigns:
Weekly/monthly promotions ("20% off this week!")
Reward milestone notifications ("You've earned 100 points!")
Birthday/anniversary rewards ("Happy birthday — here's a gift")
Re-engagement campaigns ("We miss you!")
New product announcements
The Email Engagement Reality
Industry average metrics for loyalty emails:
Open rate: 15–25% (75–85% never open)
Click-through rate: 2–5% (of those who open)
Action rate: 0.5–2% (of total sent — people who actually visit/purchase)
Translation:
You send 200 loyalty emails promoting "Come in this week for 20% off."
30–50 people open the email (15–25%)
4–10 people click the link (2–5% of openers)
1–4 people actually visit your business (0.5–2% of total sent)
You reached 1–4 customers out of 200. That's 0.5–2% effectiveness.
Why Email Engagement Is Low
Problem 1: Inbox overload
The average person receives 100–120 emails per day. Your loyalty email competes with:
Work emails (high priority)
Personal emails (moderate priority)
Other marketing emails (100+ competing businesses)
Spam and junk
Your loyalty email is buried instantly.
Problem 2: Marketing folder trap
Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail automatically sort marketing emails into separate folders:
Gmail: "Promotions" tab
Outlook: "Other" folder
Apple Mail: "Marketing" folder
Most people rarely check these folders. Your email disappears before being seen.
Problem 3: Low perceived urgency
Emails feel like:
"I'll read this later" (never do)
"Save for when I have time" (delete instead)
"Not urgent" (ignore)
Push notifications feel like:
"This needs attention now" (high urgency)
Problem 4: Poor mobile visibility
Lock screen notification appears: "You have 47 new emails"
Customer thinks: "I'll check later"
Your loyalty email is one of 47. Never gets opened.
Problem 5: Unsubscribe accumulation
Every email campaign generates 0.1–0.5% unsubscribes.
Over time:
Month 1: 200 subscribers, send campaign, 1 unsubscribe (199 remaining)
Month 6: 195 subscribers
Month 12: 188 subscribers
Month 24: 170 subscribers
Your list shrinks 15–20% over 2 years through unsubscribe attrition.
What Push Notifications via Wallets Deliver Instead
Now let's understand the alternative.
Wallet-Based Push Notifications: The Modern Approach
How it works:
Customers add digital loyalty card to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet
You send push notifications through wallet platform (like Perkstar)
Messages appear on customers' lock screens instantly
Customers see notification from "Apple Wallet" or "Google Wallet" (trusted system app)
Tapping notification opens their loyalty card showing If you're unfamiliar with how wallet-based loyalty cards actually work on the customer's end, the experience is seamless — one tap to add, and the card sits alongside their bank cards and boarding passes permanently. current balance/stamps
Campaign types (same as email):
Promotional campaigns ("20% off today!")
Milestone notifications ("You're 2 stamps away from reward!")
Birthday rewards
Re-engagement ("We miss you — here's 10% off")
Announcements
The Push Notification Engagement Reality
Industry metrics for wallet-based push notifications:
Delivery rate: 95–98% (almost everyone receives)
Impression rate: 85–95% (people see it on lock screen)
Click-through rate: 15–35% (people tap to open loyalty card)
Action rate: 8–20% (people actually visit/purchase)
Translation:
You send 200 push notifications promoting "Come in this week for 20% off."
190–196 people receive notification (95–98%)
162–186 people see it on lock screen (85–95%)
30–70 people tap to open card (15–35% of receivers)
16–40 people actually visit your business (8–20% of total sent)
You reached 16–40 customers out of 200. That's 8–20% effectiveness.
Why Push Notification Engagement Is Higher
Reason 1: Lock screen visibility
Push notifications from wallets appear on lock screen prominently:
Full-screen banner (iOS)
Priority notification (Android)
Shows your logo and brand
Appears above email notifications
Customer sees it immediately. Can't miss it.
Reason 2: Trusted source
Message comes from "Apple Wallet" or "Google Wallet," not from "Random Business Email."
Psychological effect:
Wallet notifications feel legitimate (system app)
Email notifications feel like spam (marketing)
Customer trusts wallet notifications more. Some platforms take this further by combining wallet notifications with geo-based push notification triggers that fire when a lapsed customer walks within 200 metres of your location — turning proximity into a visit.
Reason 3: Contextual relevance
Push notification opens loyalty card showing:
Current stamp/point balance
Progress toward reward
Brand logo and colors
Customer thinks: "Oh, I have 7 stamps. If I go, I'll be at 8. Almost there!"
Email just says: "20% off this week" (no context, no visual progress).
Reason 4: Immediate action
Push notifications feel urgent:
"This is happening now"
"I should act today"
"Limited time"
Emails feel optional:
"I'll read later"
"Save for when I have time"
"Not urgent"
Reason 5: No unsubscribe spiral
Wallet notifications have extremely low opt-out rates (0.2–0.8% per campaign vs 0.1–0.5% for email).
Why?
Customers opted in by adding card. They want loyalty updates. Push notifications feel like part of the loyalty experience, not intrusive marketing.
Result: Your audience stays stable or grows. No 15–20% attrition over 2 years.
The Engagement Comparison (Side by Side)
Let's compare directly.
Email Loyalty Campaign
Campaign: "Come in this week — 20% off for loyalty members"
Sent to: 200 loyalty customers
Results:
Delivered: 195 (5 bounce)
Opened: 40 (20% open rate)
Clicked: 6 (3% click-through of openers)
Visited: 3 (1.5% action rate of total sent)
Cost:
Email platform: £25/month (200 contacts on typical plan)
Cost per campaign: ~£1.25 (if sending 20 campaigns/month)
Cost per visit generated: £0.42 (£1.25 ÷ 3 visits)
Time to send: 15–30 minutes (design email, write copy, schedule)
Wallet-Based Push Notification
Campaign: "Come in this week — 20% off for loyalty members"
Sent to: 200 loyalty customers
Results:
Delivered: 196 (98% delivery)
Seen on lock screen: 177 (90% impression)
Tapped to view card: 59 (30% engagement)
Visited: 24 (12% action rate)
Cost:
Wallet platform: £30/month (unlimited customers, unlimited notifications)
Cost per campaign: £0 (included)
Cost per visit generated: £0 (free per message)
Time to send: 5 minutes (write message, select audience, send)
The Comparison
Email:
3 visits generated (1.5% action rate)
£0.42 per visit
15–30 minutes to create campaign
Declining audience over time
Push notifications:
24 visits generated (12% action rate)
£0 per visit
5 minutes to send
Stable audience
Push notifications delivered 8x more visits at £0 cost per message.
Cost Comparison Over Time
Let's look at annual economics.
Email Loyalty (Annual Cost)
Platform subscription:
200 contacts: £25/month (typical email marketing platform)
Annual: £300
Campaign frequency:
4 campaigns per month (weekly or bi-weekly)
48 campaigns per year
Time investment:
20 minutes per campaign average (design, copy, scheduling)
48 campaigns × 20 minutes = 960 minutes = 16 hours
Value of time: 16 hours × £50/hour = £800
Total annual cost: £1,100 (£300 subscription + £800 time)
Results:
48 campaigns × 3 visits average = 144 visits generated
Cost per visit: £7.64
Wallet Push Notifications (Annual Cost)
Platform subscription:
Unlimited customers and notifications: £30/month
Annual: £360
Campaign frequency:
4 campaigns per month
48 campaigns per year
Time investment:
5 minutes per campaign (simple message creation)
48 campaigns × 5 minutes = 240 minutes = 4 hours
Value of time: 4 hours × £50/hour = £200
Total annual cost: £560 (£360 subscription + £200 time)
Results:
48 campaigns × 24 visits average = 1,152 visits generated
Cost per visit: £0.49 That £0.49 cost per visit through push notifications also reframes the acquisition vs retention spending debate — when retention costs this little per visit, every pound shifted from new customer ads to loyalty communications delivers dramatically better returns.
The Annual Comparison
Email:
Total cost: £1,100
Visits: 144
Cost per visit: £7.64
Push notifications:
Total cost: £560
Visits: 1,152
Cost per visit: £0.49
Push notifications deliver 8x more visits at half the total cost and 1/15th the cost per visit.
When Email Still Makes Sense
Let's be fair: email isn't useless.
Email Works Well For:
✓ Long-form content
If you need to communicate detailed information:
New menu items with descriptions and photos
Policy changes or business updates
Educational content about your products/services
Email supports rich content better than brief push notifications.
✓ Non-urgent communications
If timing doesn't matter:
Monthly newsletters
Quarterly updates
General brand storytelling
Email is fine for "read when convenient" content. And if you don't have a proper email list yet, the easiest way to build one is through your loyalty program — customers who've already opted into rewards are far more likely to share their email address.
✓ Customers without smartphones
If serving elderly customers (5–10% of UK population) who don't use smartphones, email (or SMS) is your only digital option.
✓ Backup channel
Some businesses use push notifications as primary and email as secondary:
Send push notification for immediate engagement
Send email follow-up 24 hours later for those who didn't respond
Layered approach increases reach.
Email Doesn't Work Well For:
✗ Time-sensitive promotions
"Come in today" emails arrive too late (customers check email sporadically).
✗ Milestone notifications
"You just earned a reward!" is exciting as a push notification (immediate). As an email read 2 days later, it's stale. Some businesses try solving this with a dedicated loyalty app instead of Apple Wallet, but apps suffer from the same delayed-engagement problem as email — customers have to remember to open them.
✗ Re-engagement campaigns
"We miss you" emails get 0.5–2% response. Push notifications get 8–15% response.
✗ High-frequency communication
Sending emails 2–4 times per month feels spammy. Push notifications feel like loyalty updates.
Real-World Example: A Salon in Leeds
Let's see this play out in practice.
The business: Hair and beauty salon in Leeds. 3 stylists. ~210 regular clients.
Year 1: Email-Based Loyalty
Setup:
Paper loyalty cards with option to provide email
142 customers provided emails (67% of regulars)
Used Mailchimp (£25/month) The paper-to-email setup itself was clunky — if you're still at the paper card stage, transitioning from paper punch cards to digital takes less time than most owners expect and eliminates the manual email collection bottleneck entirely.
Campaign frequency:
3 emails per month (promotions, birthday rewards, re-engagement)
Month 3 results (typical):
Email 1: "Spring promotion — 15% off color treatments"
Sent: 142
Opened: 28 (19.7%)
Clicked: 4 (14% of openers)
Booked: 1 (0.7% of sent)
Email 2: Birthday rewards to 8 customers
Sent: 8
Opened: 3 (37.5% — higher for birthday emails)
Booked: 1 (12.5%)
Email 3: "We miss you" to 34 lapsed customers
Sent: 34
Opened: 5 (14.7%)
Booked: 0
Month 3 total: 2 visits generated from 184 emails sent (1% effectiveness)
Year 1 results:
36 campaigns × 2 visits average = 72 visits generated
Platform cost: £300
Time investment: 12 hours × £50 = £600
Total cost: £900
Cost per visit: £12.50
Owner frustration:
"I spend 20 minutes crafting each email. Beautiful designs. Compelling copy. Open rates are terrible. Even worse, I have no idea if people who opened actually came in. I know the email platform says 'click-through,' but that doesn't mean they booked. It feels like I'm shouting into a void."
Year 2: Switched to Wallet-Based Push Notifications (Perkstar)
Setup:
Implemented Perkstar digital loyalty cards
186 customers added wallet cards (88% of regulars — higher adoption than email)
Cost: £30/month The salon evaluated several wallet-based platforms before choosing Perkstar — if you're making a similar decision, the key differences between Loopy Loyalty and Perkstar come down to card type variety and UK-specific pricing.
Campaign frequency:
4 campaigns per month (could send more since no cost per message)
Month 3 results (typical):
Push 1: "Spring promotion — 15% off color treatments"
Sent: 186
Delivered/seen: 177 (95%)
Engaged (opened card): 53 (28% of sent)
Booked: 18 (9.7% of sent)
Push 2: Birthday rewards to 9 customers
Sent: 9
Booked: 5 (55% — dramatically higher than email)
Push 3: "We miss you" to 29 lapsed customers
Sent: 29
Booked: 6 (20.7% vs 0% with email)
Push 4: "You're 1 treatment away from reward!" to 23 customers close to milestone
Sent: 23
Booked: 9 (39% — this campaign type doesn't work with email)
Month 3 total: 38 visits generated from 247 notifications (15.4% effectiveness)
Year 2 results:
48 campaigns × 38 visits average = 1,824 visits generated (estimate — some months better/worse)
Platform cost: £360
Time investment: 4 hours × £50 = £200
Total cost: £560
Cost per visit: £0.31
Owner reflection:
"The difference is night and day. Push notifications cut through the noise. Customers actually see them and respond. Birthday rewards went from 12% response to 55% response — just by switching channels. And the 'almost there' milestone notifications are brilliant — we couldn't do those with email because customers didn't track their progress. With wallet cards, they see their stamp count daily, so when we message 'You're 1 away!' they act on it. Plus, I'm spending £900 less per year and getting 25x more visits."
Modern Take: Why Push Notifications Won
Here's what changed that makes push notifications dominant in 2026.
Change 1: Email Fatigue Became Universal
2010–2015: Average person received 30–40 emails per day. Marketing emails stood out.
2026: Average person receives 100–120 emails per day. Marketing emails are invisible noise.
Result: Email open rates declined 40–50% over the past decade. Push notification engagement stayed high.
Change 2: Mobile-First Behavior
2010–2015: People checked email on computers at desks. Emails got attention.
2026: People check email on phones while doing other things. Emails get ignored.
Lock screen notifications (push) get immediate attention. Inbox notifications (email) get delayed (or never) attention.
Change 3: Wallet Adoption Exploded
2010–2018: Apple Wallet and Google Wallet were niche. Few people used them.
2019–2026: COVID-19 made wallets universal (contactless payments, vaccine passes, tickets). Everyone uses wallets daily now.
Result: Push notifications via wallets reach 95%+ of customers. Email reaches 75–85% (bounces, spam filters).
Change 4: Context and Visibility
Email: Buried in inbox. No context. Just words.
Push notification: Opens loyalty card showing current progress. Visual. Contextual. Actionable. That visual progress — stamps filled, rewards approaching — only works if the card itself is designed to drive behaviour, with the right number of stamps, the right reward value, and clear visual progress indicators.
Example:
Email says: "Come in this week — you're close to a reward!"
Push notification shows: Loyalty card with 7 out of 10 stamps. Customer sees: "I need 3 more!"
Visual context drives action.
Change 5: Economics Shifted
2015: Email platforms charged $10–$20/month. Push notification platforms didn't exist or cost $100+/month.
2026: Email platforms still charge £20–£30/month. Wallet-based loyalty with unlimited push notifications costs £15–£60/month.
Push notifications became cost-competitive while delivering vastly better engagement.
Choosing Between Email and Push (Or Using Both)
Here's your decision framework.
Use Push Notifications As Primary If:
✓ You want immediate action
Time-sensitive promotions, milestone alerts, re-engagement campaigns.
✓ You have wallet-based loyalty
If customers have Apple Wallet or Google Wallet cards, push notifications are included and effective.
✓ You send frequent communications
4+ campaigns per month feel normal with push. Same frequency with email feels spammy. Just be careful with frequency — the key is staying top-of-mind without annoying customers, which means sending 4–6 targeted messages per month rather than daily blasts that trigger notification fatigue.
✓ You want high engagement
8–20% action rates (push) beats 0.5–2% action rates (email).
✓ You want cost efficiency
Unlimited messaging at £30/month (push) beats £25/month + design time (email).
Use Email As Primary If:
✓ You need long-form content
Detailed updates, educational content, rich storytelling.
✓ Timing doesn't matter
Monthly newsletters, general updates, non-urgent communications.
✓ You don't have wallet-based loyalty
If you're using paper cards or phone-number-based loyalty, you don't have push notification capability.
✓ Your customers are less tech-savvy
Elderly customers who check email but don't use wallets.
Use Both (Layered Approach) If:
✓ You want maximum reach
Primary: Push notifications for immediate engagement
Secondary: Email follow-up 24–48 hours later for non-responders
✓ You have different message types
Push: Time-sensitive promotions and milestone alerts
Email: Monthly newsletters and educational content
✓ You want backup Push and email are just two tools in a broader toolkit — understanding which customer retention tools actually move the needle helps you layer the right channels without overcomplicating your workflow. for non-smartphone users
Most customers: Push notifications via wallets
Small minority: Email for those without smartphones
This hybrid approach works well for businesses wanting comprehensive coverage.
Final Thoughts: Visibility Wins
Email isn't dead. But for loyalty communications — especially time-sensitive promotions and milestone alerts — push notifications deliver 3–5x better results.
Email works when:
You need long-form content
Timing is flexible
You're targeting people who check email regularly
Push notifications work when:
You want immediate action
You need high visibility
You're using wallet-based loyalty
Cost efficiency matters
You want 8–20% action rates instead of 0.5–2%
For most UK small businesses using digital loyalty programs, push notifications should be the primary channel with email as optional supplement.
The engagement data is overwhelming. Customers see push notifications and act. Customers ignore emails.
Start your free 14-day trial with Perkstar — no credit card required. Send wallet-based push notifications to your loyalty customers. Compare engagement to email. See the difference yourself.
Your customers won't see your emails. They will see your push notifications.
