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A few years ago, push traffic was considered a gold mine of arbitrage: cheap, massive, and easy to launch. Clicks were coming in hundreds, CPMs were a dime a dozen, and creatives were as straightforward as possible. But the world has changed. Browsers are tightening the screws, mobile OSes are cutting out fluff by the roots, and users are either ignoring or unsubscribing. Meanwhile, advertisers are still pouring in.
Why? Because push can still work, but not on a whim, but according to clear rules.
There will be specifics, analytics, examples, and tips for those who want to understand whether it is worth launching a push in 2025 or it is another rudiment that will soon follow popunder and clicker.
Push advertising is not a banner on a website, a post in a feed, or a video to a video. It’s a message that “shoots” right into the user’s eyes – over everything, wherever they are. And the most interesting thing is that people don’t search for this content, they don’t even have to read or scroll through it. They just get a notification – in a browser or on their phone.
This is push: a short text with a title, button, image, and link that arrives directly in the user’s notification. Not to Instagram, not to Messenger, but to the system. Like an SMS, but without a number. Like Viber, but without Viber. Advertising that looks like something personal.
On a desktop, it’s a notification in the lower right corner of the browser. A typical example: “You have been credited with 3000 UAH bonus, take it now!”. It can appear even if the website where the user once “subscribed” has long been closed.
On mobile, this is a common message in the notification curtain: “Today is the last day of the promotion – click here!”. It looks like a notification from the app, although it was sent through the browser.
Push can also arrive when the user does not remember that he/she has subscribed to anything at all.
This is the very “right” push that arrives in the browser after the user has clicked “Allow” on a website. The collection of subscribers is legal, and the ads are delivered through the browser notification system (Chrome, Firefox, etc.). You can target by geo, browser, time – just like in normal traffic.
This is not quite a push in the literal sense. It’s a banner stylized as a push that appears right on the website without the user’s consent. It looks like a notification, but technically, it’s just an HTML element. It is used to circumvent browser limitations. Such ads are more likely to be seen by everyone, both bots and humans.
This format adds “events” to the user’s calendar, which then come as notifications. It is almost not used in 2025 because users are tired of spam, and mobile systems have begun to filter it strictly. But it used to work, especially in subscriptions.
Push is active intervention. It appears on the screen without the user’s participation. A banner is just a part of the site that can be ignored. Native advertising is part of the content: “read the article, and here’s our offer between the paragraphs.” Popunder is a new tab that opens unnoticed. A push is right to the front of the line: it is impossible not to see it.
The main advantage of push is its visibility. The downside is in the same. If you don’t guess with the creativity or frequency, the user unsubscribes, blocks, forgets forever.
The user sees push ads:
In all cases, the user sees a headline, text, icon or image, sometimes a button. His task is to either click or ignore it. The task of the advertiser is to make sure that he does not ignore it.
Push traffic is a game for attention. It’s a format where it doesn’t matter what you sell if you don’t know how to break through the information shield with the first line. This is a format for those who know how to work on the speed of reaction. But 2025 is not 2019 anymore. And to prevent push from becoming just expensive spam, you need to know how this system works. Read more about it below.
Push advertising looks simple: a notification arrives, the user clicks it, and goes to the website. But there is a whole scheme behind it with equipment, money, and dozens of intermediaries. If you want to understand where the money is, who is really pouring in the push in 2025, and why you can drain the budget while others are making money, let’s look deeper.
It all starts when a user visits a website and clicks “Allow notifications”. At this point, the browser saves them as a subscriber, so you can send them push notifications directly, even if the site has been closed for a long time. This subscriber is added to the database – but who has access to it depends on who owns the site and which network works with it.
The rest is a classic chain:
User → subscription → database → push network → advertizer → traffic.
These are the ones who collect subscribers. They put a script on the site, ask the user to click “Allow”, and sell this subscription further. The more traffic, the bigger the database. The better the database, the more expensive its clicks are.
They aggregate databases from dozens (or hundreds) of sites to generate a large amount of traffic and sell it to the advertiser. Most push networks are simply subscription exchanges: they don’t have their own sites, but they have scripts, APIs, delivery rules, and anti-fraud systems. For example: PropellerAds, RichPush, MegaPush, DatsPush.
These are those who buy traffic in bulk and repackage it: change geo, add filters, spin it through their DSPs or bots. They often launch their own connections or sell “white push” as smartlinks. They play on the price difference and, if they know how, earn more than anyone else.
These are the ones who pay. They create the creative, set up the campaign, fill in the offer, and get clicks (or not if there is fraud, blindness, or bad geo). They are the ones who drive traffic to affiliates, their products, apps, and landing pages.
Push is a tool for quick outreach. If you have a massive offer, simple creative, and experience with optimization, you can go with ROI. But the scheme does not work for everyone:
Push advertising is a market with a clear hierarchy. If you do not understand where you are in the chain, you will quickly become a donor. In the next section, we will discuss the situation with push traffic in Ukraine now, and whether it is worth getting into this geo.
Push is not dead, it just stopped being “easy money”. And although most arbitrageurs have long since switched to other formats or merged into zero, there are cases where push still works. But now it is not about “pouring from a cell phone for 50 bucks”, but about a balanced launch in the right context.
Push is still one of the cheapest ways to check whether a headline, visual, page structure, or the offer itself is catchy. Especially when it comes to new niche products or non-standard approaches. For $20, you can get 1000+ clicks and understand: does the user click at all? Does he react? Does he scroll the landing page?
It’s not about conversions, it’s about quick feedback from real people (or not). If you have a team of creatives or copywriters, push can be a great testing ground for ideas.
If you don’t buy subscribers, but collect your base through a website, content, or product, this is a completely different level of play. Your base is your whitelist, and you can send relevant notifications to it even every day.
For example:
Your own database has no fraud, bots, and “dead audience” – you are responsible for the quality. If you have a great product and traffic from SEO, content, or publicity, it’s a sin not to collect push subscriptions.
In geos such as India, Pakistan, Latin America, or Africa, push can still show results, especially in the verticals of sweepstakes, antiviruses, mobile subs, software, and guts. There is not yet such an oversaturation, users are more trusting, and databases are less burned out.
But it is important: without antifraud, filters, and tracking, even Tier-3 will have 70% of garbage.
Another case where push is alive is retargeting your own database. If you have subscribers (from content, e-commerce, blog, game, etc.), push can be used as a supplement to email or SMS campaigns. It’s faster, cheaper, and instantly catches the eye.
Frequency, timing, and relevance are important here. When the user is already familiar with the brand, it can give ROI many times higher than cold traffic.
If you are just entering arbitrage and think “push is cheap!”, stop.
Push in 2025 is a tool for those who know how to filter, analyze, and calculate.
Push still works, but only in a pointed way. Not as a mass channel, but as an auxiliary tool. Not for everyone, but for those who know how to use it. It’s like a knife, when you can cook dinner or cut yourself whatever you want.
Launching push ads without preparation is like playing roulette for all your money. And most likely, the bullet will be yours. In order not to blow your budget in two hours and get bots instead of traffic, you need to know where to look, what to set up, and how to test it correctly.
This is what you should pay attention to if you don’t want to lose a bank in a few clicks.
Push is not only cheap traffic, it is also potential garbage. Many networks serve bots under the guise of real users. That’s why you need a tracker (RedTrack, Voluum, Binom) with the ability to analyze clicks.
Check:
Ideally, use anti-fraud services: Adspect, FraudScore, TrafficGuard. Yes, it is paid. But it is cheaper than burning $100 on bots.
In 2025, you either fight the fraud or work for it. Therefore:
Push networks are now afraid of burning out, so good partners will give you the tools to filter.
Push is a battle for 2 seconds of attention. “Tell me everything” doesn’t work here, “hook and make me click” does.
The formula for a strong push:
It can be:
The main thing is not to be banal. Users have seen it all: “You won an iPhone” doesn’t work even in the Congo. Test new approaches, try neurotips (Neuronwriter, ChatGPT+PromptBase), and adapt creatives to geo.
Push easily “eats up” the budget, especially if you set auto-bid, forgot to limit geo and pour everything in a row. Therefore:
And most importantly, don’t draw conclusions after 100 clicks. Push traffic sometimes gives delayed conversions, and sometimes it just simulates a “live stream” that is worthless.
Push in 2025 is a game of survival, not volume. If you want results, play it safe, measure everything, question even the “real” conversion. Because while you think you are pouring on Indonesia, you are already being drained from Armenia through a Romanian proxy.
Push is not a dead format. But it is not a panacea either. In 2025, it has turned from “cheap gold” into a tool that requires accuracy, analytics, and filters. It’s like working with a minefield: a step to the side and the budget goes up in smoke.
Yes, the CPC is still ridiculous. But cheap price ≠ profitable. Because if there is a bot, proxy, or “user” behind it with an activity of 0.3 seconds, it is just a hole in the wallet.
Push still gives results:
But it doesn’t work head-on. And it definitely doesn’t work for everyone.
For Ukrainian products, especially those with limited budgets, push is a risky channel. You need to do the math before you go in: CAC, LTV, conversions, fraud rate, real traffic. And honestly answer: is it about ROI or just “let’s try it?”
Push is not dead. But it also does not forgive mistakes. And if you want to work with it, be ready to count every penny. Otherwise, it will count you.