Welcome to Notification Hell: Why Less Is More for Marketers

When Dante wrote Inferno, he described hell as an underworld with nine layers, each worse than the last. What he could never have predicted, way back in 1321, was that one day, there would be a tenth layer—and it’s the one we’re all living in, right now.

This is Notification Hell. 

If you’re a white-collar worker, you already know how much Notification Hell sucks. According to Gemini’s AI overview (which we all know can be wrong—see our forthcoming post about AI Hell), this level of hell is a world where…

• White-collar workers experience an average of 150 to nearly 300 digital interruptions per day. 
• Some studies show that an alert, ping, or email arrives roughly every 2 minutes. 
• This number of pings forces the average digital worker to toggle between different apps and websites nearly 1,200 times a day. 
• The apps, sites, and platforms we’re juggling include, but aren’t limited to:
  • Email: The average office worker receives 121 emails every day.
  • Instant messaging: Workers using Microsoft 365 receive an average of 153 chat messages (e.g., via Microsoft Teams or Slack) per weekday.
  • And general interruptions: Telemetry data shows employees deal with about 275 distractions and pings across core working hours.

Oh, and don’t forget about the notifications from brands. Because Notification Hell isn’t just a place for office workers. It’s for all of us. 

Because there’s also the Weather Channel “news” about a storm on the opposite side of the country. The Strava update that your second cousin just went on a jog. The DoorDash offer from the place you ordered lunch from literally yesterday, so why would you get it again today? The Spotify announcement for the upcoming tour of a band you’ve never heard of, the … 

The list (and the damnation) is eternal. 

Savvy marketers and advertisers realize that more brand notifications usually have the opposite impact they intend. For example: I, for one, f’ing hate Uber’s notification approach. 

No matter how much you opt out of things, they find ways to send push notifications, pop-ups, texts, emails and more. I don’t need a coupon to “pick up my Uber order.” I didn’t log in to Uber Eats to go to the actual restaurant to get my food. Isn’t that the whole point? With notification after notification after notification, they drive me to look for other alternatives from businesses that actually respect my boundaries.

If marketing hell is real, then marketing heaven must be, too. The only way for marketers to enter the pearly gates is to remember the Golden Rule: treat others as you would like to be treated. Do the same marketers who schedule too many texts enjoy getting interrupted 300 times a day? I guarantee you they don’t. 

When brands understand the difference between building a relationship with their audience and respecting and empowering them, they win over a lifetime. When they treat people as transactions and conversions, they lose. 

Ask anyone. Check your integrated brand performance metrics. Look at your opt-out rates. Surprise! Being annoying is actually really f’ing annoying. What’s the point of winning a new customer just to make them hate you over time?

Notification Hell is a torturous place. But I think there’s somewhere worse. 

The 11th layer of hell. 

It’s a special place for marketers who lost the trust of their customers because they acted like never-ending stalkers. Because they hid the off button for push notifications deep inside the inner workings of the app settings. Because they decided that “Amish Wives Star Reveals BIG Drama” is breaking news. Because they decided that everyone needs to know, immediately, that “Your friend just beat level 236 of Candy Crush!” 

This hell is a lonely, sad, and unsuccessful world for the worst of us.

So the next time you go to schedule a notification for your brand, pause and think of the Golden Rule. 

Or you might end up in a very bad place.