The pass push: what to write and when to send it
A card in the Wallet can notify the customer without them installing anything. It is the biggest advantage of the format and the easiest one to burn.
What exactly is a pass notification
When a customer saves your loyalty card to the Wallet on their phone, that card is not an image: it's a live object the server can change. You change the number of stamps, and the customer's phone shows the change. If you also change the pass's alert text, the phone notifies them — with the card on the lock screen.
This is the most valuable thing about the format, and it's worth understanding why: it's a direct channel into your customer's pocket without them installing any app, without asking for separate permissions and without going through email, where you're competing with forty other things.
The five moments that really work
Ranked by how well they bring people back, from most to least:
| Moment | What it says | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| One stamp to go | "1 stamp left until your free coffee" | It's the only one where the customer had already decided something. You're just reminding them. |
| Just got a stamp | "New stamp. You're on 7 of 10" | It confirms their card works. It's worth more than it seems: without this alert a lot of people aren't sure whether they've been stamped. |
| About to lose their tier | "5 days left to stay Gold" | Loss drives people more than gain. It's the message with the highest return of all. |
| Their birthday | "Happy birthday, Marina. Dessert's on the house" | It's the only marketing message people are grateful for. |
| Hasn't been in for a while | "We haven't seen you in a month. Here's a coffee on us" | It works once. Repeated, it's harassment. |
Notice what's not on the list: "new menu", "live music this weekend", "follow us on Instagram". That isn't a loyalty notification, it's advertising on a channel the customer lent you for something else.
How to write one that doesn't get deleted
A pass notification is read on the lock screen, at a glance, in two seconds. You've got one line.
- Lead with the fact, not the greeting. "1 stamp to go" beats "Hi! We wanted to let you know that…".
- Call the reward by its name. "Your free Rice Dog" works; "your reward" doesn't. The customer doesn't want a reward, they want the Rice Dog.
- One idea only. If there are two things to say, that's two different days — or neither.
- No strings of exclamation marks. Three emojis and two exclamation marks turn a useful alert into spam in anyone's eyes.
- Be informal and sound like your shop. The pass carries your logo and your colours: make the text sound like the same person who serves the coffee.
| Instead of | Write |
|---|---|
| "Don't miss our promotions!! 🎉🎉" | "1 stamp left until your free coffee" |
| "You have earned a reward" | "Your croissant is waiting for you at the counter" |
| "We miss you" | "We haven't seen you in 30 days. The first coffee's on us" |
| "Congratulations, you've moved up a tier" | "You're Gold now: 10 % off everything, always" |
Timing matters more than wording
A perfect message at 00:47 is a message that gets your card deleted. And this happens more than you'd think, because automatic alerts get scheduled "in 12 hours" without checking what time it will be by then.
Three timing rules that apply to any business:
- Courtesy window. Nothing outside 9:00–21:00 local time. Ever.
- One alert per person per run. If three different rules match the same customer on the same day, send only the most important one. Three notifications in a row from the same place mean a deletion.
- Before the time they'd buy, not after. A coffee alert arrives at 9:00, not at 19:00. A dinner one at 12:00, not at 22:30.
Apple and Google don't behave the same
If you build this yourself, this is the part that catches people out: the two systems notify differently, and what you see on your iPhone isn't what your customer sees on Android.
| Apple Wallet | Google Wallet | |
|---|---|---|
| How the alert happens | The pass is updated and the phone shows the change | A message is added to the card object |
| Who decides the text | The pass's own alert field | The message you send, with its title |
| Risk | Updating the pass by accident and it going off for nothing | Sending too much: there's a cap on visible messages |
The practical upshot: always test on both. A message that reads in full on the iPhone can show up cut off on Android, and an alert that on Android is just another message can, on the iPhone, go off as a full notification.
How to burn a list (and never get it back)
A Wallet pass has one cruel quirk: deleting it is a single gesture. There's nothing to uninstall and no unsubscribe button to hunt for: a swipe and it's gone. And it doesn't come back.
What burns a list, from fastest to slowest:
- Sending something at night.
- Sending promotions that have nothing to do with their card.
- Sending more than once a week when nothing new has happened.
- Promising a reward in the alert and nobody in the shop knowing what it's about.
The fourth is the worst and it's an organisational problem, not a technical one: if you tell them they have a reward, your team has to see it when they scan. A customer who holds up their phone and gets a "what's this?" never looks at the card again.
And before all this comes the stamp card itself: if the reward is too far off, no notification will fix it. We cover that in how many stamps to put on the card.
Frequently asked questions
Can I send a notification to a customer without them installing an app?
Yes, if their loyalty card is in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet. The pass is updated from the server and the phone alerts them on its own. No app needed, and no separate notification permission to accept.
How many notifications can I send without being annoying?
As a rule of thumb, none that don't tell them something they want to know. In practice: the alert for each stamp (if you switch it on), the "one more to go for your reward" one, the birthday one and little else. A weekly promotion to your whole base is the quickest way to get your card deleted.
What time should they be sent?
Never in the middle of the night. We only send between 9:00 and 21:00 in the business's local time, and any alert that falls outside that window is moved to the next valid slot instead of going off at three in the morning.
Can I write the notification text myself?
Yes. In etlas each automation has its own message, with placeholders that fill themselves in: the name of the reward, how many days since their last visit or their tier.