As performance marketing moves into 2026, the market is entering a phase where familiar solutions no longer provide the same margin of safety. Bids are rising, traffic sources burn out faster, and competition for user attention is becoming more aggressive with every quarter.
What worked just a couple of years ago now either requires deep fine-tuning – or fails to scale altogether. This is especially evident in highly competitive verticals such as iGaming, dating, and utilities, where the cost of a mistake is no longer a test budget, but weeks of lost time.
That’s why formats that allow you to:
are moving to the forefront.
Over the past few years, push notifications and popunder traffic have evolved from a “supplementary source” into a full-fledged scaling tool. But in practice, it’s not those who simply run push campaigns who win – it’s those who know how to work with this traffic properly: analyze it, segment it, and scale without sacrificing efficiency.
The Alanbase team invited Reacheffect to share real-world experience and break down why push traffic remains one of the most resilient acquisition channels in 2025 – and how to prepare for the realities of 2026, where speed, control, and analytics will matter more than raw volume.
Question:
The push and popunder traffic market has changed significantly over the past few years. What key challenges do you believe media buyers and advertisers will face in 2026?
Reacheffect’s Answer:
“Honestly, the biggest challenge isn’t a single factor – it’s the combination of several. First, competition has increased dramatically. Push is no longer a ‘niche’ channel, and bids in popular GEOs are no longer cheap. That means the winners won’t be those who simply increase budgets, but those who can optimize campaigns faster.
Second, standard ad formats are gradually losing effectiveness. Banner CTRs are declining, users have become far more selective, and creatives burn out much faster than they used to. In this environment, continuous testing and constant iteration become absolutely critical.
Traffic quality and control are another major issue. Many networks still show impressive numbers in their dashboards, but behind those metrics you often find bots or low-quality clicks. In 2026, operating without transparent analytics and a clear understanding of what actually drives conversions will simply be impossible.
And of course, regulatory pressure and blocking. They don’t stop the market, but they make it far more complex. Configuration mistakes, slow reactions, or a lack of flexibility in traffic management have become far too costly.”
Question:
Given all these changes and restrictions, why do push notifications and popunder traffic remain effective solutions? What keeps these formats relevant in 2025–2026?
Reacheffect’s Answer:
“Push notifications are one of the few formats that still allow you to reach users quickly and directly. Unlike banners, push appears on the user’s device even when they’re not actively browsing a website. That creates instant engagement – especially for time-sensitive offers.
I regularly use push as my primary format for rapid hypothesis testing. With targeting by GEO, device, and even mobile carriers, you can reach the right audience quite precisely and quickly understand whether a funnel has real potential. With proper optimization, CTRs remain stable even in highly competitive verticals.
Popunder traffic, despite its aggressive nature, hasn’t gone anywhere either. When set up correctly, it performs extremely well in dating and iGaming. The user doesn’t see the ad immediately, but it loads in the background – and that often results in strong engagement, particularly on mobile devices.
Another major advantage is the ability to work with multiple formats from a single interface. When push, popunder, native, and banner ads are all available in one dashboard, testing and scaling become much easier. You’re not jumping between platforms and can make decisions much faster.”
Question:
The push and popunder traffic market is becoming increasingly competitive. How does Reacheffect manage to maintain traffic quality and help advertisers scale in 2025–2026? And what role does analytics play in this process?
Reacheffect’s Answer:
“From the very beginning, we built Reacheffect as a network focused not on volume for the sake of volume, but on quality and long-term partnerships with advertisers. Push and popunder are highly sensitive formats – without full control at every stage, scaling quickly turns into pure budget burn.
That’s why we invest heavily in anti-fraud systems and manual source moderation. We don’t promise ‘perfect traffic,’ but we do everything possible to ensure advertisers see real results in terms of conversions and ROI. This is exactly why many of our clients stay with us for years – consistent and predictable performance always speaks for itself.
Another major focus is support and expertise. Our team doesn’t just assist at launch – we actively help during optimization as well. We share whitelists, advise on which formats and approaches perform best in specific verticals, and help advertisers find profitable setups faster.
At the same time, we understand that as volumes grow, standard network-level statistics are no longer enough. Effective scaling requires flexible analytics and infrastructure that allow deeper traffic analysis. When combined with Alanbase, advertisers gain the ability to analyze push and popunder traffic in real time, segment it in detail by sources and parameters, and make fast, data-driven decisions.
As a result, this combination provides full funnel control: Reacheffect delivers volume and traffic quality, while Alanbase handles analysis, distribution, and scaling. This approach becomes especially critical in 2026, when reaction speed and decision accuracy are key success factors.”
Push traffic in 2026 is no longer about “cheap traffic” or quick hacks. It’s a channel that requires a systematic approach, mature analytics, and a deep understanding of how to work with user attention in a highly competitive environment.
As Reacheffect’s experience shows, the advertisers who win are those who:
Push and popunder formats remain among the most resilient acquisition channels – but their full potential is unlocked only when backed by strong infrastructure. This is exactly what the Reacheffect + Alanbase combination delivers: the network provides stable volume and quality, while the platform offers tools for deep analysis, traffic distribution, and scalable growth.
In 2026, the real competitive advantage won’t belong to those who can simply launch push campaigns – but to those who can control, optimize, and scale push traffic at a systemic level. This approach is rapidly becoming the new standard for working with push traffic.
