It's 9 AM. Your Push CTR Dropped 40%. Now What?
9:00 AM โ The Alert
9:30 AM โ The Investigation Begins
Here’s what your analytics tool showed you:
Sent: 50,000
Delivered: 42,000
Clicks: 3,444
CTR: 8.2%
Here’s what Hood shows you:
Overall CTR: 8.2%
But wait. Click on “Report Designer.” Drag “Browser name” into dimensions. Drag “CTR” into measures. Hit preview.
| Browser | CTR |
|---|---|
| Chrome | 15.1% |
| Firefox | 14.8% |
| Safari | 3.2% |
| Edge | 13.9% |
Safari is destroying your average.
Drag “OS name” next to Browser. Preview again.
| Browser | OS | CTR |
|---|---|---|
| Chrome | Windows | 16.2% |
| Chrome | Android | 14.1% |
| Safari | iOS | 3.2% |
| Safari | macOS | 11.8% |
It’s not Safari. It’s Safari on iOS specifically.
Two minutes of dragging and dropping. No SQL. No data team ticket. No waiting three days.
You found the problem.
10:00 AM โ Going Deeper
But why Safari iOS? Time to check delivery.
Open “Campaign Delivery Summary” from Quick Reports. Filter by the problem campaign.
Delivery Rate by Browser:
| Browser | Sent | Delivered | Delivery Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chrome | 28,000 | 26,500 | 94.6% |
| Safari iOS | 15,000 | 9,200 | 61.3% |
| Others | 7,000 | 6,300 | 90.0% |
Safari iOS delivery rate collapsed.
Now you’re getting somewhere. But 61% delivered doesn’t explain 3% CTR. Even if only 61% received it, they should still click at normal rates.
Unless… they never saw it at all.
Back to Report Designer. This time, add “Provider name” and “Error code” dimensions.
| Provider | Error Code | Count |
|---|---|---|
| APNs | 410 | 4,200 |
| APNs | 400 | 1,600 |
| FCM | - | 12 |
APNs Error 410: Unregistered device. The token is no longer valid.
APNs Error 400: Bad request. Something’s wrong with the payload.
4,200 of your iOS users have invalid tokens. They uninstalled, switched phones, or revoked permissions โ and you’re still trying to send to them.
1,600 more are failing because of a payload issue.
Your “CTR problem” isn’t a CTR problem. It’s a token hygiene problem and a payload bug.
10:30 AM โ The Fix
Problem 1: Invalid tokens
4,200 users with Error 410 need to be cleaned from your list. They’re gone. Stop sending to them.
In Hood, you can see exactly which profiles have invalid credentials. Clean them out. Your delivery rate will jump immediately, and your CTR will normalize because you’re not dividing by ghosts anymore.
Problem 2: Payload errors
1,600 Error 400s mean something in your push payload is malformed for iOS. Check your message โ maybe a special character, maybe a field that iOS doesn’t accept.
You find it: an emoji in the title that iOS 16 doesn’t render correctly, causing the notification to fail silently.
Remove the emoji. Test again.
11:00 AM โ The Meeting
Your weekly meeting is at 11. An hour ago, you had a 40% CTR drop and no explanation.
Now you walk in with:
“Push CTR dropped because Safari iOS delivery failed. 4,200 invalid tokens from users who churned in December, plus 1,600 payload failures from an emoji compatibility issue. Tokens cleaned, payload fixed, expect recovery by Wednesday.”
Your manager nods. Your job is safe. You look like a genius.
You’re not a genius. You just have analytics that actually tell you things.
What Made This Possible
The difference between panic and clarity was three things:
1. Dimensional analysis
Generic tools show you totals. Hood lets you slice by any combination of dimensions: browser, OS, country, campaign, provider, error code, profile age, and dozens more.
Not “CTR went down.” But “CTR went down for Safari iOS users because APNs is returning Error 410 for 4,200 profiles.”
2. Quick Reports that don’t suck
Six categories of pre-built reports, ready to filter and export:
- Campaigns โ Delivery rates, performance, bounce analysis by campaign
- Profile Growth & Engagement โ How your audience is growing (or shrinking)
- Unsubscribed Profiles โ Who left and when
- Top Channels โ Which channels actually perform
- A/B Tests โ Which variants win, by segment
- NPS โ Promoters, Passives, Detractors breakdown
Click. Filter. Export. No SQL required.
3. Provider error tracking
Most tools say “delivery failed.” Hood says “APNs Error 410: 4,200 failures. APNs Error 400: 1,600 failures. FCM timeout: 12 failures.”
You can’t fix what you can’t see. And generic tools don’t let you see anything useful.
The Question You Should Ask Your Analytics Tool
Next time your metrics drop, ask your dashboard one question:
“Why?”
If the answer is a blank stare and a red arrow, you have a reporting tool.
If the answer is “Safari iOS, APNs Error 410, 4,200 affected profiles, here’s the list” โ you have Hood.
Still guessing why your numbers move?