Is It Out of Scope? — SEO & marketing
Is adding push notifications out of scope for a SEO / marketing project?
Yes. Push notifications are a distinct marketing/engagement channel and a development build, neither of which an organic-search-focused SEO retainer covers, even when the client is thinking of it as part of the same broader marketing effort.
A client thinking broadly about "getting more out of our marketing" sometimes brings push notifications to the SEO team — it's another way to re-engage visitors, so it can feel adjacent to organic growth work. But push notifications are a retention/engagement channel with their own strategy (opt-in flows, send cadence, targeting) and their own build requirements, sitting closer to lifecycle marketing or product than to organic search.
Is it out of scope?
Yes. Both the strategic side (notification strategy, targeting, cadence) and the technical build are outside an SEO retainer's scope, which is specifically about organic search visibility and rankings. This is a genuinely different channel and discipline, not an extension of SEO work into a new tactic.
Clause typically implicated
Clause typically implicated
Exclusions clause→ — The retainer covers organic search visibility specifically — other marketing channels and any development work to support them are excluded even when framed as part of a broader growth effort.
Example contract wording
Example contract wording (illustrative, not legal advice)
Push notifications are a different channel from what our retainer covers — it's more of a retention/engagement play than organic search, and building it out means development work on top of the strategy. Happy to talk through how it might fit into your broader marketing mix, but it'd need to be scoped separately or handled by whoever's leading that channel.
How MarginFlow flags it
MarginFlow flags push-notification requests outside_scope on SEO contracts by default, since they don't map to organic search deliverables under any framing — the explanation notes this is a different marketing channel entirely, which helps the account manager respond without it reading as a flat refusal to help with the client's broader goal.