1. A computer-implemented method comprising: identifying third-party content objects associated with a user of the social networking system; establishing, by a computer, for each of a plurality of time periods of a day, a maximum rate at which to provide notifications of third-party content objects to the user, where the maximum rate is a maximum number of notifications that can be sent to the user during a particular time period; providing a first set of notifications of third-party content objects to a user device of the user within the maximum rate for each of the plurality of time periods; identifying user interactions with the first set of notifications; identifying patterns in the user interactions describing characteristics of the user's interactions with the first set of notifications; adjusting the maximum rate for each of the plurality of time periods based at least in part on the identified patterns; and providing a second set of notifications of third-party content objects to the user device within the adjusted maximum rate for each of the plurality of time periods.