They are rarely used, once a year probably. Too much time is invested into updating the extension so I used the less intrusive way possible to remind users they have it (and benefit from it) for free. I'm not happy with the solution either though.

If there's a better way to communicate with users, I'll be happy to switch. I don't like notifications much either

Not really true. It was a notification calling to support "I don't care about cookies" development.