Our developers at Techmas are often faced with push notifications. Despite the simplicity and popularity of the technology, its implementation has a number of features that will be discussed in this article.
Push messages can be a great marketing tool if implemented wisely. Any mobile application or game should perform not only its direct functions, but also (even to a greater extent) interact with users in such a way that the latter are happy to return to the application and buy add-ons to it. By the way, according to the statistics of the Kahuna service, well-designed push notifications have more than doubled the rate of user returns to applications. Periods analyzed: 30, 60, 90 days. But before we talk about a smart implementation, let's see how push notifications work.
General information about Push Notification technology
Push notifications are a way of distributing content (system messages), when notifications are sent from the server to the client at the initiative of the server based on certain parameters. Unlike the reverse client-server (Pull) scheme, push technology is beneficial in that it gives the user targeted information that may be useful to him, but he may not yet know about this benefit.
Initially, Push Notification technology was not related to mobile applications, but to the PointCast network, which was engaged in sending out stock market news. The same system has long been used by the US courts to send data about the processes to subscribers. Later, Microsoft and Netscape incorporated the technology into their browsers, but due to the slow connection speed of users at the time, it was supplanted by RSS pull technology. And only then the term became widely known after the technology was introduced by Google in the Android OS (Google Cloud Messaging, GCM) and by Apple in iOS 3 (Apple Push Notification Service, APNS). Using the latter as an example, let us consider the elementary scheme of how Push notifications work.
How Push Notification works using the APNS service as an example
It's important to know! In order for the notification to be displayed on the device screen, the application itself does not have to be launched - it is to realize this advantage that the OS acts as an intermediary here. By the way, this approach allows you to save both the battery charge of your smartphone (phone) and traffic.
- To receive Push messages, the OS must register the mobile application;
- OS asks APNS for a device identifier (token);
- The application receives a token from the APNS server;
- The application sends the token back to the server so that the server can use it to send push notifications later;
- When an event, defined by the developer, occurs, the server, using tokens, sends Push messages via APNS;
- APNS sends notifications to the app.
Why intermediate services are needed
There are some nuances in sending push notifications for different mobile platforms (Android, iOS, Windows Phone). For example, if the application was deleted by the user, then all services inform about which devices should no longer send notifications. This process is carried out by sending the tokens of these devices to the server. However, if GCM sends identifiers immediately, then APNS has a special feedback server, from which a list of such tokens is taken once a day. For routine work with these differences, intermediate services are needed.In the case of developing a mobile application using any cross-platform solution (for example, Appcelerator), such an intermediate service is usually integrated into it. Let's say in the same Appcelerator it is Appcelerator Cloud Services (ACS), which is an additional service of notification channels. Such a channel (channel) unites several devices, being a kind of identifier, consisting of numbers and letters. ACS makes it possible to send push notifications by device token. So, this intermediate service takes over the function of updating information about devices and interacts with APNS and GCM.
The scheme of such interaction looks like this: 
- When developing a mobile application, a key is inserted into it, which is issued by ACS;
- Any notification is a JSON dictionary consisting of a device token, some service information, and a payload. Payload is the data itself that is sent to the phone.
- Server using the key:
- gets a list of channels and devices subscribed to channels;
- subscribes (and unsubscribes) devices to specific channels;
- sends push notifications to all devices or only to certain tokens or device channels.
- Devices, depending on their operating system, receive push messages from GCM or APNS.
Form of notification. Provide interesting information right away, preferably in the title. Identical push notifications like "New sales in our store" do not work: give specific information. It's also a good idea to use Deep Linking (include external links to a specific page of the site in the message).
Flexible customization. The more detailed the setting of what exactly within your product the user wants to receive a message about, the better. Personalized newsletters always get a better response. Let the user customize notifications in a way that is interesting and convenient for him, with as much detail as possible.
User interest. Tell the user what he wants to hear, not what you want to tell him. To do this, you need to collect information about what is interesting to the user. A simple push about a new restaurant from a city guide cannot be compared to a push about a new restaurant in the area where the user lives with information about morning discounts - after all, he often has breakfast in a cafe. Analytics and more analytics.
Statistics. It needs to be collected in order to understand: when is it more efficient to send messages; what types of notifications are more effective; how often those who receive your push notifications enter the application more often than those who are not subscribed; how many users opened the application for a particular push; other types of analysis of user behavior.
Testing. Use different subscription forms, notification texts, distribution times and a general push strategy. Follow the reviews on the net - it will give you a wealth of information on how to improve your newsletter.
Sound of notifications. Customize your own, unique. To let the user know that the new message came from your application. Don't make it annoying - make it comfortable.
Push automation services
Push Woosh. Provides convenient and understandable reports, is compatible with many platforms, perfectly segments the audience according to different groups of attributes.Urban Airship. Performs audience targeting and analysis, allows you to choose various user retention strategies and create rich notifications.
Appsfire`s Appbooster. Free service with a standard set of functions.
Parse Push. Allows you to collect unique data for analytics, can be easily integrated into any application.
In conclusion, we note that push notifications are, of course, a simple and effective way to return and retain a user in particular, and a powerful marketing tool in general. But this is from the user's point of view. On the part of the developer, there are some difficulties. The implementation of notifications is highly dependent on external inputs: changes in the OS or in the middleware lead to the need to refine the application. For example, Appcelerator has a new Arrow Push tool that replaced ACS - and this is just one example. Moreover, the delivery of the push is not guaranteed in principle, and this raises the question of the reliability of the Push Notification technology. However, any technology has its pros and cons, and what outweighs in this case is an open question.
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Hello everyone. After a long break, I return to writing useful content. I will continue the topic of the relationship between the site administrator and visitors. The following topic is on the agenda: push notifications, what are they, what are the advantages of push notifications. This is another way.
What are push notifications and what are the benefits
With a 100% guarantee, I can say that you have seen push notifications on the site, even if you do not know what they are. When you visit sites, more and more often you can see a pop-up window with an offer to subscribe to news.
If you give your consent, subscribe, you will receive short messages. Messages are usually displayed in the lower right corner of the monitor. So, these short pop-up notifications on the screen of a computer or mobile phone are push notifications. The window contains brief information in one sentence, an announcement of something, an image and a link to the site.
Push in translation from English means "push, push." On the Internet, this is one of the methods of delivering information from the service provider to the user. It is a very effective marketing tool.
How browser push notifications work
Not all browsers support push notification technology. At the moment these are: Chrome, Safari, Opera, Firefox.
To send a push message to users, you first need to get his consent. There is no other way. The site administrator installs a special program, or uses a special one that provides all the functionality.
Benefits of browser push messages
User friendliness. Whether or not to subscribe to push notifications is a personal matter. But …
- By subscribing, you will quickly learn about new information, if it is a news site; about a promotion in a store - this can be a prize, in the case of a temporary promotion, or a restriction on the quantity of goods.
- Time. There is no need to check your mailbox while waiting for a letter. As soon as the admin deems it necessary, he will send a push message.
- An important convenience is that the notification will come to the desktop even when the browser is turned off. You work in WORD and still don't miss the message.
Convenience for webmasters. What is the main task and problem of webmasters. Traffic.
- By means of push notifications, you can communicate with your subscribers and thus attract additional traffic to the site.
- Push notifications are an alternative way to collect a subscription base. Fewer website visitors subscribe to the e-mail newsletter. I judge this from my blog. From the moment the subscription form was installed on the site and push notifications were set up, the results are as follows. 11 people subscribed to the e-mail database (which is very few), and 861 people subscribed to push notifications! The difference is felt. By the way, I installed the subscription form on the site.
Why it happens? Subscribing is much easier. The visitor does not need to enter contact information about himself. Some are probably afraid. Subscription happens in one! cry.
- The open rate is also high. I can compare by statistics on the e-mail base. There was a subscriber base on Smartresponder.
- Easy installation. It will take you 15 minutes to activate the push notifications function. You need to install the code in the root of the site.
- Preparation for sending a message is also minimal. No need to write letters, just one but an attractive offer. After reading it, the user decides to follow the link, or “not notice”.
- Using specialized services you can. For example, .
Push notifications: use or not
The benefits of push notifications for website owners are obvious. There should be no doubt about using this type of communication with site visitors. New opportunities must be used. Nowadays, push message technology has broken through into the field of internet marketing.
The main thing is not to bother your subscribers. It is clear that push notifications are an effective method to attract visitors, but you shouldn't bombard them with messages. It is worth giving information on the topic of the site. Push notifications should ultimately contain relevant content. You can always unsubscribe.
It remains to decide on the way to implement the function on the site. I prefer to use ready-made solutions. There are many services, both paid and free, that provide this opportunity. My choice - . This is a service for e-mail newsletters, push notifications, sms and viber. Using push notifications and 2500 e-mail subscribers is free.
The article was not small. Therefore, I will tell you in the next one.
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Good luck!
You probably accept notifications to your e-mail: go to the mail client and see the letters that have come. In this case, this technology is a pull technology, i.e. you go to the site and "pull" data from it when you need it.
In the case of push notifications, the resource pushes the new data to you. At the same time, you immediately receive the latest data, because this technology does not have a certain period of data verification, they come online. By using push notifications, you do not have to receive notifications. Through push technology, you can, for example, synchronize data if it has been updated.
Notifications are:
- Browser - via push api or via add-on
- Mobile - via mobile application
- On a PC via an application, regardless of the browser
Browser (web) push notifications
They come to the browser from the site the user is subscribed to. They can come to both the computer and the android device in the chrome browser, but iOS devices cannot receive web pushes under any circumstances.This is what different types of notifications look like in the Chrome browser.
First notification made via standard Notification API, second done via Push API. These alerts do not disappear - but they do not have anti-aliasing applied on many platforms. (you can see from the quality of the pictures)
Third push is done via Rich Notification. These notifications come through extensions, they may contain additional information, buttons, an image under the notification. There are more opportunities - but they are automatically hidden, although it is possible that in the future it will be available from the "fix".
These are chrome alerts, but there are also Firefox and Safari alerts.
Firefox
Safari
These types of notifications provide many web push notification services. However, we want to explain to you that sending notifications by itself is free... These notifications are sent through:
GCM: Google, completely free, you just need to create a key in the developer console
APNS: Apple, any familiar developer with a certificate is required, or for $ 100 a year you can take it yourself
MSP: Mozilla Push Service, completely free. You don't even need to register. Open standard.
We warn you, you do not need to pay several thousand rubles for the number of notifications or subscribers. Since the mailing service itself is free (unlike, for example, SMS, where you have to pay to the operator), you can take money only for the services of an intermediary, convenience, statistics, etc. But it doesn’t cost a few thousand rubles, especially as the number of subscribers grows. Yes, the load from a million notifications per hour will be significant - you can pay money for such numbers, because your server may not be able to handle it. But believe me - sending even 100 thousand notifications per day is nonsense. Through GCM, you can send more than 5-7 thousand pushes in 5-7 packets per second. Many web push services require 1,000 rubles a month or more. For 1 second of work of a small script.
PushAll supports all these types of notifications and allows you to send mailings absolutely free of charge and without restrictions.
Mobile push notifications
These are notifications sent to your mobile phone from various applications.
For example, notifications on Android, through the PushAll application, looks like this
And like this on iOS in our application
You will not be able to embed these alerts "natively" on your site. It is possible to receive browser notifications on android via chrome, but these notifications are very bulky and of poor quality, the difference can be appreciated in the example below:
Compare alerts
You can, for example, send an alert via telegram (1)
, but then you will not have an icon for your site, and when clicked, the user will get into a dialogue, and not immediately to your resource. (2)
This is just a browser notification on Android, in this screenshot it is not so noticeable, but the image is of a lower quality, an extra button with settings, and a line with the website address. Plus, due to content updates, an unnecessary alert may appear. (4)
... Native solution via app (3)
is the most attractive solution for the user.
Moto 360 smartwatch push notifications:
The difference is most noticeable on a smartwatch. Above web notification, bottom notification via app
Also, notifications on Android in the latest version of our application can be grouped by channels:
Grouping notifications on Android
Android
History inside the iOS app
Exotic alerts
You have already seen above that notifications from our service can even come through telegrams. Due to this, users who actively use telegrams can easily connect. We also send email alerts. In this case, notifications come in "batches" at specified intervals.
As a result, it turns out that we provide a secure "bridge" between the user and a third-party service. The user can entrust his email account to an intermediate party in which he is confident and not afraid that his email account will be compromised or he will end up on a spam list. At the same time, the sending site also does not pay for mailing lists as well as for all other types of notifications.
Emails come in the style of alerts
What are the most popular types of alerts?
We have a lot of experience in sending push notifications, we have sent over 60 million of them. Below is the data on 33,214 devices in our system, as well as which devices and connection methods users prefer:- 11936 35% - Android application
- 6992 22% - Chrome addon
- 6204 18% - WebPush
- 3514 11% - Telegram
- 2688 8% - Email
- 1465 4% - SocketPush
- 227 1% - iOS
- 188 1% - Safari
As a result, we want to convey to our readers that the implementation of web push notifications on your site will cover only 18% of the needs of your audience, you lose mobile users, you lose those who had a bad experience with web push notifications, and much more.
The high share of Email and SocketPush is also interesting. For the user, this is the most secure method when he can open a website and receive notifications from services, and then close it and they will stop interfering with him. At the same time, you need to understand that the same principle works here as in other Push notifications - when a user appears online - all missed notifications come... For some reason, many web push notification services present this function as an innovation, but this is already incorporated into the GCM and APNS protocols.
It is interesting to see the statistics for the last 2 weeks, the fact is that we have recently released an application for iOS, and we have updated the application for Android and everything has changed somewhat.
It should be borne in mind that new large channels did not increase during this time - that is, this is a purely passive influx of new users - 950 devices.
- 202 20% - WebPush
- 72 8% - iOS
- 38 4% - Email
- 3 about 0% - Safari
- 1 about 0% - SocketPush
What if I still need clean web push notifications on my site?
Let's start with what you need:1. SSL certificate. It can be obtained for free, but its main problem is not that it can be bought or obtained. The main problem is the load. The fact is that when making an encrypted connection, a lot of server resources are consumed. This means that if your server handled the load without SSL, but was loaded by 50%, most likely you will have to buy 2-3 more servers, or make a very big optimization. Also, during the moments of mailings, you will need to give the content (title and text) notifications to all users who will accept it. That is, if you have 100 thousand subscribers, then several thousand requests will come to your server in 10 seconds and they will all require SSL Handshake.
2. Device control and database. You will need to record each user and their key, make sure that it is new (it is sometimes updated), discard old data, collect statistics yourself, etc.
3. Key for GCM in Google Console - it's free. To send alerts on Safari, you need a developer account - it costs $ 100 per year.
Inappropriate use of notifications, especially if you call the request window as soon as the user enters the site, can lead to disastrous consequences.
IGuides users are "very happy" about the alerts
The fact is that many users activate alerts without understanding what it is. In fact, if the user has not confirmed his desire to receive mailings from you (in his right mind), and you send him content, then by law this is spam. That is, any user who inadvertently clicks "Allow" on your site, and you do not warn him on your site that you will send him notifications, may sue you for spam.
You can implement the notifications yourself, and we will not completely rewrite it here (only if later, in detail, the instructions themselves with the code)
Are there out-of-the-box solutions for browser notifications?
If you yourself cannot implement notifications, but you just need browser notifications on your site, you can try OneSignal, for example. They provide good alerts, and free plans should be enough.In no case use services that ask you for money for the number of subscribers. The fact is that over time, more and more users will prohibit these alerts on your site. You will find that some of your alerts are missing. At first it will be 30%, then 40% and it may even go up to 80%. In this case, you will be required to pay for the full number of subscribers.
Also pay attention to small text - some services limit alerts. For example, a limit of 30 notifications per month for each user. What does it mean? This means that you can send 1 alert per day to all users. If you have articles on your site, this is still not so bad - you can select one important one and send it. If you need to send private messages and sometimes more than 1 notification per day, this is unacceptable. Such services will charge you a full monthly fee for every 30 notifications - for free notifications.
Outcomes
Push notifications are a useful tool, but you need to know how to work with it and know the pitfalls. This market is just developing now, there are services that require money "for novelty". But in fact, in the entire civilized world, notifications have been used for a long time, and there they are already mostly free. You also need to take into account the interests of users and not limit them in the choice of methods for receiving notifications.We've provided you with strong evidence that alerts are used across multiple platforms and users love this approach. And if users are happy, then notifications will be perceived from a positive side. Users will receive the most useful information from you in a form convenient for them, which will expand the active audience of your resource.
Push notifications are short pop-up notifications that appear on the screen of a mobile phone or regular computer and inform about important events and updates. Used effectively, these short informative messages are a powerful marketing tool. The main purpose of push notifications is to inform users about website or app updates, new content, or any other news.
Initially, push notifications appeared precisely as a way of interaction of mobile applications with users of mobile devices, but recently the technology of browser push notifications or web push has also become very popular.
Let's start with a new trend, namely, browser push notifications.
If we talk about browser push-notifications or web-push, these are messages from sites that appear as pop-up windows on the user's desktop, if the latter has given permission to receive them. When clicking on such a notification, the user will be redirected to a specific page of the site from which the notification came.
This is what an invitation to subscribe to a notification from a site looks like.
To make it easier to understand how browser push notifications work, you can take a look at this diagram.
The push notification itself consists of a title, a picture, a short text and a link to the sender's site. This is what it roughly looks like when it appears on your desktop.
Why are Internet marketers and business owners interested in browser push notifications?
First of all, because it is an alternative method of building your own subscriber base compared to email newsletters. When comparing email and push notifications, push notifications have their advantages, namely:
- Easy to subscribe. To subscribe to push notifications, you just need to click on one button in the pop-up browser window and the subscription is done.
- A high percentage of delivery and referrals. According to some estimates, the percentage of delivery of push notifications is up to 90%, and the percentage of transitions to sites on push notifications reaches up to 50%.
- Just plug in. In order to enable sending push notifications on your website, you just need to install just a few lines of code on it.
- Convenient to send. You can set up automatic episodes or RSS feeds.
Web push notifications can be used by Internet marketers for various purposes. Here are just a few of the options:
- Trigger notifications
- Sales
- News / novelties
- Reminders
- Congratulations
- Developments
Sendpulse offers one of the most popular push notification services. Its main advantages are ease of use, the ability to segment the audience, as well as the ability to integrate SMS, email and webpush - mailings. In addition, the Send Pulse push notification service is absolutely free at the moment.
Use cases for mobile push notifications.
Let's now touch on mobile push notifications as well. How do they work and how can they be useful to your business? Four main areas were identified in applying these notifications to improve business.
The bulk of mobile push notifications (41%) are used to announce the release of new applications or new versions of existing ones. The second, no less important, application (24%) is sending special offers or links to specific landing pages. To inform users about new content available in the application, 14% of push notifications are used, and 12% are used to send referral or advertising links. The remaining 9% is used for other types of information.
New marketing channels.
The concept of push notifications made its way into marketing very quickly. But there is a fine line between cooperation and over-intrusiveness. Push notifications should provide the user with valuable information and encourage long-term collaboration. Therefore, messages must be timely and contain relevant content. For example, if a developer of children's apps sells space for push notifications to a coffee company, then such messages will be considered spam. This will not create a relationship - the application will lose its popularity. Some marketers use GPS technology to send mobile push notifications when a user is near their retail locations. This type of user interaction looks more preferable. The main thing is to provide the information that users want to receive in a timely manner.
Also, an effective use of push notifications is to inform the user about the actions of his friends. For example, facebook uses browser push notifications to inform users about new comments to their posts.
If you're going to use mobile or browser push notifications as part of your marketing plan, make sure you follow these simple guidelines:
- Content must be relevant, relevant
- Content must be linked to social media for discussion
- Providing the ability to unsubscribe from the mailing list
- Don't exaggerate with the number of notifications - more than six messages a day will annoy most users.
First of all, remember that it's all about practice. Your first push notification campaign may not be perfect, but the lessons learned will give you the impetus for further improvement.
Push notifications are pop-up messages that contain a short text, a picture, and a link to the sender's site. Initially, they were used only in mobile applications, but in recent years, the technology of browser push notifications, or web push, has become popular.
For sites, such notifications are an effective way to build their own subscriber base. In order to become one of them, the user just needs to click on the button in the pop-up browser window. After that, web push messages pop up with sound and and on top of all windows on the computer screen, even when the browser is not running.
Who sends them and why users need it
Push notifications are actively used by news portals, online stores, travel agencies and even some banks. The media thus announce new articles, online stores - promotions, sales or product updates; travel agencies - current offers on hotels and tours, banks - mailings on their products. In addition, this way you can receive notifications about payment for goods, reminders about the extension of service tariffs, confirmation of information about departure / departure (in the case of travel agencies), and other notifications.
The main advantage of push notifications is that, unlike e-mail newsletters, such messages are more targeted. Each registered subscriber is assigned an encrypted string (token). The token is unique for each domain, key and device type. Thanks to this, a user who subscribes to web push from a work PC will not receive additional notifications on his mobile phone or personal computer. Therefore, it is also impossible to take the base of tokens of other people's subscribers: for each site the token will be its own.
Why is everyone complaining about web push
The disadvantages of push notifications stem from their own advantages: not all companies use this method for their intended purpose, continuous text messages with the same type of advertising turn into spam. If a user has too many subscriptions to notifications from different sites, at some point it becomes annoying.
How to disable push notifications in your browser if you don't like them:
In Google Chrome:
Launch the Chrome browser on your computer, click on three dots in the upper right corner of the window and go to "Settings";
At the bottom of the page, click "Additional";
In the "Privacy and Security" section, select "Content Settings";
Select "Notifications";
Choose a suitable option:
1) block all notifications - disable the "Ask for permission before sending" option.
2) block notifications from a specific site - next to the "Block" label, click "Add", enter the page address and select "Add" again;
In order to re-allow notifications from a specific site, next to the "Block" label, click "Add", enter the page address and select "Add" again.
In Safari:
You can hide site requests to send notifications in Safari by choosing Safari> Preferences> Websites> Notifications. In the last section, uncheck the "Allow websites to request permission to send push notifications" checkbox. From now on, Safari will not ask you when you visit websites that might send notifications. You can also connect notifications again, if necessary, in the browser settings.
In the Yandex browser:
To create this browser, the same engine was used as in Chrome, so the algorithm of actions here will be almost the same. In order to turn off notifications, you need to go to "Settings", then open "Additional", find the section "Personal data" in them and click on the "Content settings" button. In the "Notifications" item, then you must select "Do not show notifications from sites" and click "Finish".
In Opera:
Click on the "Menu" icon with the Opera icon, go to "Settings" and select "Sites" in the list of sections. After that, in the left part of the window, find the item "Notifications" and check the item "Prevent sites from showing system notifications".
In Mozilla Firefox:
Firefox - All Browser Exception: You can also turn off notifications here by ticking the Do Not Disturb option in Content Settings, but they will only be blocked until you restart your browser. Users who want to disable push notifications once and for all should open a new tab in the browser and enter the command about: config in the address bar.
After that, the browser will show a warning about the risk of changing the settings - you need to confirm that you accept it. Then type dom.push.enabled in the search bar. In the window that appears, switch the parameter value from true to false. This means you can forget about push notifications.
