The Basics of Successful Push Notifications for Mobile Applications

    Our Techmas developers are often confronted with push notifications. Despite the simplicity and popularity of the technology, there are a number of features in its implementation, which will be discussed in this article.





    Push messages can be a great marketing tool if they are properly implemented. Any mobile application or game must fulfill not only its direct functions, but also (even to a greater extent) interact with users so that the latter with pleasure return to the application and buy add-ons to it. By the way, according to statisticsKahuna’s service, well-designed push notifications have increased user return rates by more than 2 times. The analyzed periods: 30, 60, 90 days. But before we talk about competent implementation, let's see how push notifications work.

    Push Notification Technology Overview



    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 advantageous 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 .engaged in the distribution of stock market news. The same system has long been used by US courts to send process data to subscribers. Microsoft and Netscape later incorporated the technology into their browsers, but due to the low connection speed of users at that time, it was supplanted by the RSS pull technology. And only then the term became widely known after the introduction of technology by Google in Android OS ( Google Cloud Messaging , GCM) and Apple in iOS 3 ( Apple Push Notification Service , APNS). Using the latter as an example, consider an elementary scheme of Push notifications.

    The scheme of work of Push Notification on the example of the APNS service




    It's important to know! In order for a notification to be displayed on the device’s screen, the application itself does not have to be launched - it is for the realization of this advantage that the OS acts as an intermediary. By the way, this approach allows you to save both the battery charge of the smartphone (phone) and traffic.
    • To receive push messages, the OS must register a mobile application;
    • OS requests APNS device identifier (token);
    • The application receives the token from the APNS server;
    • The application sends the token back to the server so that the server then uses it to send push notifications;
    • When an event defined by the developer occurs, the server, using tokens, sends push messages through APNS;
    • APNS does notifications in the app.

    Why do we need intermediate services


    There are nuances in push notifications for different mobile platforms (Android, iOS, Windows Phone). Suppose, if the application was deleted by the user, then all services report which devices should no longer send notifications. This process is carried out by informing the server of the tokens of these devices. However, if GCM sends identifiers immediately, then APNS has a special feedback server (feedback server), from which a list of such tokens is collected once a day. For routine work with these differences, intermediate services are needed.

    In the case of developing a mobile application using some cross-platform solution (for example, Appcelerator) such an intermediate service is usually integrated into it. For example, in the same Appcelerator, this is Appcelerator Cloud Services (ACS), which is an additional notification channel service. Such a channel (channel) combines several devices, being a kind of identifier consisting of numbers and letters. ACS makes it possible to send push and token devices. So, this intermediate service takes on 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 introduced into it that issues ACS;
    • Any notification is a JSON format dictionary consisting of a device token, some overhead 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 on certain tokens or device channels.

    • Devices, depending on their operating system, receive push messages from GCM or APNS.

    Subscription form. The modern user does not like obsession. For this reason, it is better not to show the notification subscription dialog box at the time the application starts, because the user does not yet know if he will be interested in your newsletters. It’s good if the subscription form for push about, for example, new prices for goods appears only when the user activates a subscription to lots or areas of interest to him. Or agrees to receive push notifications in the application settings.

    Notification form. Immediately give out interesting information, better in the title. The same push-ups of the type “New sales in our store” do not work: give specifics. It is also good to use Deep Linking (indicate in the message external links to a specific page on the site).

    Flexible setup.The more detailed the setting of exactly what the user wants to receive a message about within your product, the better. Personalized newsletters always have a greater response. Allow the user to customize notifications as they are interested and convenient, with as much detail as possible.

    User interest. Tell the user what they want to hear, not what you want to tell them. To do this, you need to collect information about what is interesting to the user. A simple push about a new restaurant from the city guide cannot be compared with a push about a new restaurant in the area where the user lives with information about morning discounts - he often has breakfast in the cafe. Analytics and analytics again.

    Statistics.It needs to be collected in order to understand: when it is more efficient to send messages; What types of notifications are more effective; how much those who receive your push are more likely to enter the application than those who are not signed; how many users opened the application for this or that push; other types of user behavior analysis.

    Testing. Use different forms of subscription, notification texts, mailing times and a common push strategy. Stay tuned for reviews online - this will give you rich information on how to improve the newsletter.

    Sound notifications. Customize your, unique. To let the user know that a new message has come from your application. Do not make it annoying - make it comfortable.

    Push Automation Services


    Push Woosh . It provides convenient and understandable reports, is compatible with many platforms, perfectly segments the audience according to different groups of signs.

    Urban Airship . It targets and analyzes the audience, allows you to choose various strategies for user retention and create advanced format notifications.

    Appsfire`s Appbooster . Free service with a standard feature set.

    Parse Push . Allows you to collect unique data for analytics, easily integrates into any application.

    In conclusion, we note that push notifications, of course, are a simple and effective way to return and hold the user in particular and a powerful marketing tool in general. But this is from the point of view of the user. From the side of the developer, there are some difficulties. The implementation of notifications is highly dependent on external input: changes in the OS or in intermediate software lead to the need to refine the application. So, a new tool Arrow Push appeared in Appcelerator, which replaced ACS - and this is just one example. Moreover, push delivery is not guaranteed in principle, and this raises the question of the reliability of 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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