Hello, Engagelings.
Exciting news: we just added a new way for you to supercharge your engagement using PushEngage.
You can now send Android and iOS app push notifications.
But wait, couldn’t you already send push notifications to Android and iOS devices?
Well… Yes, and no. You could already have sent Android and iOS web push notifications. Now, you can also send app push notifications.
So, what does this mean?
To be clear: App push notifications are a whole new channel for marketing if you have an app. If your primary audience uses your mobile app, app push notifications are better. For a broader, web-based audience, web push notifications are more suitable.
A lot of work went into this upgrade and we think that you’ll love it. It’s also a major update, so there’s a LOT to unpack.
Let’s dive in.
What’s Mobile App Push And Why Should You Care?
Mobile app push notifications are messages sent from an app directly to a user’s mobile device, providing updates, reminders, or personalized content, even when the app is not actively in use. They enhance user engagement by delivering timely and relevant information right to the user’s fingertips.
Of course, this is only helpful for you if have an app or are in the process of releasing a mobile app for your business in the future. If you’re been on the fence about releasing an app to grow your business, this might just be the right time for you. One of the biggest challenges that apps face is customer engagement. And PushEngage can now help you take away that pain completely.
For deeper, more frequent engagement, app pushes are preferable. For occasional updates or alerts, web pushes are effective. To this end, app notification campaigns offer better rich media and interactive content. App push notifications rely on data that web push notifications simply can’t use most of the time.
To be fair: You can create personalized web push notifications. But app push can go WAY deeper into personalization.
Mobile app push notifications go beyond just being a tool for communication; they are a powerful mechanism for enhancing user experience, driving engagement, and building a personalized connection with users.
They allow for a level of interactivity and personalization that can significantly contribute to the effectiveness of an app in retaining and engaging its users.
- Enhanced User Engagement:
- Contextual Relevance: App push notifications can be incredibly context-sensitive. They utilize user data like location, behavior, and preferences to send timely and relevant notifications. For example, a fitness app might send a motivational message right when you usually go for a run.
- Behavioral Triggering: Notifications can be triggered by specific user actions or inactions. This makes them highly effective for encouraging desired behaviors, such as reminding a user to complete a purchase they left in their cart.
- Rich User Experience:
- Multimedia Integration: Unlike basic text messages, app notifications can include images, audio, and even video. This rich media integration makes them more engaging and enjoyable.
- Interactive Elements: Some notifications allow users to interact directly from the lock screen or notification area. This could include actions like replying to a message, liking a post, or even controlling music playback.
- Personalized Communication:
- Tailored Content: Using data analytics, apps can send notifications that are highly personalized. This could be as simple as using your name or as complex as recommending products based on your browsing history.
- Segmentation and Targeting: Apps can segment their users based on various criteria and send targeted notifications. This ensures that users receive notifications that are relevant to their interests and needs.
- Customer Retention and Loyalty:
- Regular Engagement: By keeping users informed and engaged, app notifications can significantly improve customer retention.
- Loyalty Rewards: Notifications are an effective way to inform users about loyalty programs, special offers, and rewards, thereby enhancing customer loyalty.
- Analytical Insights:
- User Response Data: Apps can track how users interact with notifications, providing valuable insights into user preferences and behavior.
- A/B Testing: This data can be used to A/B test different notification strategies to see what works best, leading to more effective communication.
- Operational Efficiency:
- Automated Communication: Notifications can be automated based on certain criteria, reducing the need for manual intervention and ensuring timely communication.
By leveraging user data and behavior, app push notifications can transform the way businesses interact with their customers, making the communication more relevant, timely, and effective. This depth of engagement and personalization is what sets app push notifications apart and makes them a valuable asset in the digital communication strategy of any mobile application.
And if you need a more detailed guide, you should check out our documentation on how to set up iOS app push notifications and how to set up Android app push notifications.
What Does This Mean for Your Campaigns?
Now that you understand what mobile app push notifications are, it’s time understand what you’ll have to do to start sending those notifications using the PushEngage dashboard. Also, let’s check out what you can do right now.
A Low Code Solution for App Push Notifications
Right till now, you had to use skeleton SDKs to send app push notifications. The problem with using those SDKs is that they are pretty bare bones.
Theoretically, you can send any type of mobile app push campaigns with them. But then, you also have to build:
- An interface to manage your campaigns
- An analytics suite to track your campaign performance
- Better support for rich media and in-app redirection links (or deep links)
- Processes to liaise both marketing and development teams
All for the sake of introducing a single channel of growth. Using the old tools to send mobile app push notifications is tedious, expensive, resource-intensive, and time consuming. And of course, it requires deep coding skills in your team to develop and manage everything you build.
With the new PushEngage Android and iOS SDKs, you can send mobile app push using the same reliable software for great delivery rates. But we’ve built several layers on top that make it super easy to build custom integrations with your app. And PushEngage manages the entire SDK. So, you don’t even have to spend a ton of time and money to manage your integrations.
All you have to do is build!
You can send broadcast notifications directly from your PushEngage dashboard once you’ve set up your app to send mobile app push notifications using PushEngage’s SDK. Yes, you still have to add code to your app and develop the connectors between your app and the PushEngage API. But once that’s done, you can easily create mobile app push campaigns from a pre-built software interface that also comes with:
- Highly engaging push campaign types
- Proven campaign templates with high conversion rates
- Automated campaigns to promote your content whenever you publish
- Multiple targeting and campaign scheduling options
- Web push campaigns as a complementary growth channel
- Increased audience retention using data-based personalization
- Goal tracking and advanced analytics
- Smart A/B testing
- A Dedicated Success Manager
And so much more. We just took the pain out of developing Android and iOS mobile push campaigns for your app.
Establish Your Brand Identity
You can easily set an icon for Android mobile app push:
As well as a display image to make your mobile app push notifications more clickable:
You can do the same for iOS mobile app push as well. Set a media image for your iOS app push notification to make your campaign more eye-catching:
In other words, you can preserve your brand design guidelines pretty easily when you send mobile push notifications. And all that, from an easy to use interface that you’ll never have to manage!
Send More Targeted and Personalized Messages
For Android app push, you can create Groups and Channels to customize exactly what your notifications look, feel, and sound like.
A Group is a collection of notification types with a common name.
Think of it as categories in a blog. Inside each Group, you can add Channels:
A channel describes how your app notifications will behave when your users receive the notification. Will it show up over the lock screen? Should it show the app icon as the badge? What priority level will it have for your users? Do you want a custom notification sound to play when your users receive it?
All these settings can be configured within a channel.
For an iOS mobile app notification, there’s no concept of Group and Channel. However, you can create personalized notifications using other settings. You can set a notification sound, a category for your notifications, and a common thread ID to bundle them together.
You can even set a custom badge for that notification that shows how many unread notifications the user has received from your app.
Redirect Your Users to Any Link Inside Your App Or Outside It
Mobile app push has a unique feature called Deep Links. Deep links are like URLs, but ones that point to a screen inside your app. You can send your users to any screen you want using a Deep Link from the PushEngage dashboard, or you could send them to any regular URL on the web.
This means that you can get your users to open your app when you want to.
Or, even redirect them to the App Store or your website to leave a review of your app.
Of course, these are only basic ideas. You can use these links to run complex, multi-step engagement campaigns both inside and outside your app!
What Else?
We know that growing a business is hard work. At PushEngage, we’re always looking to improve our product and your experience. We launched this new feature to help you get even more value out of your PushEngage subscription.
Thank you so much for reading this announcement.
If you have any questions, our Customer Success team is here to help. Just start a conversation on Live Chat or check out our contact page.
And thank you for using PushEngage. Whether you’re using the free version or the Enterprise version, you’re just as important to us. The new targeting feature is meant to help you succeed and we wish you all the very best.
Let us know your thought in the comments below and if you haven’t already, get started with PushEngage today!
