Our push notification system has a great deal of options for customization that helps you target users the right way. The 4-step push send process is quick & simple, and you can do it right through your dashboard. To get started, just log into an app and click the Push Notifications header.
Step 1: Message
- Select the devices (iOS and/or Android) you’d like to send the push notification to.
- If you’d like to publish your message to social media sites (Facebook and/or Twitter), you can connect your account here. Once you’ve logged in, just check the box next to the site.
- Enter the text of the message. There’s a 128-character limit in place, because additional text wouldn’t appear in full on the device screen.
- The simulator on the right will give you an idea of how the home-screen alert would appear on an iOS device.
Step 2: Location
- Choose your Notification Audience here. Use the drop-down to change from All Users (the default) to Specific Area Users.
- Specific Area Users has two options: Radius and Geo-fence. When you select a specific location, you’ll see the Located App Users in that area reflected to the right. A Located App User is someone who enabled location services for the app when they installed it, and is currently within your radius or geo-fenced area.
- Radius allows you to set a circular send-zone around one location. You can input the latitude & longitude, or type in the address bar to look up a spot. Adjust the size of the zone with the Radius field, and use the unit drop-down to select kilometers or miles.
- Geo-fence allows you to set up a “fenced” area. When a user enters this area during the “active period” (Step 4), they’ll receive the push notification. You can jump to a region the same way you do with the Radius option, and also have the added option of dragging the borders of the fence to create a custom shape. See here for more details.
Step 3: Content
- Here you can add some customization your push notification with the Content Type drop-down.
- Website URL lets you link your push notification to a site. When a user clicks the push notification, they’ll be directed to that URL.
- Link to a Specific Tab allows you to do just that. You can choose a tab within your app from the drop-down, and even specific items within those tabs (like an event in the Events v2 tab), when applicable. When a user clicks the push notification, they’ll be taken to that specific location within your app.
- Choose from our Offers adds a template-based message to your push notification. (Note: You must have a Messages tab active within your app to use this feature.) Select an industry from the Category column, then a specific template from the Offers column, and customize the design with the Style column. You can then change the Offer Title, picture, and content. When a user clicks the push notification, the template will be launched within the Messages tab.
Website URL:
Link to a Specific Tab:
Choose from our Offers:
Customizing your offer:
Changing the offer picture (recommend 5:7 height:width ratio for image; bottom will be cropped automatically):
Note: If you delete a previously used offer image from this window, the image will no longer be hosted on our servers. This will prevent it from loading when users click and view the old push notification from their Messages tab. For this reason, we don’t recommend deleting images that you have used in a prior push notification.
Step 4: Publish
- This is your final step, where you determine when your push notification will be sent out to users. Click Send Now to deliver your message immediately, or Send On to schedule it for later.
- Send On allows you to schedule your message based on the applicable time zone. Select the time zone from the drop-down menu, then click the calendar icon next to the date & time to schedule it. You can use this scheduling option for any push notification type (All Users, Radius, or Geo-fenced).
- Active Until only applies to geo-fenced push notifications. This is the end-time for the active period of the message. For instance, if I set mine to next Tuesday, any users who enter the geo-fenced area before next Tuesday will receive my push notification.
- Once you’re ready to go, just click the Publish Message button!
