How to Create a Mobile App Push Notification

Mobile push notifications are a great way to communicate with subscribers who use your mobile application. These are small but valuable messages that pop up in the push notification menu on Android and iOS devices, even when they aren’t actively interacting with the app.

To start sending mobile push notification campaigns with eSputnik, take the following steps:

• Step 1. Enable mobile app push notifications in your eSputnik account.
• Step 2. Add your Firebase private key to eSputnik.
• Step 3. Create your mobile push notification message.
• Step 4. Test the mobile push notification.
• Step 5. Configure a segment to send your push notification to.
• Step 6. Send your first mobile app push notification.
• Step 7. Analyze the results with the push notification campaign report.

How to set up mobile push notifications in eSputnik?

To enable mobile push notifications in the eSputnik system you need to:

1. Choose a pricing plan for mobile push notifications in eSputnik.
2. On the “Pricing Plans” page in your eSputnik account, select the pricing plan that best suits your organization, considering the number of mobile application tokens you already have in your contact database.
3. Have your mobile app uploaded to App Store or Google Play.

If the necessary conditions are met, proceed to the project settings.

Step 1. Enable mobile app push notifications in your eSputnik account

To do this:

1. Click on the name of your eSputnik account in the top right corner of the interface.

2. Go to the “Settings” menu.

3. In the left pane on the “Settings” page, select “Mob push”.

4. Click ”Create application”.

 

Step 2. Add your Firebase private key to eSputnik

Enter a Title for your project and upload the JSON file containing your Google Firebase private key.

If you haven’t yet created a Firebase project, see our guide to how you can:

• Create a Google Firebase project and get your project’s private key

• Integrate Firebase with your mobile app

• Upload your contact database.

We recommend that you start preparing to connect your push notifications it with the technical settings outlined in the guide.

Please make sure to give a meaningful Title to your project. The title will be displayed in your push notification messages. You’ll also be able to see it next to your contact segments. For example, on the “Contac segments” page, the number of contacts with matching tokens for your app will be displayed as a separate number:

Step 3. Create your mobile push notification message

The eSputnik’s editor makes it perfectly easy for anyone to create mobile push notifications.

3.1. Go to “Messages” → “Mob push”.

 

3.2. On the “Mob push” tab, click “Create Mob Push”.

3.3. Create your first mobile notification.

Fill in the following fields:

• Name. Enter the name for your push notification message. This will make it easier for you to find and manage the messages in the eSputnik interface. Your app’s users won’t see this name.

• Title. This is a required field — the headline for your mobile push notification message, the one that your users will see.

• Message Text.This is the main content of your push notification. Please note that the notification will appear differently on different devices. We recommend using no more than 40 characters for a message.

• Custom Data.You an also create push notification messages using custom data in the JSON format. For example, you can use JSON to add images and display URLs as clickable buttons. This gives you an opportunity to send a set of parameters that will be further processed by your app and allow your push message to be correctly displayed to the app’s users.

Here’s an example of how you can display 3 different clickable buttons in your push notification message.

//customer custom data

"title": "hello'',

"es_actions": [{"id": 1, "caption": "<text>", "link": "<link if any>"},

{"id": 2, "caption": "<text>", "link": "<link if any>"},

{"id": 3, "caption": "<text>", "link": "<link if any>"}]

}

In the example above, inside es_actions indicates the app that there should be 3 clickable buttons in a push message. Here, you can specify any links, button identifiers and actions that will be processed by your app when it receives a push message.

This option will only work if your app supports custom data, regardless of the user’s device. Please make sure that your app’s developers have provided these options when creating the app.

• Link. The URL can be opened by a device browser or as a deep link to a specific location within your mobile app. If no link is specified, a tap on the push notification will open the app. By default, a tap on a push notification will open the app.

• Annoyance level. Prioritize your notifications in order to protect subscribers from intrusive messages.

Your organization’s logo in the mobile push notification will be added from the app itself.

Step 4. Test the mobile push notification

Here are the steps you need to take to test how your push notifications will be sent and displayed, or to start planning your first mobile push notification campaign.

4.1. Go to “Messages” → “Messages” → “Mob push”.

4.2. Open the web push notification you’ve created in advance.

4.3. To test your mobile push notification, click the “Test” icon.

You will see a popup window for sending a test push notification where you’ll need to enter the phone number linked to the mobile push token.

• Under “Application”, select the app for which your push notification will be sent. If you have only one app, it will be selected by default.

• Under “Select contact”, enter the phone number to send your push notification to.

The possible statuses of your test mobile push notification message are as follows:

• The provided phone number has a matching mobile token. You can send a test notification to this contact.

• The provided phone number has no matching mobile tokens.

• No matching contacts were found for the provided phone number.

4.4. After sending your test mobile notification, you’ll be able to see how your push notification will look like on the device it’s sent to. There are two options for how your push notification can be displayed:

• A cropped push notification is displayed in the push notification drawer.

• The push notification is expanded in the push notification drawer.

 

Step 5. Configure a segment to send your push notification

Specify the segment for sending your push notification campaigns based on any data you have about your contacts:

• interactions with the website,
• buying behavior,
• pageviews,
• abandoned carts,
• promotions
• and any other available data.

5.1. To create a segment to target your push notifications at, go to “Contacts” → “Contact Segments”, click “Add Segment” and select “Dynamic”.

5.2. In the window that opens, briefly specify the general properties for the segment. This will make it easier for you to work with many segments in your account. Enter the segment’s name, specify the purpose of the segment and add tags, i.e. labels to help you find and sort your segments.

5.3. Specify the necessary conditions for the segment. Here, you have ample opportunities for segmentation. You can use any information about your contacts and their interactions with your organization.

You can set a number of conditions for your customer segment:

• Include users who have browsed through your website’s “Smartphones” category within the last 30 days,
• Include users whose average order value is more than 1000 USD,
• With that, exclude iPhone users.

Step 6. Send your first mobile app push notification

Here’s how you can send your first mobile push notification with eSputnik.

6.1. To send your push notifications, click the “Save and go to campaign” button.

6.2. In the popup window, select the segments you want to send the push notification to.

6.3. On the preview page, check all the data you’ve provided for your push notification campaign.

Please note! If, upon clicking on the “Test” or “Save and go to campaign” icons, you see the following popup window:

This is a system reminder that the mobile app is not yet connected or that you haven’t selected the appropriate pricing plan for sending your mobile push notifications.

If everything is set up all right, the system will immediately start sending push notifications. The results will appear shortly after in “Campaigns” → “Reports”.

Step 7. Analyze the results with the push notification campaign report.

The performance reports for your mobile push notification campaigns in eSputnik will provide you with the following information:

• Total in segment  — the number of subscribers with known mobile tokens, i.e., subscribers who have installed your app and agreed to receive your push notifications. The report will display all contacts who meet the conditions of the specified segment and thus expected to receive your push notification message.

• Sent — the number of push notifications successfully sent with Firebase.

• Delivered — the number of push notifications successfully delivered to the app users’ mobile devices.

• Opened — the number of push notifications where your subscribers have tapped the notification or the attached link.

• Errors — the number of push notifications that couldn’t be sent for whatever reason.

If necessary, you can automate the sending of your mobile push notifications. For example, set up welcome push notification messages for new contacts who have just opted in to receive notifications from your app.