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History
Value of Push Notifications
Push Notification: Use-Cases
Good Push - Bad Push
Features of App42 Push Notifications
History
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Push notification was first conceptualized by Research in Motion, which they used to inform devices about
a new mail, one of the aims being to reduce battery consumption through its Network Operating Center.
Do you have a BlackBerry? was synonymous with do you have push email? Push Email did a great job
for Blackberry by increasing the efficiency and driving connectivity which was faster than internet
connected desktops. Thereafter Microsoft introduced the same concept in its Microsoft Exchange and
Windows Mobile to deliver the same experience. Apple used the foundation set by RIM to expand the
applications of Push Notifications. Apple introduced APNs (Apple Push Notification Services) which allowed
users to subscribe to third party application notifications.
communication.
The user allows you to send specific data to his or her device, thus allowing you to invade his or her
personal life. The data sent via push could be in the form of a product update, new features, discount
offers and so on. Its up to the products marketing team to decide. Push comes real handy, in an era where
a huge chunk of an organizations budget goes into marketing. Push is one of the best options today to
reach out to the customers. It is virtually cheap and has a better response (chance of action being taken)
than compared to an e-mail or even other marketing strategies. Research has shown that almost 60%-70%
of Push Notifications are opened and read by recipients.
Push is relatively quick and can be sent out in multiple forms. From messages to rich text/image based,
push has a multiple forms to cater different target audiences. Push can be scheduled, can be sent across
multiple platforms at a single click. You can also perform analytics on the push notifications sent out.
Highly simple to compose and send, Push is an effective means of engaging with your users again and
again. The best part of Push is that it is somehow cool compared to the conventional means of marketing.
Mails can be read later, messages will be deleted before they are read but its highly unlikely that a Push
notification goes unread.
Turn-based Games: Create turn-based games by using Push Notifications. For instance, in a
game of chess, a simple Push like your opponent has played his move, its your turn now, can
keep the game going.
Travel Apps: Use Geo-Location to track user-location and nearby Geo-Points. Send Push
Notification, say to tell them about a deal going on or a coupon of the nearby restaurant.
News App: Send breaking news to all users or targeted news to particular users.
Business Apps: Inform users about account expiry, important events, pending payments,
reminders, recommendations, or provide real-time customer support.
Chat or Dating Apps: Inform users when a friend or an awaited contact is online.
MMO: Send cross-platform Push Messages to a massive number of users across devices in a
single-click.
Marketing of Apps: We all know that even after creating a brilliant App, user-acquisition is
what takes the toll of our lives. You can cross-promote your Apps using Push Notification. Inform
the user base of your ongoing Apps about the new launch.
Retail Apps: A use might have bought a product which he needs regularly. A push can be sent
out to remind the user of the same after a specific period. For example, if a user bought baby
wipes in the past, they might receive an offer for other baby-related gear.
your App the moment you start sending irrelevant information. This works exactly like Twitter. A
user will only follow you if you are talking about something of the users interest and liking.
4. Engage and entertain your users with rich content: You can achieve this by attaching
relevant videos, images or sounds with your Push Notifications. Remember, interactive push
speak louder than words.
5. Consistency and homework is must: Delivering the right content again and again will keep
your user engaged with you. Dont work on assumptions and send out Push blindly. Monitor you
user behaviour and activities performed, analyse the data and then send the relevant
information.
6. Always remember you are representing your brand: Customer is the king and you need
them, however that does not mean you deviate from what your brand stands for and what you
deliver for your clients with your products.
User Segmentation
App42 Push Notification Service has introduced new APIs and methods to target users who have
specific profile/preference e.g. if an Educational Institute wants to target its different
departments like High School, Junior School and College Users they can use this new API and in
a single API call they can target these different users with different Push Notifications.
Push Service is already equipped with method of targeting a specific user or a group of users or
all app users for sending Push Notification. This newly introduced API requires user preference or
profile persistence in Storage Service as a prerequisite.
If you have a channel subscription model in your App for push notification, you can schedule the
message on that channel too. Channel scheduling can be useful in a business scenario where
you want to send a scheduled update only to a subscribed user on his topic of interest.
Scheduling
This facilitates developers to create push campaign which can be scheduled on a given date and
time. Scheduling messages can be done for the selected users or all users or on a particular
subscription channel.
Push Analytics
Perform analytics on top of the Push Notifications you sent out. Analyse how many Push
Notifications were Sent, Delivered and Opened. This allows you to experiment with the content
of the Push Notifications, helping you to deliver more effective content.
Be careful with the excessive usage of push notifications as repeated notifications will result in
spamming which might result in the user unsubscribing from your application.
Always choose a service provider who provides cross platform support for your applications
push notifications. This will reduce the effort in identifying the type of devices App users are
using e.g. if your app is running on two different platforms like android and windows, then the
provider will give you a way to send the messages to both the platforms in one API call.
A few limitations which you should keep in mind
Some service providers, devices are not capable to handle multiple push notifications within a
single App. In this event a lot of push messages sent by App will be queued, and only the recent
notification will be up on the screen.
Delivery of push notifications is not guaranteed. Push Notification Service includes a feedback
service that the server (APNs) continually updates with a per-application list of devices for which
there were failed-delivery attempts. So using push notification for real-time applications is not
feasible.
You can also upload the Server API key using Push Notification API call uploadApiKey(String
apiKey).
11.
Following Permissions and entries are required to integrate Push Notification in your project.
Sample Android Manifest contains these entries already however if you are integrating in your
existing project put these lines in your Manifest too. You have to replace
<YOUR_APPLICATION_PACKAGE_NAME> with the value of your package name. Also, if you are
integrating in your project, GCMIntentService must be placed inside application package.
12.
passing userName and device registration id (Device Token) obtained from GCM service. This
call should be made only during the installation of the app.
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Once user name and his device id is registered with App42, you are ready to send the
You can also send custom key value type message using API call
Direct message can also be send using AppHQ Console by selecting target user from the
registered user list in Push Notification tab shown in below screen shot.
16.
You can also create channel using AppHQ console or using direct API for creating the
User needs to subscribe to channel for receiving Push messages for channels. User
This can also be achieved using AppHQ console in Push Notification after selecting the
You can also send message to all your app users using API call
sendPushMessageToAll(String message), This API call will deliver the message to all your app
users irrespective to their target platform device. For example calling this method from Android
device will deliver message to all your app users having devices in either Android/ or OS or WP7.
9. Message can also be send using key value format in dictionary by calling
sendPushMessageToUser:(NSString *)userName message:(NSString *)message
10.
Channel APIs can be used for creating channel, subscription to channel and sending
message to it. Please see the Android section above for detail explanation.
11.
You can also send message to all your app user using API sendPushMessageToAll:(NSString
*)message. This API call will deliver the message to all your app users irrespective to their target
platform device. For example calling this method from iOS device will deliver message to all
your app users having devices in either Android or OS or WP7.
http://api.shephertz.com/tutorial/Push-Notification-on-NokiaX
http://api.shephertz.com/app42-docs/push-notification-service/
About ShepHertz
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ShepHertz is a Complete Cloud Ecosystem provider for Mobile, Web, Social, Gaming and TV
Apps. Our endeavor is to make App developers successful on the Cloud, irrespective of the technology or
platform on which they are developing. All our products focus on making App developers life easy and
augment their business. ShepHertz App42 Platform consists of App42 Cloud API - BaaS, AppWarp
Multiplayer Gaming Engine, AppWarpS2 On-premise Gaming Solution, Backend PaaS, App42 Gaming PaaS
and AppClay - Easy App Builder.