Push notifications: what they are, settings. Push notifications - what are they? How to enable and disable Push Notifications

A message that is "pushed" from a server application or program to the user interface. A common push notification scenario is a client application that displays a message before user information along with beeps. In some cases, it may also be combined with images and a hyperlink. Through push notification interaction, client applications typically come to the fore.

Using push notifications

Push notification is typically used to allow applications to communicate information to the user. They may fall into the following categories:

Push notification history

How did push notifications come about? What is it? The first such notice was first provided by Apple in 2009. In 2010, Google released its own service - Google Cloud to Device Messaging.

In November 2015, Microsoft announced that WNS would be extended to use the Universal Windows Platform architecture, allowing push data to be sent to Windows 10, 10 Mobile, Xbox, and other supported platforms using universal API calls and POST requests.

Push notifications: what are they and what types are there?

Push notifications are mainly divided into 2 approaches: local and remote.

For a local notification, the application schedules the distribution in the local device OS or, conversely, sets a timer in the application itself if it is capable of continuously running in the background. The user receives a message when the time for the programmed event arrives. The notification is displayed in front of the application's user interface.

For remote notification, there is usually a connection to the server. In this case, the client application must be registered with the server with a unique key, such as a UUID. Delivery of a message to a client application occurs through a protocol agreed upon between the client and server (most often HTTP).

How are push notifications displayed?

What it is is stated above. But how do they appear in the user interface? A push notification can be displayed in different ways:

  • banner at the top of the screen;
  • pop-up window from taskbar;
  • a dialog box that interrupts and blocks the application interface.

Typically the notification contains:

  • title;
  • message details.

The notification may also contain an image or video, a link to a website, or an attachment (for example, a txt file).

While the push notification is arriving, it can also play sound signals to attract the user's attention.

How does this work?

Push notifications are notifications from certain applications that relate to some new information. For example, if you receive a new email, your device can be set to automatically notify you when this happens. If you receive a new friend request on Facebook, the social network's app can be set to send a push notification to let you know right away. This will happen regardless of whether you are currently using the application or not.

Push notifications were designed to tell the user something that they couldn't see until they opened the app. However, not all push notifications have only a positive side. Some of them exist just to try to entice you to come back and play a certain game or use an app that you may have long forgotten about. This is why setting up push notifications can be important.

What do these messages look like on mobile devices?

Essentially, there are three types of push notifications that you can see. Some are more invasive than others, but Apple gives you the ability to choose which ones you want to see, as well as the ability to turn off push notifications entirely.

Three main types:

  • Icons. These are the least intrusive push notifications, but some users find them the most annoying. They appear as a number in a red circle in the upper right corner of the application icon. The number indicates how many notifications are awaiting your attention.

  • Banners. Displayed at the top of the screen. They will remain on the screen for a few seconds, but then disappear automatically. You can also remove them manually by swiping up.
  • Alerts. These are the most obvious of the three because they appear in the middle of the screen and interrupt whatever you are currently doing on your device.

Another type of notification you may encounter is sound. For example, if you set an alarm or timer, a sound might play to notify you when the right time arrives. Sounds are often combined with warnings, but not always.

Shutdown

How to disable push notifications? If you do not want to receive messages from a service you previously subscribed to, you can disable them. Below is a quick guide to disabling notifications on your PC and mobile devices.

  • Chrome Browser: Open your browser and simply type in the address bar: Chrome://settings/content in a new tab. You will see a pop-up window with content settings. Scroll down to notifications and go to controls. This section will display a list of URLs for sites you follow. Select the address you want to cancel. Here you can allow, deny, or completely delete all of your notification subscriptions. After rebooting, you can make sure that you no longer receive push notifications.

  • Firefox browser: Open your browser, then go to its menu and select options. Find the content segment and click the Select button in the Notifications section. The Notification Permissions window opens. In this section, select the URL of the site you want to cancel. Then click "Delete Site". To prevent all sites from sending push messages, click Remove all sites. Web properties will need to ask your permission to send messages in the future.
  • Safari browser: Open your browser and click on the panel with its name. Select Settings and then find the website you want to remove from the notifications section. Click Allow or Deny according to your preferences.

How to turn off notifications on Android devices

Open the Chrome browser and click “Menu”, in this section select “Settings”. Scroll down the page and select "Site Settings". Then scroll down again and tap on Notifications.

In this section, select the site from which you want to allow or block push notification services on Android.

Once you have made your selection, click Clear and Reset. A pop-up window will appear asking you to allow or block notifications from the selected website. Select the option according to your preference.

How to enable/disable push notifications on iOS?

Some apps support push notifications on iPhone. This is a way to send data specific to each service. This includes news notifications and many other data. For push notifications to work, you must be running iPhone OS 3.0 or higher.

How to enable push notifications:

1. Install an app that offers push notifications.

2. Go to Settings -> Notifications -> ON.

3. A list of applications that support push notifications will appear.

4. Tap the app you want to turn notifications on or off and select the options you want.

5. Sounds, alerts and icons can be turned on or off individually.

To turn off push notifications:

1. Follow the steps above to enable individual app notifications.

2. To turn off all notifications: go to Settings -> Notifications -> OFF.

In addition, sometimes there are times when the user simply does not want to be distracted by any notifications. For such cases, Apple introduced the Do Not Disturb feature. After activating it, you will immediately turn off all phone calls, alerts and notifications. So, if you are in a meeting or participating in an important event, you will not have any beeps or sounds from your iOS device. How to enable it? Go to Settings and select Do Not Disturb from the menu on the left. This option is good because it can be disabled just as easily.

Hello friends! Today we will talk about push mailing for the site, as another channel of communication with your audience. I’ll tell you how to set up such notifications for your resource using a special service.

Push messages are short notifications that appear as a pop-up window on your computer or mobile device screen. They can be used to inform the audience about news from your site, some offers or affiliate recommendations. Notifications are delivered to those people who have subscribed to your website's push mailing list.

Since June of this year, I have connected such a feature for my blog using the SendPulse service. There have been a lot of similar services appearing lately, I preferred this one. There is a free plan with no restrictions on the number of subscribers and messages.

The only thing is that the “Provided by SendPulse” anchor link is displayed in the subscription request window.

During this time, 156 people subscribed to my blog newsletter. Naturally, there are also unsubscribes, since the articles on the blog are diverse and cannot be relevant to everyone all the time. People unsubscribe, filter incoming information, and this is logical. :)

The delivery rate of notifications is 50% and higher (the maximum was 67%). Click-through rate from 16 to 30%. In the evening, after 19.00, the click-through rate is higher.

In general, if I had not set up this communication channel, I would not have received some of this traffic.

I can't call him too intrusive. A subscription pop-up window appears in the blog header without closing the content. You can remove it by unsubscribing with the “Deny” button or subscribe to notifications by clicking on the “Allow” button. I send notifications themselves 1 – maximum 2 times a week (mostly announcements of new blog materials or some kind of affiliate recommendations). Well, there is always the possibility of unsubscribing.

How to enable push notifications for a website? Step by step instructions

Register on the site sendpulse.com by clicking on the “Try for free” button.

You can register by email or through a profile on social networks - Google+, Facebook.

After registration, log into your account using the “Login” button.

To work with push notifications, go to the “PUSH” section.

To connect notifications to your site, click on the “Add a new site” button.

Specify the domain, upload a picture (your square logo can be used), which will be displayed in the subscription request window. Choose when the request will appear - I chose when entering the site. Select the type of pop-up window. I preferred the Safari style, which appears in the header and doesn't obscure the content.

Below you can specify your title and text of the subscription request, and set your own labels on the buttons. And see what your subscription form will look like.

When you have completed all the settings on this page, click Next Step.

In most WordPress sites, this code is added to the header.php file. Since WordPress templates are different for everyone, the header code may be in a different file and have a different name. For example, I have this file called top.php

An example of adding in the screenshot below:

Important: when working with the site code, do not forget to first save the original view (make backup copies). If after the changes something goes wrong, you can always return it to how it was.

After adding the script to the site, click “Check”. If everything was done correctly, a green check mark will appear next to the site. And also go to your website and see if the subscription request appears.

In "General Settings" you can check the box "Send a welcome push notification after subscribing." This option can be used to give new subscribers some useful gift. That's exactly what I did:

How to send a push message to subscribers?

You can send the first push notification when you already have subscribers by clicking on the “Send push” button.

When sending a notification, select a list of recipients (if you have added several sites to the service). You can also segment subscribers by browser language, region, page from which the subscription was made, date of subscription, browser...

The notification itself contains a title (up to 50 characters), text (up to 125 characters) and a link to which you want to redirect the subscriber. Briefly but succinctly interest the subscriber so that he follows your link.

On the right, you can see how your message will look in different browsers.

You can add different images for different notifications (however, this does not work in all browsers). Or always use your website logo or other branding image by which you will be recognized.

By clicking on the “Submit” button, you will immediately send the notification. If you click on the clock icon, you can set delayed sending by selecting the date and time. By clicking on the gear, you can set the push lifetime in the range from 15 minutes to 15 days, configure sending - immediately or gradually, enable or disable utm tags.

Some time after sending, you will be able to see statistics on the notification. To do this, go to the “My mailings” tab. To open details, click on the notification title.

At the top there is a filter that allows you to select mailings from a specific site (if you have several of them).

On the SendPulse service, you can set up auto-mailing by creating a series of notifications (like a series of letters in an email newsletter). You can also set up an RSS-based auto feed. These options are available in the “Automatic Distribution” tab. I won’t dwell on this, since I haven’t set up any series for myself yet.

By selecting the added site in the left panel, you can change its settings - change the image, title and text on the subscription form, pop-up window style, enable/disable the welcome notification, etc.

Here you can see statistics on the site - the number of subscribers, unsubscribes, and mailings sent. And also send a new notification to subscribers of this site.

The “Subscribers” tab displays a list of all those people who have subscribed to your notifications. Opposite each subscriber there is a gear where you can see detailed information (browser, OS, subscription date, page from which it was issued, activity), disable the subscriber or remove him from the list.

Friends, I suggest you look below visual video for the article:

So, push notifications are a good channel for interacting with your audience, which is also worth using. If you haven’t set it up yet, now you know how to do it using the SendPulse service.

If you have questions, I will be glad to answer in the comments.

All the best to you!

Best regards, Victoria Karpova

When visiting new sites, a small window sometimes appears in the upper left corner of the browser asking for permission to deliver certain notifications to you.

If the user has once approved the receipt of such notifications, later in the task area of ​​​​the computer or mobile device he will periodically observe the appearance of small windows with a message that new publications have appeared on these sites.

These are the so-called push notifications, also known as web-push - a modern tool for Internet marketers. And the most convenient means of informing users who want to keep abreast of events that interest them.

Push notifications what are they?

Push notifications are short pop-up notifications that appear on the screen of a regular computer or mobile phone and inform about important events and updates.

When a user clicks on a push notification, site news immediately opens in the window, and users are among the first to get acquainted with the information just posted on the network. And sometimes it is important to be among the first users who have useful information.


Rice. 1. What Push Notifications Look Like

Push notifications on websites are enabled by website owners, and users can manage push notifications through their browser settings. If the webmaster has not enabled push on the site, then the user does not have the opportunity (or need) to use, configure, etc.

What are the benefits of push notifications over other methods of delivering up-to-date information? How to manage such an information tool in desktop browsers Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox or similar ones? Let's look at these questions below.

Benefits of push notifications

The benefits of implementing push notifications on websites for their owners, that is, for webmasters, are obvious. The fact is that few communication tools can ensure 90% delivery of messages to the user and almost 50% .

But what benefit does the reader of this or that site receive?

Push notifications may be more convenient for some users than subscribing to site updates via E-mail. Messages coming from different sites do not accumulate in the mailbox and do not complicate access to personal correspondence.

If at the moment the user does not have time to read the news, then by clicking on the push notification, he can open the page in the browser window and leave it until a convenient moment. Or send it to a delayed reading service like Pocket or Readability.

One of the disadvantages of subscribing to site news by E-mail is the accumulation of letters about new articles in the user's mailbox. With push notifications there will be no overflow in the mail.

If the site is not sufficiently protected from hacking, it may happen that the database of site subscribers falls into the hands of scammers, who first of all organize a attack on this database (the so-called spam attack). Then every email owner from this database receives such fraudulent spam emails. It is believed that with push notifications in this regard, users are more reliably protected: no one else, except the creators of the sites of interest, will be able to disturb users, no matter who hacks anything on such sites.

Push notifications and RSS feed

In terms of protection against spam, web-push is similar to another means of delivering the latest information published on a particular site - RSS feed. The latter even benefits in that it stores a history of messages about publications from sites to which you have an RSS subscription. While pop-up notifications disappear forever after a few seconds.

But using RSS news feeds requires the user to take independent actions: he needs to find the subscription button on each site (and it does not have a standard location) and enter the channel address into the RSS reader. If such a reader does not exist in the user’s browser, it still needs to be organized separately, for example, by installing an extension, selecting a web service, or resorting to using the appropriate program.

Push notifications pop up on their own and offer to subscribe, and their implementation is provided by the standard functionality of almost any modern browser.

Setting up push notifications in Google Chrome

The implementation of pop-up notifications in Google Chrome and browsers built on the same Blink engine (for example,) offers the user a completely open subscription format that does not require him to make any choice.

A push request in Google Chrome contains two functional buttons:

  1. “Allow” to approve the delivery of messages (1 in Fig. 2) and
  2. “Block” to add the site to the list of blocked ones (2 in Fig. 2).

In the latter case, on subsequent visits to such a site, requests will no longer appear.

There is a third option: clicking on the cross in the request window allows you to postpone making a decision (3 in Fig. 3). The site will not be blocked, and after a while such a request will appear in the upper left corner of the Chrome window again.


Rice. 2. What a push notification request looks like in Google Chrome

Setting up push notifications in Mozilla

In Mozilla Firefox (and other browsers based on the same Gecko engine), the web push request form is designed more cleverly than in Google Chrome, or rather, to incline the user to a specific choice.

  1. The “Allow notifications” button (1 in Fig. 3) is emphasized by color indication,
  2. and as an alternative, it is contrasted with the deferred decision button “Not now” (2 in Fig. 3).

The “Never Allow” notification blocking button (4 in Fig. 3) is designed smaller and is hidden inside the “Not Now” button (3 in Fig. 3).


Rice. 3. What a push notification request looks like in Mozille Firefox

Allowed and blocked push notifications are not synchronized with browser profiles. After installing a new operating system, when moving to another computer, and even after reinstalling the browser itself and clearing its remains during uninstallation, you need to start all over again - respond to site requests again, form a database of permissions and blocking for push notifications from scratch.

Unsubscribing from web-push and blocking them

An excessive number of pop-up messages can begin to irritate the user over time. In addition, our interests may change.

In such cases, how can you unsubscribe from irrelevant sites or completely disable the delivery of push notifications by your browser? And how, on the contrary, can you unblock sites that were mistakenly blocked when a request appears?

The iPhone 6, 6 plus, 7 and 7 plus and X phones that run on the new io8-12 systems have a very useful function of push notifications about any events: be it the receipt of a new letter, SMS message, calendar events, execution time tasks, messages from any social network and much more.

The Notification Center allows for very flexible configuration of alerts: it is possible to disable all notifications at once or each one individually. We will describe how to do this further.

To turn off all push notifications, you simply need to activate Do Not Disturb mode on your phone.

This is done like this:

Open the “Settings” menu - then select “Do not disturb” - and activate this mode with the “manual” slider. But do not forget that with such activation you will also block information about incoming calls! Therefore, in the “allowing calls” menu, select who you will receive calls from, even if the “Do not disturb” mode is activated. There you can also set the operating time of the mode. For example, I activate this mode on weekdays from 0 a.m. to 7 a.m. so that all sorts of radishes don’t disturb my sleep;)

iOS from Apple is

Cool!Sucks

How to disable push notifications from individual iPhone programs and applications

Everything here is also very simple: “Settings” - “Notification Center” - and select the application from which we do not want to receive notifications - “tap on this application” and select - “Reminder style” - “No”. This way you will completely turn off notifications from this application.

We hope that this short and simple instruction helped you and unnecessary notifications will not bother you at the most inconvenient moments. Thank you for your attention.



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