Push Notifications

Ecommerce businesses mainly focus on email marketing exclusively, but there is a myth that push notifications are less effective and important.

Let's debunk this misconception and acknowledge that both email marketing and push notifications play crucial roles in the success of ecommerce businesses. While email marketing has long been a popular and effective strategy, it's important to recognize the immense opportunity that push notifications provide.

Push notifications offer a unique advantage by allowing you to reach customers with short, attention-grabbing messages and compelling visuals, even when they are not actively browsing your store. These notifications can complement your email marketing efforts and provide an additional channel to engage with your audience.

Let's explore the power of Push Notifications to boost sales and connect with customers in new and exciting ways.

If your store is on the BigCommerce platform, check this guide. Otherwise, proceed with the steps below.

Step 1. Click on your store name in the top right corner → Open Store Settings → Push Notifications.

Step 2. Turn on Push Notifications with just two simple clicks.

Step 3. If connected successfully, you will see a Success message.

Unlike other channels, where your contacts may be subscribed, non-subscribed, and unsubscribed, the Push Notifications channel has only two statuses:

There are two ways for your contacts to subscribe to the Push Notifications channel: clicking on the Allow button or manually choosing this option in the Browser notifications settings.

If your store visitors select Block Push Notifications, their status will be unsubscribed.

When you go to the Campaigns Tab, click New Campaign → Find Push notification → click Create notification.

As the next step, you will be able to edit the Content of your notification.

You can edit your campaign's title, text, logo, and image here. You can send a test notification once your content is finalized.

On the right side, you will see how your notification looks on Windows, macOS, and Android devices.

Next, you'll land at the Recipients step. Select to whom you want to show your notifications. Select All Subscribers or a specific segment that you have created.

At the Send step, you can review and confirm your selections. Just hit Send Now, and your push notification campaign will be sent.

Push Notifications are not a separate workflow in automation. It is an additional step within your available workflows. Once added to the flow, you will be able to edit the Content of your notification:

Hit Send a test to see how your notification looks on the device.

You can add icons or images to your push notification. An icon may be used to add your business logo, while the image can add more content to the message and make it visible to the customer. These features are available for campaign and automation push notifications on Windows and Android.
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To add an image for campaigns, click Select Icon Image → Select from Computer or Use Image from URL → Open, and your selected image will start showing for your notification. Repeat the same process if you wish to add an icon:
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Under the push campaign report, you can access two tabs that offer a detailed and comprehensive overview of the campaign's performance. These tabs provide valuable insights that can help you assess the effectiveness of your campaign and make informed decisions to optimize its outcomes.

The first tab is the Overview, which presents essential metrics such as the total number of push notifications sent, the view rate, the click rate, and the revenue generated from the campaign. Additionally, this tab offers a real-time hourly performance report for the first 24 hours of the campaign, allowing you to monitor its performance as it progresses. You can also track the views and clicks your campaign has received over time and gain insight into which specific messages resonate with your audience. Moreover, this tab provides device reports, allowing you to assess the campaign's effectiveness across different devices and tailor your marketing efforts accordingly.

The second tab is the Contact Activity, which provides detailed information about the actions performed by each contact. This feature allows you to analyze the behavior of your target audience and gain insights into their preferences and interests. By identifying which contacts engage with your campaign and which do not, you can segment your audience and create personalized marketing strategies that resonate with specific groups.

Uploading a service worker file to the root directory is necessary to enable push notifications for WooCommerce and WordPress stores. Below you will find the instructions to do so.

Will I pay more if I already have customers subscribed to Push?

If the contact is subscribed to multiple channels, including push, they are still counted as a single subscriber, and you will only be billed as one contact.

Which platforms will have push attributed to order information?

Push attribution for order information will be rolled out to our Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce users.

Will order attribution work for all WooCommerce stores?

Order attribution will work for WooCommerce stores using the latest version of Omnisend's plugin for WooCommerce (1.12.0). However, if you use older plugin versions, you may experience issues with attributed order reporting.

If a push subscription is collected for contact, and then they proceed to checkout and also sign up with email or phone, will all the information be added to one profile?

Yes, all the information will be added to a single contact profile.

How will it be counted if someone subscribes to push notifications using one browser and later subscribes to email or SMS using a different browser?

Each subscription will be considered a separate contact in our system.

How can I avoid standalone push subscribers counting toward my billable contacts?

You must stop collecting push contacts (remove the Push App) and unsubscribe push subscribers.

Is there a risk of duplicate contacts?

Currently, if a customer subscribes to the push channel and later subscribes to email/SMS communications via a signup form, the existing cookie ID is overridden with a new one; this can result in duplicate contacts and the email/SMS information not merging with the push contact.

What happens if the recipient won't open their browser after sending the push notification?

The browser should be opened for the push notification to be delivered. After the push is sent out, the recipient's browser is monitored. The moment it's opened, the push notification is delivered. If the customer doesn't open their browser within 24 hours after a push has been sent, the push notification will expire and will not be shown. There's no option to edit the Push Notifications TTL (Time-To-Live). It works the same way for campaigns and automation.

What should I do if I face issues with the service worker file?

If you encounter problems with your service worker file, consider the following options:

Option 1: Contact Your Website Administrator If you are not managing the website yourself, reach out to the person or team responsible for it. They can investigate if there are any security settings or access restrictions preventing the Omnisend bot from reaching the service-worker.js file.

Option 2: Whitelist Omnisend Bot If you have access to server settings or configurations, add user-agent: "Omnisend/1.0" to a whitelist. This action instructs your server or firewall not to block requests from the Omnisend bot, ensuring it can access the service-worker.js file without issues.

Have more questions? Feel free to contact us at [email protected].
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