What they are and why use them

Push Notifications are a tool commonly used by apps of all kinds to alert users to something. In the case of publishers, the core case is to draw attention to content that's been published, thus drawing the user into the app. Breaking news is the most common use case for this, but it can be just as effective for exclusives, new editions or less time-sensitive news items.

Tapping on a push notification will always open the app, and most push notifications also include a deeplink to take the user to a specific story or location in the app. 

Pugpig does not offer a push notification system of its own, but rather integrates with other tools that do this, much in the same way we work with different analytics tools. Our list of productised push notification services is described below. Note that only one of these services can be used in an app at any one time.

Opt-in

iOS and Android behave somewhat differently in what is required for users to start receiving notifications. Both platforms in recent years have take steps to reduce the number of notifications a user will receive.

On iOS, a user must either agree to receive notifications by agreeing to a system dialog or through provisional push. Provisional push is explained in more detail here, but essentially means the user is automatically opted-in to receiving notifications but they'll only receive them "quietly" meaning they won't appear on the Lock Screen, only in the Notification Centre. 

On Android, prior to Android 13 users were automatically opted-in to notifications. Later versions of Android follow the same principle as iOS, requiring explicit opt-in via a system dialog.

On both iOS and Android we'll display this opt-in message (unless provisional push is enabled) after 3 non-help screen views, or the next time the user opens the app, whichever comes first.

We also support a /c/pushpermissions deep link which will force the prompt to appear if it has not yet been presented, this is ideal for use in your app's help screens, where you can explain the benefits of opting-in before presenting the choice. Once a user has dismissed the dialog it cannot be shown again, and the deeplink will instead take the user to the app's page in the system settings, where they can opt-in.

Features and Terminology

Rich Push: The ability to include an image or interactive buttons with your notification.

Provisional Push: This is an optional iOS feature that means users are automatically opted in to receiving push notifications, but receive them only in the Notification Centre, not on the Lock Screen.

Deeplinking: By default tapping on a push notification will open the app to its home screen, which is the first tab. Generally, though, the intention is to take a user somewhere specific, such as an article or edition. This is achieved by including a deeplink in the notification. This is explained in much greater detail here.

Segmentation

By default we send all of our analytics events and dimensions to push providers, so that they can for triggering (i.e automatically send a notification after a user does a certain event or series of events), and segmentation. Customers are thus able to create audiences based of off things like subscriber status. Any custom dimensions the customer has set up, such as a user id would also be available.

Automated notifications

Optionally, we can configure the distribution service to automatically send push notifications for certain content based on flags you send us from your CMS, you can read more about this feature here.

Productised Integrations

Firebase

Firebase Messaging is freely included as part of Firebase's suite of tools. As Firebase is essentially required for releasing an app on Android, and for Google Analytics, the vast majority of our customers will already have Firebase integrated with their app. Firebase's toolset is more limited than the others mentioned below, but it is completely free. 

Airship

Airship is a feature-rich messaging solution, allowing greater control over the user experience in terms of what messages a user will receive and the content therein. Its in-app messaging tools in particular are substantially richer than those in Firebase. 

Airship also offers the Preference Centre, which allows users to opt in or out of defined topics that they'd like to receive notifications for, and the Message Centre which is a centralised inbox of notifications the user has received.

Airship is a paid-service, and you'll manage your account with them. 

OneSignal

OneSignal sits somewhere between Firebase and Airship in terms of feature-set and pricing. It offers more than Firebase but isn't free, and doesn't give you the same level of control as Airship does, nor features equivalent to the Preference and Message Centres, but does cost substantially less. 

Supported Feature Matrix

This table outlines which features are supported by which providers. 

Other Integrations

Outside of our productised solutions, we've also integrated several push notification services as custom third-party integrations, this includes providers such as Braze, Pushly and Adobe Campaign. The functionality of each of these is specific to the integration, and may not match that provided by the productised services described above.