Web push notifications are a relatively new channel, which allows you to connect with your subscribers even when they are not on your website. This gives you a great opportunity to reach more people in a different way. Using this channel has several advantages, as we saw in our previous article on the subject and is quite simple to implement.
This is what we will discuss in this article, especially for users of the Dialog Insight platform. The purpose of this article is to guide you through the procedure to set up the Web push notification channel in your platform and show you how to use them on a daily basis.
Let’s start at the beginning….
1. The Initial Configuration
First of all, make sure that your domain is secure (https). If it is not, Web push notifications will unfortunately not work on your website.
If your site is secure, the first step is to configure your website on the Dialog Insight platform, because it is on your website that you will ask your visitors to subscribe to your notifications. You have the possibility to add several different domains if you wish.
You will then have to configure several elements:
2. The Language
This configuration is used to determine the language that will be saved in Dialog Insight to send notifications in the right languages to the right people when it comes time to send your message. The authorization request will appear in the language configured in each contact’s browser.
3. The website Icon
The icon you configure at this step should ideally be your company logo. This way, your subscribers will immediately recognize who sent the notification and you will build your brand image more quickly. Indeed, if people do not recognize you immediately, they are unlikely to click to do the action wanted.
This icon you configure is the one that will appear by default in all your notifications. However, you can change it directly in your notification if you want to put another one later.
4. Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM)
Your notifications, which will be sent by Cloud Messaging, require that you first have a Google Account. Then, you must create a project in Cloud Messaging to obtain the sender ID and server-key. You can use this same Google key for your other configured domains as well.
Basically, this step allows, in the script, to say that the DI platform sends your message to Google which, by the keys mentioned above, makes the delivery. This is roughly what allows your notifications to reach their destination.
It would also be useful if you decide to change your Web push sending platform, to be able to transfer all your data on your subscribers to this new platform.
5. Integration with your Website
The configuration is now complete in the platform, there is still the integration with your website. To do this, you will find a code, generated at the end of the configurations, that you must copy inside the <head></head> tag, on the pages of your website where you want to offer your visitors to subscribe to your notifications.
This allows you to use JavaScript features to generate your Web push notifications.
You must also download the Dialog Insight JavaScript file and place it at the root of your website. This file is used to manage the reception and display of the notification in the browser.
You will also find a demo file to download, which explains all the steps to follow to test your Web push notifications without having to officially integrate them into your site.
6. The Subscription Request
The first thing to look for with web push notifications is your visitor’s consent to receive your messages. This subscription is managed by an API that stores all the data collected and then sends the right messages to the right browsers.
You can put the subscription request for your web push notifications at different places and times. It can appear when the page loads, so as soon as your visitors are on your site. However, you should be careful if you have several elements that appear on the same page, such as a pop-up or a warning about the use of cookies, for example.
Avoid confusion: the ideal would be to have only one element appear so that your visitor is not overwhelmed and knows exactly what action to take.
Subscription to notifications is only made on the browser used to subscribe. If a user wants to subscribe to multiple browsers, he must subscribe on each of the desired browsers.
In addition, the platform does not manage double subscriptions. So, if one of your contacts subscribes to your notifications on 2 browsers, he will receive it twice if he uses both browsers before your notification expires.
7. Contact Identification
In Dialog Insight, the contacts you get from there will be anonymous by default. To be able to identify them, two methods are possible:
- Integration into HTML code (when visitors are already registered in their account on the website in question)
- By sending emails: when you configure a website, an injection rule for emails is automatically created to identify the contact. So, if this contact is subscribed to your emails, you will automatically know who it is if they also subscribe to your Web push notifications.
Message Configuration
You are now at the message settings, that is, the ones you will have to make each time you send a notification. So if you have successfully completed all the above steps, you can now forget them, you no longer have to worry about them. It is what follows that becomes important for you!
8. The Groups
You must now choose the sending criteria for your message. Your identified contacts will be divided into 2 groups, eligible and non-eligible contacts. According to your targeting criteria, your contacts will be divided in this way according to what the platform knows about them. For example, you want to target all people who meet the following criteria:
- Subscribers to dialoginsight.com website notifications
- subscribers on Firefox and Chrome browsers
- having only selected French as their preferred language
This is how you ensure that you send your notifications to the right people.
There is also a way to send a generic notification to target your unknown subscribers without adding any personalization. This is the only way to target your anonymous subscribers.
9. The Languages
You must now choose in which languages you want to make your message, you can choose all of them or just one, it’s up to you. You will have to create content for each of the languages selected at this step.
10. Type of Communications
You must now choose a communication type and the same filtering rules per communication type apply as for other channels. For example, the Administrative type does not have a subscription filtering rule, so this is the type of communication we recommend you choose since your subscribers are anonymous by default. The option without filtering would therefore be the most logical to use, so that everyone can receive your message.
11. The Content
Now you have to write your message. You will need to choose a title, write the text, choose which link the subscribers who click will be directed to, your website icon (if you want to change the default one) and the image that only appears on Chrome and Edge.
12. The Test
In the test section, you will see all the elements you have configured, you will also see a preview of the rendering of your notification on all selected browsers. You can test your personalization elements according to a known contact and see a preview on computer and mobile.
You can then send yourself a test notification to see the result and test your links. You can also test the display of your notification to your unknown contacts.
13. The Sending
Depending on the type of notification you initially chose (generic or customized), you have the option of sending your notification to your known subscribers only or to your anonymous subscribers or both. You can also select all your contacts or a particular group (respecting a set of criteria).
Then, just like emails and other channels, you can decide to send it now or schedule it. You can choose the time zone according to the geographical location of your contacts to avoid sending your notifications in the middle of the night by mistake, for example.
Your message is now prepared, all you have to do is approve it so that it can be sent officially.
Analyze your result !
After your campaign is over, you should always analyze the results obtained to target what works and improve what does not. Targeting KPIs to follow from the outset to help you better understand your results is an excellent practice. But that’s in a future article!
Conclusion
With the Dialog Insight platform, you can connect your social media with the platform so that your users don’t miss a single publication. You can do the same with your email campaigns.
To go a little further, you can connect Web push notifications with your Youtube channel and your social networks so that your users are immediately informed when you add a video to your channel or publish on your social networks.
