What are push notifications in VK. What are push notifications

Modern technologies do not stand still, and new ways to attract audiences are constantly being created. The most popular tool for this today is push notifications. Many people wonder what it is. And this despite the fact that they receive them literally every day.

What are push notifications and what are they for?

Translated from English, “push” means “pushing.” Regarding notifications, this term is considered as a way of disseminating information to the general public.

The history of the technology dates back to the nineties of the last century, when the Point Cast service delivered messages about stock market news. Subsequently, push notifications began to be sent via Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator browsers. But in those years they gained popularity because not many people actively used the Internet, or the connection speed was extremely low.

At the moment, “push notifications” are an easy way to attract visitors to a site while monetizing it, which implies actions aimed at making a profit. These alerts can be browser or mobile. They are presented in the form of pop-up windows containing various information.

When entering a resource, a push notification prompts the visitor to enable or disable (block) notifications from the source. If the user subscribes to the newsletter, he will receive them whenever they are generated on the server.


Push notifications and SMS mailings: differences and advantages

Despite the similarity of push notifications with sending via SMS or email, these technologies have differences. Moreover, push notifications have more advantages. So, what are the differences and advantages:

  1. Notifications in a browser or mobile app have a title, a small block of text, a link to a landing page, and sometimes an image. Thus, the user receives maximum information from this short message.
  2. This message is displayed on top of all open windows, even if the resource or browser is closed.
  3. By clicking on the pop-up message, the user is immediately taken to the target site.
  4. Subscribing to push notifications is quite simple, you just need to press the “Allow” button. The visitor is not required to fill out any registration forms or worry about how to set up push notifications.
  5. Blocking is just as simple, you just need to press the disable button, unlike SMS and sending advertising by e-mail. In the latter cases, unsubscribing will not be so easy.
  6. Setting up push notifications does not require any extensions or special software elements; you just need to install the Yandex browser or any other.
  7. When creating an alert, you can use any text, as long as it does not violate moral and ethical standards.
  8. Sending push notifications, although not free, will still cost much less than via SMS or email, the price of which cannot be considered affordable for owners of new, not yet promoted, sites.

In other words, with the help of push notifications it is not at all difficult to attract new visitors to the site or bring back existing ones. And in order to retain them, you will need to work hard and develop a number of appropriate measures

Where are these notifications used?

Owners of websites on WordPress or other platforms use push notifications for Windows and other operating systems, pursuing the following goals:

  1. Retain the visitor. If he subscribed to notifications, this means that he was interested in the information presented on the resource. But to prevent this interest from being lost, it is worth notifying about the posting of new materials and other events.
  2. Advertise goods or services. The advantage in this case is the absence of intermediate steps. A potential client clicks on an advertising message and is immediately taken to an order form.
  3. Notify the buyer about the status of the order. Quite often, this tool is used by online trading platforms so that the client can track delivery. The cost of push notifications, as mentioned earlier, is lower than notifications via SMS or email.
  4. Notify the audience about the ongoing webinar. Learning platforms that conduct online conferences can notify users in this way that the broadcast has begun.
  5. Notify about activity on a social network or game. When a new message arrives or any event occurs on the gaming platform, push notifications are the best way to notify the user about it.
  6. Promptly submit new information. This is relevant for business resources, whose users must receive timely information about current quotes of currencies, exchange instruments, etc.
  7. Spread the "hot" news. Push notifications allow you to quickly notify users who have subscribed to the news portal about the receipt of information.

If you install Push notifications on your website, this will solve the problem of how to notify people about new events. Such a tool will help you not to lose subscribers, and, therefore, maintain the popularity of the resource.

How to enable notifications: reliable services and operating principle of Push
If the site owner is convinced that he needs to enable push notifications, and their cost is acceptable to him, the question arises of how to do this. The sending of such messages can be configured through special services. The most popular of them are:

  1. ViaPush. This service is considered one of the most “advanced” today. Here you can use a large number of convenient tools, as well as the services of a personal manager. A company employee will assist in developing a mailing strategy and creating notifications.
  2. Sendpulse. Using this platform, not only push notifications are sent, but also messages by email and SMS. You can configure the service in Safari, Chrome and Firefox browsers. There are also advanced settings that help you set the type of notifications. There are no restrictions on the number of subscribers and the intensity of mailings.
  3. Push.world. The advantage of this service is that it works on almost all browsers. In addition, it is possible to use ready-made notification templates, and the number of mailings and subscribed users is not limited.
  4. PushExpert. This platform is perfect for beginners, because it has a free plan that allows you to send 500 notifications. In addition, there are no fees for accessing the API or collecting analytics data. To provide services on a paid basis, 6 packages have been developed.
  5. PushAll. This service with a Russian interface is considered controversial due to some features. There is no charge for using the service, and the platform is maintained through user donations. In addition, there are some additional offers that are available for a fee. However, subscribers can only receive notifications from this platform through their Google account. In addition, there is a Chrome browser extension and a mobile application.

How it works:

  1. First, register on the service server. Subsequently, people who visit the site will see a proposal to connect alerts from a specific resource. If the visitor agrees by clicking the appropriate button, he is assigned a unique number and registered on the server.
  2. We receive the identifier of a new subscriber to the server of our site.
  3. We make a message with the required text. You can include reply buttons, images, links, audio, etc.

After performing these steps, the server will send the generated notification to all clients who have agreed to receive

Attention! To collect subscribers and send them notifications, the resource must have SSL certification. There are services for which this condition is not necessary, but in this case, push notifications will be sent on behalf of the subdomain, as a result of which they will remain slightly unfinished.

Installing push notifications is not difficult at all, but you should understand how to use this technology through any service to avoid mistakes. The main principle when working with push notifications is that they should not be intrusive, otherwise it will alienate subscribers.


In addition, it is worth choosing your target audience wisely. For example, set settings dividing people by gender, age, location and other criteria.

Another rule is that the content must be relevant. That is, you need to provide only the latest information, otherwise it will be perceived as spam.

It is also worth considering how timely the notification will be delivered. Many people set a beep on their devices when any messages are delivered, and few people will like it if it sounds after midnight.

You still need to dose out the information. This rule has something in common with the first one; subscribers should develop a loyal, but not negative, attitude towards the mailing source.

To summarize, we can say that the competent use of push notifications is based on three pillars: relevance, unobtrusiveness and timeliness. By following these rules, you can attract a large number of users and constantly maintain their interest in your site.

Comments:

VKontakte (X)

Facebook (X)

Currency Converter

Cryptocurrency Converter

Push notifications are short pop-up notifications that appear on the screen of a mobile phone or regular computer and inform about important events and updates. When used effectively, these short, informative messages are a powerful marketing tool. The main purpose of push notifications is to inform users about updates to websites or applications, the addition of new content, or any other news.
Initially, Push notifications appeared precisely as a way for mobile applications to interact with mobile device users, but recently the technology of browser push notifications or web push has also become very popular.

Let's start by focusing on a new trend, namely browser push notifications.

If we talk about browser push notifications or web push, then these are messages from sites that appear in the form of pop-up windows on the user’s desktop if the latter has given permission to receive them. When clicking on such a notification, the user will be redirected to a specific page of the site from which the notification came.
This is what an invitation to subscribe to a notification from a site looks like.

To make it easier to understand how browser push notifications work, you can take a look at this diagram.

The push notification itself consists of a title, an image, short text and a link to the sender’s website. This is what it roughly looks like when it appears on your desktop.

How can browser push notifications be of interest to online marketers and business owners?

First of all, because this is an alternative method of forming your own subscriber base compared to email newsletters. If we compare email newsletters and push notifications, then push notifications have their advantages, namely:

  1. Easy to subscribe. To subscribe to push notifications, simply click on one button in the pop-up browser window - and the subscription is completed.
  2. High percentage of delivery and conversions. According to some estimates, the percentage of delivery of push notifications is up to 90%, and the percentage of transitions to websites via push notifications reaches up to 50%.
  3. Just connect. In order to enable sending push notifications on your website, you only need to install a few lines of code on it.
  4. Convenient to send. You can set up automatic series or RSS feeds.

Web push notifications can be used by Internet marketers for various purposes. Here are just some of the options:

  • Trigger notifications
  • Sales
  • News/new products
  • Reminders
  • Congratulations
  • Events

Sendpulse offers one of the most popular push notification services. Among its main advantages are ease of use, the ability to segment an audience, as well as the ability to integrate SMS, email and webpush mailings. In addition, at the moment the push notification service from Send Pulse is absolutely free.

Options for using mobile push notifications.

Let's now touch on mobile push notifications. How do they work and how can they benefit your business? Four main areas were identified in using these notifications to improve business.

The bulk of mobile push notifications (41%) are used to announce the release of new applications or the availability of new versions of existing ones. The second, no less important, use (24%) is sending out special offers or links to specific landing pages. 14% of push notifications are used to inform users about new content available in the application, and 12% are used to send referral or advertising links. The remaining 9% is used for other types of information.

New marketing channels.

The concept of Push Notifications has made its way into the marketing space very quickly. But there is a fine line between cooperation and being overly intrusive. Push notifications should provide valuable information to the user and encourage long-term engagement. Therefore, messages must be timely and contain relevant content. For example, if a children's app developer sells space for push notifications to a coffee company, such messages will be considered spam. This will not help build relationships - the application will lose its popularity. Some marketers use GPS technology to send mobile push notifications when a user is close to their outlets. This type of user interaction looks more preferable. The key is to provide information that users want in a timely manner.

Also, an effective use of push notifications is to inform the user about the activities of his friends. For example, Facebook uses browser push notifications to notify users of new comments on their posts.

If you're going to use mobile or browser push notifications as part of your marketing plan, make sure you follow these simple rules:

  • Content must be relevant, relevant
  • Content must be linked to social networks to enable discussion
  • Providing the opportunity to unsubscribe from the mailing list
  • Don't exaggerate with the number of notifications - more than six messages a day will irritate most users.

First of all, remember that it's all about practice. Your first push notification campaign may not be perfect, but the experience will provide the impetus for further improvements.

According to encyclopedias, Push is a technology for distributing information from the server to the client. However, recently this word is most often used in relation to notifications on mobile devices. It is about Push notifications that we will talk about in this article.

Mobile push notifications most often mean small blocks with messages that appear at the top of the screen, the so-called. "curtain" on the lock screen.

The concept of push notifications became popular after Apple introduced the Apple Push Notification Service (APNS) to send notifications to devices running iOS 3. It is worth mentioning that Apple introduced this revolutionary innovation in iOS almost a year later than Google in Android OS.

Be that as it may, based on push notifications for mobile phones, a whole family of services and tools from different companies has grown:
Apple, after adding a push notification system (APNS) for iPhones, implemented them for OS X and, more recently, for Safari.
Google created Android Cloud to Device Messaging (C2DM) back in 2008, replacing it with Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) in 2012. Naturally, using this service you can also push in Chrome applications.
Microsoft, as usual, decided not to lag behind and created MPNS (try to guess the meaning of this abbreviation yourself). Thus, push notifications are available on Windows Phone starting from its seventh version.

But why is push technology implemented in all mobile messaging systems? The reason is simple: savings.
After all, this technology is good precisely because when using it to obtain information there is no need to constantly send requests from the application. And, accordingly, there is no need to keep it running in the background: battery power and Internet traffic are saved.
In this regard, the user receives another bonus: the device’s RAM is not cluttered with unnecessary applications waiting for requests from the server.

This is where we should make the difference between things like push, push notifications, and notifications generated by local applications on the system. Push is a technology that is used to deliver information. Notifications are generated within the system and they look different in different operating systems.

Types of notifications in mobile OS

IN iOS There are three types of push notifications:
Audio— the user is informed about the notification by playing a sound notification
Audio/Banners— an audio message is played, etc. A “banner” appears on the screen. You can see the information transmitted with the first and second types of messages in the Notification Center - inside the so-called. “curtains”.
Badges(Russian icon, symbol) - a number or a special image appears next to the application icon.

IN Windows Phone 8 There are also three push notification options:
Toast(Russian toast) - the message is displayed at the top of the screen for 10 seconds. Naturally, this message is clickable.
Tile(Russian tile) - displayed as numbers displayed on top of the application icon on the tile (Live Tile).
Raw(Russian rough) - for transferring arbitrary information inside the application. It is assumed that this type of push notification is used for gaming applications.

WITH Android everything is a little more interesting. The official developer manual says:

It does not provide any built-in user interface or other handling for message data. GCM simply passes raw message data received straight to the Android application, which has full control of how to handle it. For example, the application might post a notification, display a custom user interface, or silently sync data.

In Russian: Android OS does not have any built-in system for directly displaying push notifications to the user. All data is “pushed” exclusively into the application, and is transmitted in a completely arbitrary form, just like raw notifications in WP8. The application, after receiving the information, can, for example, issue a notification standard for Android systems, which will be displayed at the top of the screen and in the “curtain”. Or a banner similar to those in iOS may appear.
However, given the openness of Android and the exceptional flexibility of this system, notifications after receiving a push can be displayed, in principle, in any form. For example, one of the most innocent ways to interact with a user could be to immediately open an application window with all the necessary promotional information.

Browser push notifications

For some time now, developers have been able to send push notifications through browsers to users’ desktop computers: Google Chrome and Apple Safari. GCM and APNs services are also used to send this type of push notifications. From a technical point of view, browser push notifications differ from mobile ones only in that in Chrome and Safari the sender of the notification is the site. Users receive push notifications in the form of small messages that appear on top of all windows in the corner of the screen immediately upon receipt.

For your application or website

Each mobile OS developer has his own approach to the technical implementation of sending push notifications to devices. Services that provide push notification capabilities were listed at the beginning of the article: GCM, APNS and MPNS.
However, it is obvious that to work with them you also need to use an external server to send remote requests to these services. Considering that ensuring an easy life for developers is not a priority for any of the OS author companies, each of the above services functions very differently. To send notifications to different platforms, you need to meet a lot of different requirements, and each platform has its own.
That is why there are many services on the Internet that provide a convenient interface for implementing push notifications in applications and on their clients’ websites.

How to disable push notifications - this question worries some users who see notifications in the browser after logging into many sites on the Internet. Push technology is designed to distribute information on the Internet from the provider, in this case, the site, to the user of this site.

Push notifications for a website are needed to inform website visitors about news, mainly about the release of new articles. In this case, the visitor receives timely notifications from the site and can immediately read the news.

Alerts on behalf of the site are sent using a third-party service, which organizes the delivery of notifications to users’ computers.

What is a push notification on a computer? If a site visitor agrees to receive messages from this resource, then from time to time, notifications about news from this website appear on the user's Desktop.

How push notifications work

When visiting a site where the function of sending notifications is enabled, the visitor each time sees a request for permission to display notifications, in which he is asked to click on the “Allow” or “Block” buttons. The names of the buttons may be different, but the meaning is the same everywhere.

A site visitor can ignore this pop-up window, because the request window for receiving push notifications is small and does not interfere with browsing the site pages.

The appearance of such windows is different, depending on the service through which alerts are sent from this site.

By clicking on the “Allow” button, you agree to receive push messages on your computer.

Alerts about news on this website will appear in the notification area on the user's desktop. Usually, this is a message about the release of a new article. Some sites abuse the ability to send alerts, notifying about everything, sometimes sending unnecessary information.

After receiving a push notification, the user can go to the site to read the article, or close the notification by ignoring the message. Such notifications from sites practically do not interfere with work on the computer, since they are displayed in the notification area and close on their own after a short period of time.

To ensure that the request for permission to send alerts from this site no longer appears when you visit this website again, click on the “Block” button.

If you already receive push messages from a specific site, then the user can disable push notifications independently in his browser, in which he has allowed receiving notifications on his computer.

How to remove push notifications after receiving an alert

In many notifications, depending on the settings of the service sending notifications, you can disable push notifications directly in the window of the message that opened.

To do this, click on the settings icon (gear), and then select “Disable notifications from the site.”

After this, notifications from this site will no longer appear on your computer.

How to disable push notifications in Google Chrome

Enter the settings of the Google Chrome browser, scroll down the mouse wheel, click on the “Advanced” link.

In the “Privacy and Security” section, click on the “Site Settings” button. In the “Site Settings” window that opens, find the “Notifications” section.

Here you can set up receiving notifications from sites. By default, the “Ask permission before sending (recommended)” option is selected.

In order to remove push notifications in the Google Chrome browser, activate the “Do not show notifications on sites” option.

To block receiving notifications from a specific site, click on the “Add” button, which is located opposite the “Block” option.

In the “Add Site” window, enter the site address, and then click the “Add” button.

To set up receiving push messages, click on the “Add” button located opposite the “Allow” option.

In the window that opens, add the desired site to the list of sites from which you are allowed to receive notifications in the Google Chrome browser.

How to disable push messages in Mozilla Firefox (1 method)

Enter the Mozilla Firefox browser settings, open the “Privacy and Security” section. In the Permissions option, go to the Notifications option.

Check the box next to “Disable notifications until Firefox restarts.” After this, Push notifications will not be shown until the Mozilla Firefox browser is disabled.

To manage alerts, click on the “Options...” button. In the “Settings - Permission to display notifications” window there is a list of sites from which notifications are allowed or blocked.

If the status next to a site is “Block”, then notifications from this site do not appear on your computer because you previously blocked the request to send notifications from this site.

If the status next to the site address is “Allow”, then alerts from this site will appear on your PC.

You can remove any site from the list using the “Delete website” button, or remove all sites from the list by clicking the “Delete all websites” button.

After this, new notifications from the remote site will not appear on the Desktop of your computer. When you visit this site again, please decline your notification request.

To block receiving new messages from sites other than those listed in this list, check the “Block new requests to send you notifications” checkbox.

To finish setting the order for receiving notifications, click on the “Save Changes” button.

How to remove push notifications in Mozilla Firefox (method 2)

To completely disable notifications in the Mozilla Firefox browser, you need to enter the hidden browser settings.

Enter the following expression into the address bar: “about:config” (without quotes). In the window that opens, click on the “I accept the risk!” button.

In the new window, enter the expression in the “Search” field: “dom.webnotifications.enabled” (without quotes), and then press the “Enter” key.

The default setting for this setting is “true”. Select the line, right-click, and select “Switch” from the context menu. The parameter value will change to “false”.

How to disable push notifications in Yandex.Browser

Enter the Yandex Browser settings, go to the “Sites” tab.

In the Sites section, go to the Notification Requests option. There are three options for possible actions:

  • Show submission requests (recommended).
  • Do not show submission requests.
  • Automatically subscribe to notifications.

Select the desired option that regulates the procedure for receiving push messages. To completely disable all push notifications in Yandex Browser, select “Do not show sending requests”.

If you want to customize receiving individual notifications, click on the "On other sites" link. Next, in the “Sending Notifications” window, select which push notifications you want to block and which to allow.

Open the “Allowed” or “Banned” tab, using the “Add” button, add a link to the site in the appropriate section.

How to disable push notifications in Opera

Enter the Opera browser menu, click on the “Settings” context menu item. Next, select the “Advanced” section, click on “Security”.

Under Privacy & Security, select the Content Settings option. Find the "Notifications" option.

In the Notifications window, the "Ask permission before sending (recommended)" option is enabled by default.

Here you need to add the site to the “Block” or “Allow” section.

How to remove push notifications in Microsoft Edge

Go to your Microsoft Edge browser settings. Select “Options.” In the “Options” window, click on “View advanced options.” In the Advanced Settings window, select Notifications, and then click the Manage button.

The "manage notifications" window will show sites that are requesting permission to display notifications. You can change permissions for specific sites.

Conclusions of the article

The user can independently disable push notifications in the browser that he receives on the desktop of his computer by allowing notifications to be sent from a specific website.

We've released a new book, Social Media Content Marketing: How to Get Inside Your Followers' Heads and Make Them Fall in Love with Your Brand.

Push notification is a pop-up window on a mobile phone screen or in a browser window.


More videos on our channel - learn internet marketing with SEMANTICA

Regular users can subscribe to topics and resources that interest them. Every time an update is downloaded to the server, it is automatically delivered to all recipients.

How push messages work for a website

There are several ways to ensure that a person returns to the site: automated sending of emails, SMS messaging, retargeting and push notifications. People have different attitudes towards the latter instrument. Some consider it useful, others do not see any practical meaning in it. From a user point of view, the operating principle here is as follows:

  • When entering the site, a person receives a notification.

  • If you block a pop-up window, it will no longer appear on subsequent visits to the web resource.
  • If enabled, you will be automatically subscribed to notifications.
  • Next, messages will pop up on the device screen informing you about important events: holding promotions, publishing new material, etc.

Today, most websites use this tool. It is convenient and works much more effectively than email newsletters or retargeting: firstly, notifications are shown immediately after going to the site, and secondly, you can subscribe in just one click.

Push messaging services

To find out how users perceive pop-ups and track how effective a given solution is, it is recommended to use . They transmit information about traffic characteristics to the web analytics system used. There are a huge number of services offering notification sending services. The most famous of them:

  1. SendPulse is a multi-profile platform for email marketing, SMS, push notifications and transactional emails with a Russian interface and free traffic.
  2. PushCrew is an English-language project for beginners whose total number of subscribers does not exceed 500 people.
  3. WonderPush is an English-language project with free traffic. It is perfect for beginners who independently promote and advertise a project.
  4. Letreach is a large project used by large corporations like Facebook and eBay.

When using the service, it is necessary to monitor the intensity of sending messages, since an overly intrusive offer of services pushes away users, as a result of which the project loses subscribers.

Who uses the utility

Today, almost every website has built-in push notification functionality. This allows you not only to create convenient channels of communication with customers, but also, in a sense, to manage the behavior of a large audience. In practice, the tool is relevant for the following business categories:

  • Online store and advertising. Here you can encourage potential customers to make purchases by sending them information about product discounts, sales, or new arrivals.
  • Online cinemas, webinars. They usually send subscribers announcements of new films, remind them about payment, or inform them about the start of the broadcast.
  • Information and news web resources. To keep a visitor on the site, he needs to subscribe and receive notifications when new content, feature articles or news blocks are added.
  • Statistics and technical information. Many users use notifications at work to receive the latest information about exchange rates, stock exchanges, etc.

In omnichannel communication, push notifications play a huge role, promptly offering a person information that very quickly loses its relevance. If other notification tools are effective over the long term, here the result should reach the subscriber in the shortest possible time.

Push Notifications for Internet Marketers

As noted above, alternative methods of forming a client base, be it email newsletters or SMS, are inferior to this tool in the effectiveness of communicating with a large audience. Specifically, subscribers can subscribe with the click of a button, without having to enter email details or register.

There is also a high percentage of information delivery to the addressee. With the right approach, the return can be up to 90%. This ensures that interested people go to the site, view the information offered and take the necessary actions. To activate this service, you need to install a short code that allows you to set up automatic sending of news feed descriptions, article announcements, blog changes, etc. to subscribers.

Push notification settings

First of all, you should work with your audience to determine which hyperlinks to include in the body of the message to increase traffic, and how to configure the utility itself. The information must not contain errors or inaccurate data. You can check the effectiveness and correctness of the settings using response statistics.

  1. The body of the message must consist of a title and text (an average of 125 characters).
  2. A notification about content should be sent to a person immediately after publication (taking into account his time zone).
  3. The notification must contain a link to which the subscriber must be redirected.

When introducing technology into the operation of the server, it is important to ensure that the notification does not repel the visitor:

  • Each notification must be relevant and contain only useful information.
  • It is necessary to create social contacts between subscribers, giving them the opportunity to discuss content. This is done by linking to social networks.
  • The person must have the choice to refuse or accept the notifications.
  • The intensity of messages should be adjusted correctly so that the user does not “drown” in the flow of information, does not get annoyed due to excessive spam and, as a result, does not unsubscribe.

The technology of short pop-up notifications allows website owners to attract a large audience to their services, popularizing the brand and increasing the likelihood of success in further promotion.

The dangers of push notifications

These utilities are an effective tool for communicating with a diverse audience. However, in some cases, apparent simplicity can result in many problems for the user.

Sending notifications too often irritates your visitors. Will you be pleased to be on the site when you receive a notification every 10 minutes with a link to some uninteresting article? No. Do not overuse such notifications.

Another danger is direct links that cannot be cleared from a mobile or computer screen. When you click on them, a website opens, which is what attackers take advantage of by creating malicious web pages. Therefore, you should notify users with simple messages that people will trust.