Web Push Notifications are informative, concise yet captivating pop-up messages, designed essentially to gain the website visitor's consent to convey product or service related offers, reminders, updates and promotions in the near future with the ultimate goal of converting a casual visitor to a regular customer. Since Push Notifications are browser, platform and device independent, they serve as a convenient communication channel to instantly grab the customer’s attention. Click here in case you wish to learn more about Push Notifications.

Types of Web Push Campaigns

NotifyVisitors offers two types of Web Push Notifications viz.

• Standard Push Notification: It is a basic type of notification which includes a title, a message and a small icon towards the left of the notification message.
• Rich Push Notification: It includes a title, a message, a small icon towards the left of the notification message as well as a rich content image right below the main message.

Modes to deploy Web Push Campaigns

NotifyVisitors offers four ways to deploy Web Push Campaigns viz.

• One Time: This mode allows you to send the push notification only once on a specific date and at a specific time.
• Recurring: This mode allows you to repetitively send push notifications on a specific date and at a specific time.
• CSV Upload: This mode allows you to send push notifications to a list of subscribers uploaded via a CSV file.
• Transactional API: This mode allows you to send push notifications through an API call.

How to create a Web Push Campaign in NotifyVisitors

The process to create a Standard Push Notification and a Rich Push Notification is similar but not identical. However, most of the steps to create both types of notifications are alike and they are delineated as follows: - 

1. Navigate to NotifyVisitors Dashboard> Campaigns> Campaign.

2. Click on the ‘Web Push’ campaign type option which is present under the ‘Reach Users Via’ section.
3. Upon doing so, a new frame would appear on-screen wherein you can create your Web Push Campaign.
4. The very first step to create the campaign is to select a ‘Campaign Type’ and an ‘Audience Type’. You can choose:

• to dispatch the campaign to your entire customer base.
• to dispatch the campaign only to specific segments of your customer base. 
• to not dispatch the campaign to specific segments of your customer base.

5. After choosing the ‘Campaign Type’ and the ‘Audience Type’, click on the ‘Create Campaign’ button.
6. Once you click on the ‘Create Campaign’ button, you will be offered a choice to either create a Standard Push Notification or a Rich Push Notification. Kindly make a choice and click on the ‘Create New’ button.

7. Once you click on the ‘Create New’ button, a pop-up would appear on-screen prompting you to enter a name for your Web Push Notification. Enter a desired name and click on the ‘Create’ button present within the same pop-up.

8. Upon clicking the ‘Save’ button, your campaign will be saved in the database of your NotifyVisitors Account and from here onwards, all you need to do is design and configure your Web Push Campaign in five consecutive steps viz. Description, Media, Advanced Options, Targeting Rules and Schedule Notification. These steps are described as follows:

Description

In the first tab i.e. ‘Description’, as the name suggests, you will be required to describe the content for your campaign. This tab consists of two sections viz. Description and Action Buttons. You will be required to input the following in the ‘Description’ section:

• Title: A title for your campaign.
• Message: Your campaign’s message (you can also include tokens and emojis in the message).
• Call To Action: Provide a ‘Call To Action’ URL to which the visitor will be redirected upon clicking on the notification.

The ‘Action Buttons’ section allows you to include clickable buttons in your Push Notification. You can even customize these buttons by entering a desired text/name for them, providing call to action URLs and an icon for each button. Kindly note that at the maximum you can include only two buttons in a single Push Notification. You will be required to input the following for each action button you include via the ‘Action Buttons’ section:

• Text: A name/title/text for your action button.
• URL: A URL to which the visitor will be redirected upon clicking on the action button.
• Icon: An icon’s URL.

In the ‘Description’ tab, right next to the name of the Campaign there exist two circular shaped buttons. One of which allows you to edit the name of the Campaign while the other allows you to create a variation of your current campaign. You can in turn utilize the two variations to perform A/B Testing and thereby gauge which variation performs better. 

Click on the button titled ‘Save And Continue’, once you are done configuring the settings in the ‘Description’ tab in order to move on to the ‘Media’ tab.

Media

In the second tab titled ‘Media’, you will be provided with the option to include the main icon for your Push Notification which will appear towards the left hand side of the message. You can include the Notification Icon either by providing the icon’s URL or by uploading the icon’s image file from your computer system. 

Once you have either provided the Icon’s Image URL or uploaded the image from your system, click on the button titled ‘Upload Image’ and then click on the button titled ‘Save And Continue’. Kindly note that the icon’s image dimensions should not exceed 200 pixels in height as well as width.

Advanced Options

The third tab titled ‘Advanced Options’, consists of two sections viz. ‘Advanced Options’ and ‘Goal Conversions’. These two sections are described as follows:

Advanced Options

In this particular section you can configure certain advanced settings for your Push Notification such as:

• Life Time Of The Message: You can set the time duration within which the Push Notification should be dispatched to the selected audience i.e. you can set the lifetime or validity of the notification in terms of days, hours and minutes. In other words, the notification should be delivered to the selected audience within the specified time period.
  

  In case, the notification does not get delivered within the configured time frame due to reasons such as a subscriber is not actively using his/her device, unavailability of the internet connection etc., then the notification will be discarded and thereby will not be forwarded to that particular subscriber within the chosen audience for whom such unfavourable reasons or issues existed.

• Auto Disappear:  You can choose whether or not the notification should automatically disappear after its lifetime expires in case the receiver doesn’t click on it.
• Select Label:  You can either select a previously created label for your campaign from the dropdown or create a new one by clicking on the ‘Create New’ button. Once you click on the ‘Create New’ button a pop-up titled ‘Create New Label’ would appear on-screen wherein you can input a label name. Once you have entered the label name, click on the ‘Save’ button within the same pop-up and the newly created label will get listed in the dropdown from where it can be selected.
• Frequency Capping:  Enabling frequency capping allows you to control the number of notifications a user receives within a day, week, or month and to keep a consistent interval between consecutive messages (sent through multiple channels or via the same channel).
• Do Not Disturb Hours: By enabling Do Not Disturb settings for your notifications, you can prevent users from receiving them during odd hours, such as when they might be asleep.
• Conversion Tracking:  Conversion tracking traces the moment when a recipient clicks on the notification and then takes another action (such as placing an order) within the conversion period. Choose conversion tracking if you want to track down the conversions generated through a particular notification.
• UTM Parameters:  UTM helps track the progress of the notifications on all online platforms, just like Google Analytics. Choose UTM if you want to track user engagement for any particular notification.

Goal Conversions

The ‘Goal Conversions’ section allows you to create a URL Rule to track conversions. For instance, if a visitor performs a purchase on your organization’s website, then the URL generated upon the completion of the purchase can be configured as a rule or condition to track conversions i.e. conversion of a casual visitor to an actual customer.

Within this section, you can define certain portions of a web address or keywords for which the URLs of all the web pages within your organization’s website will be searched and if it is found that a visitor has visited a URL that contains the keywords you specified, then that visitor will be counted as a customer. In other words, this occurrence will be counted as a conversion. 

Click on the button titled ‘Save And Continue’ once you have configured the settings for this section.

Targeting Rules

In the fourth tab titled ‘Targeting Rules’, you can configure certain conditions for your notification which allow you to target it to specific subscription groups, URLs, segments of your customer base etc. The Targeting Rules are summarized below:

• Basic Rule:  Within this particular section, you are provided with certain configurations which allow you to target your notification:

• to specific browser(s) such as Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Safari etc.
• to specific devices such as Tablet, Mobile, Desktop etc.
• to subscribers enrolled within a specific time period.
• to known and unknown subscribers.

• Location Rule:  Within this particular section, you are provided with the configuration which allows you to target and deploy your notification only to a specific region or geographical location. You can specify as many geographical locations in terms of country, state and city. Additionally, you can set a ‘Group Condition’ to target your push notification to any or none of the specified geographical locations.
• Select Group:  Within this particular section, you are provided with the configuration which allows you to target your web push notification to only those customers who subscribed to a specific subscription group from within the Permission Prompt which is sent prior to the notification in order to gain the website visitor’s consent to convey product or service related offers, reminders, updates and promotions.
• Page URL: Within this particular section, you are provided with the configuration that allows you to precisely target users who have subscribed from a specific URL for receiving the Push Notification. You can even define certain portions of a web address or keywords for which the URLs of all the web pages within your organization’s website will be searched and the push notification will appear only on those URLs that satisfy a specific condition (URL Rule) associated with those predefined keywords.
  

  You can add as many keywords along with their associated conditions (URL Rules) as you like, by clicking on the ‘Add More Field’ button. Additionally, you can also choose whether all or any of the specified conditions associated with the defined keywords should be satisfied in order for the Web Push Notifications to get successfully deployed.

Schedule Notification

In the fifth tab titled ‘Schedule Notification’, further consists of three sections namely ‘Schedule Notification Time’, ‘Resend Notification’ and ‘Notification Center’. The configurations available within these three sections are described as follows: -

Schedule Notification Time

Within this section, you can configure certain conditions for your notification that allow you to deploy it to a particular time zone, on a specific date and at a specific time. Click on the dropdown titled ‘Time Zone’ to select the desired time zone. Under the section titled ‘Schedule Time’, specify the date and time at which you wish to deploy your notification. Click on the ‘Schedule’ button to schedule the deployment of the push notification at the specified date and time. You can even choose to instantly deploy the push notification by clicking on the ‘Send Now’ button.

Resend Notification

Using the configurations available within this section, you can choose to resend the notification after a specific delay in case the customer either didn’t receive the campaign or didn’t click on it. In order to resend the campaign, click on ‘Resend Notification’, then click on the ‘Add More Stage’ button. Upon doing so a new pop-up would appear on-screen wherein you can configure the deployment settings for your Push Notification.

Notification Center

Using the configurations available within this section, you can choose whether or not to include the Push Notification in the Notification Center for a specific time period. In order to include the notification in the Notification Center, click on the radio button titled ‘Yes’ under the heading ‘Add To inbox’, then specify the time period or duration for which you want the notification to remain within the Notification Center before it automatically disappears. Finally, click on the ‘Update’ button.

Click on the button titled ‘Finish’ in order to finalize the design and deployment configurations of your web push notification.

Configuration exclusive to Rich Push Notifications

There is one step which is exclusive to Rich Push Notifications. It is described as follows: -

In case you choose to create a Rich Push Notification instead of a Standard Push Notification, then while designing and configuring your Web Push Campaign, in the second tab titled ‘Media’, you will be provided with the option to include ‘Rich Media’ content within your Push Notification.

The process to include ‘Rich Media’ is similar to the one described for including an icon within the Push Notification. Additionally, you can choose to include distinct versions of ‘Rich Media’ content for desktop and mobile platforms. 

Desktop Platform

The image’s dimensions should be exactly 600 pixels in width and 400 pixels in height. In addition to this, its file size should not exceed 200 kb.

Mobile Platform

The image’s dimensions should be exactly 512 pixels in width and 256 pixels in height. In case there is no image uploaded specifically for the mobile platform, then the image provided for the desktop platform will be utilized in the push notification dispatched to the mobile platform.

This way you can create Web Push Notifications and thereby leverage them to convert casual visitors to your organization's website into frequent customers.