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Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

eugeneyan.com

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Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#101

Post by malfist »

cypressious wrote: post #34
TylerE wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wish they added (and enforced!) a distinction between transactional notifications and everything else.

Android forces app developers to categorize notifications (the API is called notification channels). Each channel can be muted individually in the system settings. Though it's up to the app makers to correctly categorize their notifications, in my experience most apps do this. Whenever I see a spam notification, I immediatelly go mute the channel and the problem never repeats itself.

The problem is still bad actors. Take for example audible. They deliberately put everything into a single category "Member notifications"

If you want to know when your audiobook is downloaded or when you get a your next credit is available, you also have to put up with promotional "X book is 40% off" garbage spam.

Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#102

Post by barryrandall »

xivzgrev wrote: post #82

Marketer here. I’ll add how my company does it (10m+ list size) 1) we limit promotional notifications to one per user per day. All campaigns that target a given user are ranked based on expected monetization or engagement. This involves a large batch scoring job that runs overnight 2) we also limit promotional messages to one every x days, where x is personalized to the user. The more you open/click, the more you get…

Customer here. Here's how I handle notifications:

1) When I install an app, I give it all requested notification permissions.

2) When an app sends a poorly-timed notification, I add it to a notification profile that limits when notifications are shown. When an app sends me an annoying message (anything marketing-related, or anything that looks like it's intended to drive "engagement"), I disable all notifications for the app.

3) If the app is not usable with notifications disabled, I stop using the app. If the app is required by a service I use, then I cancel the service.

Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#104

Post by [deleted] »

cypressious wrote: post #34
TylerE wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wish they added (and enforced!) a distinction between transactional notifications and everything else.

Android forces app developers to categorize notifications (the API is called notification channels). Each channel can be muted individually in the system settings. Though it's up to the app makers to correctly categorize their notifications, in my experience most apps do this. Whenever I see a spam notification, I immediatelly go mute the channel and the problem never repeats itself.

[deleted]

Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#105

Post by JohnFen »

kijin wrote: post #15
gdeglin wrote: post #5

One detail not covered as much in this article is that many options are now available to users and apps to control the push notifications they send and receive. For example, on iOS, when prompted for notification permission, users are now asked to choose if they want the notifications sent to a summary view. iOS will also invite users to disable notifications from apps they haven't interacted with recently. Here are…

There's a problem with the current status quo, at least on Android. Apps can tell that you have disabled notifications, and nag you to re-enable them. Back when I used cyanogen, I could deny permissions to an app while tricking the app into believing that those permissions were granted. The app would just get an empty contact list, no GPS signal, etc. Even with recent improvements, stock Android still falls short in…

> Apps can tell that you have disabled notifications, and nag you to re-enable them.

The first time an app does this, that app gets uninstalled. No exceptions.

Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#107

Post by JohnFen »

twism wrote: post #83
carlosjobim wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this argument always used against any kind of improvement beneficial for the end user? Let's at least try to improve things before giving up.

so many examples of this type of anti-competitive strategy already being used. why implement something with known deficiencies?

> why implement something with known deficiencies?

That argument could equally be used to argue that push notifications shouldn't be implemented at all.

Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#108

Post by JohnFen »

xivzgrev wrote: post #82

Marketer here. I’ll add how my company does it (10m+ list size) 1) we limit promotional notifications to one per user per day. All campaigns that target a given user are ranked based on expected monetization or engagement. This involves a large batch scoring job that runs overnight 2) we also limit promotional messages to one every x days, where x is personalized to the user. The more you open/click, the more you get…

One per user per day is an insanely, unacceptably, high rate in my opinion.

> employees sometimes complain about the amount of email they receive - it’s because they are naturally power users, opening everything.

Doesn't the fact that this happens indicate that this approach is a bad one?

Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#109

Post by rideontime »

londons_explore wrote: post #31

I'd much rather the OS have a "report spam" button on notifications, and if more than 5% of app users report spam then the whole app gets all notifications blocked by default. Both Apple and Google have strong controls on the apps identity, so it won't be like email spam where the sender can just send from a new email address to get around the filter.

Too abusable. How about the platform owners actually pay people to enforce the existing guidelines?

Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#110

Post by JohnFen »

cypressious wrote: post #43
lozenge wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Samsung and it doesn't show what channel a notification came from. Probably because of the amount of crapware Samsung bundles.

It shows, though it's a bit obscure. Long press the notification, then press notification settings. It will scroll you down and highlight the notification channels item. Press on it. After a second, it will highlight the channel the original notification was belonging to.

That's not "a bit obscure". That's almost completely hidden.
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