Web push notifications

Web push notifications are a quick and effective way to reach your audience, even when they’re not actively browsing your website. Once users consent to receive them, they can stay updated with news, promotions, and other important information directly in their browsers.

Why use web push in customer communication? 

• Low cost: web pushes are more affordable compared to other marketing channels like email or ads.
• Real-time delivery: information reaches recipients instantly, even when they’re not on your site.
• High effectiveness: web push notifications enjoy high open and click-through rates, which translates to measurable benefits for your business.
• Increased engagement: regular notifications encourage customers to return to your site and make purchases.

Requirements 

Before you start creating web push notifications:

1. Set up the web tracking channel, which tracks traffic on your site. 
2. Configure the web push channel for the site or sites where you want to display notifications. You can do this in Settings > Web push > Web push. Setting up the channel requires a service worker file. During setup, we’ll check if you already have this file available on your site. If not, we’ll provide instructions on how to add it.
3. To send web push notifications, you must get consent from users. You can do this by setting up a consent request for your chosen site, which will appear to users in their browsers. You can configure this in Settings > Web push > Opt-in prompts. 

Create web push notifications 

In the side panel, select Campaigns, then Web push. Go to the notification editor by clicking Create new web push.

At the top of the editor, you’ll find a progress bar with the notification creation stages. The stage you’re currently on is highlighted with a colored line. To move to the next one, click the header of the chosen stage – you don’t need to go through them all in order.

After moving to Summary, dots may appear next to previous stages – this means that stage needs completion.

Basic settings 

In this section, give your notification a name that will be visible in statistics and choose the site where it should appear.

Also choose tracking options. In the Google Analytics and Custom parameters sections, you can select metrics that will help identify traffic from the notification and make it easier to evaluate campaign effectiveness:

• Google Analytics – – you can add UTM tags that will help you identify the sent message as a traffic source on your site in Google Analytics. Standard UTM tags read in Google Analytics are source, medium, content, campaign, and term.
• Custom parameters – if you mark web push campaigns in a unique way, you’ll add your own parameters here. You can also use tags in the form of dynamic content. 

Additionally, you can enable link tracking included in web push content and views. Note that we can only track views if you include the logo in your web push notification. 

Content 

Web push notifications can look different depending on the user’s browser and operating system.

In our editor, you’ll create a notification that will look good everywhere. Next to each element, you’ll find tips that will help you design a readable and eye-catching notification.

Personalize notifications with dynamic content 

In the editor, you can personalize notification content using dynamic content. This is a text in scripting language that will be replaced with target content during notification sending.

You can use dynamic content to insert the recipient’s name in the web push title or content, or to include a selected attribute like birthdate, provided such recipient information exists in the platform. Personalized content can vary in character count – for example, the name “Catherine” has 9 characters, while “Tom” has only 3. Keep this in mind when designing the title and notification text, as character limits apply to them.

Character limit in notification content

For each ‘operating system + browser’ configuration, this limit will be different. In the editor, we’ve averaged them so that content is always clearly visible:

• The title should contain up to 70 characters. 
• The notification text should contain up to 141 characters. 

You can find detailed character limits here:

Character limit on buttons

Buttons are only available for notifications displayed in Chrome and Edge browsers.

The button must have text encouraging clicks, called CTA (call-to-action). You can use a CTA of any length. For the text to be displayed completely, follow these guidelines:

• 1 button in notification – the text can contain up to 20 characters. 
• 2 buttons in notification – text on each button can have up to 13 characters. 

Logo and image type and dimensions

TLogo is visible in all web push notifications, regardless of browser.

Image, also called hero image, is displayed only by Chrome and Edge browsers.

If you want graphics in your notifications to display correctly, adjust them to these guidelines:

Notification preview and browser testing 

Before sending the notification to recipients, you can test how it looks. In ECDP, we have two options for you:

1. Preview of the designed notification in different browser and operating system configurations. This will help with design and content adjustment.
2. Display of the designed notification directly in the browser.

Recipients 

You can only send web push notifications to people who have consented to receive them. To do this, set up an opt-in prompt for your chosen site, which will appear to users in their browsers. You can set this up here: Settings > Web push > Opt-in prompts.

Delivery

You can send your web push notifications in two modes:

• Send now – send notifications right away.
• Schedule – set a custom schedule for sending. 

Notification lifespan

In sending settings, you can set notification validity – the time a notification remains in the sending queue before being deleted and marked as undelivered. This is especially useful when sending large numbers of notifications with limited validity time (like promotions).

Here’s how it works: 

The setting works as follows: 

• Choose how long the notification should remain in the queue. Maximum time is 72 hours (3 days).
• If the recipient is online, the notification will be sent according to schedule.
• If the recipient is offline: 
  • The notification will be stored in the queue until the recipient is online. 
  • After the lifespan expires, the notification will be deleted from the queue and won’t be sent. 

Web push campaign report 

The report showing each campaign’s results is available from the moment sending begins. Until sending is complete, data in the report will change. After sending finishes, it becomes a static report.

Frequently Asked Questions 

Where will web push notifications appear? 

Web push notifications created in the ExpertSender CDP platform will appear in browsers on mobile devices and desktops, they won’t appear apps. 

Will a web push notification show to users who have given any marketing consent?

No. Web push notifications are shown to users only when they have been given separate consent to receive them. This consent appears in the browser the user is using.

Will users who only have web push consent be visible in the ECDP platform?

Yes. Users of your site who have only consented to receive web push notifications will be visible in the platform as customers, even without an email address or phone number.

Why do web push views show 0? 

Because no logo was attached to your notification. We only track views for notifications that contain a logo. This is the only graphic that will display in the notification, regardless of the browser or operating system being used.

While including a logo in notifications isn’t mandatory, consider adding one if you want to see web push view statistics.

How are orders attributed to the web push channel? 

We’ll attribute orders to the web push channel when they’re placed in the same session where the web push notification was clicked.

Sending web push notifications from a multilingual domain 

When a user consents to receive notifications from multiple language versions of one domain, like www.shop.com/en and www.shop.com/pl, they won’t be duplicated.

The user will receive notifications only from the last language version of the site for which they gave consent. This consent will override previous ones.