After building your app and getting a decent number of downloads, you need to make your users use your app regularly, especially if you are depending on the ad revenue for an income. Your app open rates need to be increasing, not declining or you will be out of business.
But how do you get people to remember to use your app when each smartphone has an average of about 30 apps, all clamoring for attention?
How do you stand out?
Push Notifications. Each time your smartphone rings, you answer the call. Every time you get a text message, you check, read and then decide whether to reply or not. The point is simple, people check almost all notifications on their phones, and that’s exactly what you need – their attention.
With short, carefully crafted copy, push notifications can get your users to use your app more often. This can result in significantly increased ad revenue and referrals.
Can you send push notifications on your Andromo app? Yes! To set this up you will need:
- An Andromo Pro account
- An Andromo app published in Google Play Store (if you don’t have one, follow this guide to build and then launch your app and then come back to complete the rest of this tutorial)
- OneSignal Account
- Google Firebase account
We’ve created a step-by-step guide to help you set u OneSIgnal Push Notifications on your Andromo-powered apps. You can find it here.
Why OneSignal?
They have a robust solution and it’s absolutely free to use. They describe themselves as the “market leader in customer engagement, powering mobile push, web push, email, and in-app messages.” They’ve lived up to their name and certainly are among the top providers of push messaging services so we didn’t hesitate to integrate them on our platform. Most of their services are free so that’s a big plus!
Is AirBop Going Away?
No. We’ve had AirBop for a long time. We now have more choices so you have the freedom to select your preferred service. We encourage you to try OneSignal because it has so much more functionality, and caters for both experienced developers and those who are not so tech savvy.
Firebase Integration
Google Firebase is a revolutionary solution provided by Google that integrates a lot of Google services into a single platform for easy management. Because of OneSignal’s Firebase integration, you can track your push campaign performance in real time with Firebase Analytics. With ever increasing competition in the app development space, you need to ensure you have all the data you need in order to be agile and respond to market demands before your competition.
What type of notifications should you send?
Before you even build an app, the first thing you need to consider is what problem your app will solve. If it’s a game, it helps pass time and kills boredom. If it’s a productivity app, it will help people do their work better. Write down your user stories well in advance. This will help you to select the right times to trigger notifications.
Don’t spam. If you send too many notifications, your users may turn them off or outrightly delete your app and leave you a bad review. You don’t want to be that culprit. Never spam. Think of the value you want to communicate. If your user was playing a game and didn’t finish it, you can send a reminder for them to finish their conquest. Such notifications are not annoying and are relevant to the situation.
If you have a sale, you might want to alert your customers so they don’t miss it. These are the kind of notifications your users will want to read. And they will take action immediately.
We’re so happy that you can finally enable OneSignal push notifications in your Andromo apps. We’re excited to see what you’ll create.
If you’ve got questions or want to share something I left out please post it in the comment section below.
