Building a Push Message

Overview

As you’re building your message campaign, you should have already chosen your Goal and your Audience. Now it’s time to build the actual message you’re planning on sending to your audience. Many parts of the push message builder in Localytics are optional, so pick and choose those that will help your Push be the most relevant to your Audience.

Let’s dive in!

Message Preview

On the right side of your Push Message builder, you’ll see a preview of what your message looks like as you build it. It’s important to note that this is just a preview. Depending on the phone type and style your message will translate differently (ie, an iPhone plus might look different from a regular iPhone).

This is why we always recommend that you send a test push to your own device (or a coworker’s) if you want to see what a push will look like on a live phone. Here’s a little more on setting up a testing on your own device.

Optional Name

At the top of the builder, you can choose an Optional Name for your message. The name will let you access the push in the future. It will help you differentiate across your A/B tests if you choose to make them.

Optional Title

Add a title to your push as the header of the message. The title will appear as a bold text above the message. The title is an optional piece of copy for your push message—so feel free to skip it if you’d prefer.

Optional Subtitle

The subtitle sits below the title in a push message. Like the optional title, it will appear bold on the end user’s screen. Again, this is optional—so feel free to skip it if you’d prefer!

Message Body

Finally, it’s time for the most important part of your message—the message body! The message body is the only copy that is mandatory.

We do our best to show you an example of what the message will look like on the right. It’s important to note that there is no official character limit for the message body since each phone and OS will handle the content differently.

This is why it’s important to test the message on a physical device if you’re concerned about truncating your copy.

Emojis

Emojis are a great addition to any push message. 💃 To add an emoji to your message you’ll need to access the emoji keyboard. Here’s how to do that:

If you don't have access to the emoji keyboard, you can copy your emojis from an emoji tool like Get Emoji.

Liquid

Push messages are even better when they’re personal. In your message body, you can use Liquid templating (sometimes called dynamic content) in order to add anything associated with your end user’s profile attributes. Click the icon to access the full list of content you can add to your push.

And read our full guide about Liquid here.

Add Rich Media Content

If you want to spice up your push message, why not add Rich Push elements? Rich Push messages include any of the following:

• Images
• GIFs (iOS only)
• Video (iOS only)

Localytics doesn't cover image hosting, so you’ll need to upload the image externally.

Paste the Rich Media’s direct URL in the Attachment URL line, and select the file type from the drop-down menu. Your options are:

• JPEG
• GIF
• PNG
• Mp3
• Mp4

Like with the message body, you can also use Liquid to serve different rich elements depending on the user’s profile attributes. Read more on the Liquid page.

Rich Push File Size Limits

While there are no file size limits for Android, we still recommend adhering to the limitations shown for iOS below. Keep in mind, these are hard limits for iOS.

Rich Push Image Dimension Limits

iOS

• Maximum possible dimensions are 1,038 pixels x 1,038 pixels

Android

• Keep images between a minimum of 800 and maximum of 1,038 pixels

Deep Linking

If your push is supposed to spur an action with your app, you’ll want to use a deep link. If none is specified, clicking through on the push will open your app to the home screen.

A deep link, on the other hand, allows you to direct your users to a specific page within your app from the push. Deep linking is super handy if you’ve got a sale going on for a certain set of items, or if you’d like to direct your end users to a specific article.

Again, you can use Liquid to serve a different URL structure depending on the profile attributes of the end user. Read more in the Liquid docs.

Category

Categories are iOS-specific. They allow you to specify how your push message is categorized by iOS so that you can further customize the action buttons. Read more about Action Buttons here.

Play a Sound

If you’ve got a special message and you’d like to change up the sound normally associated with your push (if you have one) you can choose to play a sound.

You’ll need to make sure the sound is associated with your app—since you’ll be calling the file name from the app’s code.

Just let Localytics know what sound to play by entering the file name (and extension) and you’re good to go!

Key/Value Pairs

Finally, the last thing you can add is a Key/Value Pair.

Key/Value Pairs are a robust feature, so be sure to check out our article on them before getting started.

A/B Testing

Localytics allows you to A/B your messages to figure out what your users react more positively to. Test the copy of your message with A/B testing. To add another creative click the + Add Creative button. Add up to 10 creatives.

To read more about the nitty-gritty of A/B testing, check out our doc.

We highly recommend you Enable a control group. The control group gives you baseline metrics for your push message. This way, you have data around how users act if they’re not messaged.

Preview As

Finally, the last thing you can do on the Push Messaging builder: preview the message.

As you build the message, the preview will change to show you what your end user will see. If you’re using Liquid templating, you can preview the message as a certain user by typing in an email address or their Customer ID.

Next Steps

Now that you’ve built your Push Message, you’ll head to the next step by clicking Continue to Scheduling. Check out the Scheduling docs for more information.