Sending a Rich Push Message with the Push API

Overview

Rich Push is a way of displaying enhanced content - like images, GIFs, video, styled text, and custom call to action buttons - inside your push notification, all without the user needing to open your app. In this guide, we will walk you through an example of how you can use Localytics to deliver a push that is enhanced with such content.

Why it matters

Mobile engagement is hard...and getting harder. Cutting through the noise requires delivering targeted notifications that resonate with users; rich content allows you to make notifications show more of your app’s value proposition immediately to drive engagement. Consider using rich notifications to:

• Showcase a recommended item from your ecommerce app
• Grab attention about a breaking news story with a photo
• Include contextual actions to re-create the last order or add an item directly to a shopping cart

How-to guide

The following steps will first walk you through how to deliver a rich push message using Localytics. Please choose your platform for tailored instructions:

Android (Dashboard) (Push API)

 

 

iOS (Dashboard) (Push API)

 

 

Android Rich Push

Step 1: First-time setup 

Before sending your first rich push, follow our Push and Rich Push integration guides to ensure your app is set up to receive Localytics push messages. 

Step 2: Sending a rich push campaign

Once rich push is configured in your Android app, you can send a rich push from the Localytics dashboard. The following steps will outline how to achieve this:

Upload your image to your hosting provider. For example, with Cloudinary, go to the Media Library and drag in your image:

Copy the public HTTP URL for the image to the clipboard (located at the bottom right of the screenshot above on Cloudinary - or in S3Browser, right-click and select “Generate Web URL.”)

In the Localytics dashboard, create a new push campaign including the URL for the image you uploaded as the value for a custom key called "ll_attachment_url".

Alternatively, you can send a rich push by using the Localytics Push API with a JSON Body similar to the following:

{
  "messages": [
    {
      "target": "TARGET_CUSTOMER_ID",
      "alert": "SOME ALERT",
      "android" : {
        "extra" : {
            "ll_attachment_url": "An HTTP link to your attachment"
        }
      }
    }
  ],
  "target_type": "customer_id",
  "request_id": "SOME_UNIQUE_ID",
  "campaign_key": "SOME_CAMPAIGN_KEY"
}
      

Or, you could utilize our sample curl command as seen here:

curl --user API_KEY:API_SECRET -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d ' {"messages": [{"target": "TARGET_CUSTOMER_ID", "alert": "SOME ALERT" "android" : { "extras" : { "ll_attachment_url": "An HTTP link to your attachment"}}}],"target_type": "customer_id", "request_id" : "SOME_UNIQUE_ID", "campaign_key": "SOME_CAMPAIGN_KEY" }' https://messaging.localytics.com/v2/push/APP_KEY
       

iOS Rich Push

Step 1: First-time setup

Note that the following instructions are steps to send a rich push message via our Push API. To send a campaign through the Localytics dashboard, please consult the dashboard tutorial.

Before sending your first rich push, follow our Push and Rich Push integration guide to ensure your app is set up to receive Localytics rich push messages.

Step 2: Sending a rich push campaign

Once rich push is configured in your iOS app, you can send a rich push through the Localytics Push API. The following steps will outline how to achieve this:

Upload your image, GIF, or video to your hosting provider. For example, with Cloudinary, go to the Media Library and drag in your image:

Copy the public HTTPS URL for the image to the clipboard (located at the bottom right of the screenshot above on Cloudinary - or in S3Browser, right-click and select “Generate Web URL”). Keep in mind, HTTPS is a hard requirement for image URLs.

Deliver a message to the Localytics Push API with a JSON Body similar to the following, using the ll_attachment_url from the previous step:

{
  "messages": [
    {
      "target": "TARGET_CUSTOMER_ID",
      "alert": "SOME ALERT",
      "ios" : {
        "mutable_content":true,
        "extra" : {
            "ll_attachment_url": "An HTTPS link to your attachment"
            "ll_attachment_type": "The filetype of your attachment"
        }
      }
    }
  ],
  "target_type": "customer_id",
  "request_id": "SOME_UNIQUE_ID",
  "campaign_key": "SOME_CAMPAIGN_KEY"
}

Or, you could also utilize our sample curl command as seen here:

curl --user API_KEY:API_SECRET -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d ' {"messages": [{"target": "TARGET_

Key takeaways

• Rich Push lets you add images and interactive features to Android and iOS notifications to cut through the noise from other apps.