Step 2: Define audience

1. Select the user segments for which you want to target your push notification. You can also create a new one by clicking on Create new segment. Refer to our segments guide to learn more.
   
2. Once you have selected a segment, all the application IDs filtered from the selected segment will be listed below along with details on whether each application ID has a valid certificates/credentials uploaded in the console. If they are not available, you need to upload them first as the notification will be sent only to application IDs with valid certificates/credentials.
3. Click on the Conversion checkbox if you want to measure the effectiveness of your notification. You can track the conversion rate of a notification by specifying a desired action you want users to take within the app after interacting with the notification.
   
4. Choose an event (that is already being tracked in Apptics for your app) and measure how many users have taken the desired action within your app after interacting with your notification. 
   

Example: Say, you send a notification telling there is a webinar happening tomorrow. The desired action here would be your users registering for the webinar after interacting with the notification. If the action of registering for an event from the app is tracked as an event in Apptics, you can select the same event to know how many users actually registered for the webinar after interacting with the push notification.

1. Based on the filters and criteria you apply in the Audience tab, you will be able to view the number of devices that will be targeted for the notification as the target device count.
   

Step 3: Provide message

1. Provide the notification title and message.
   
2. If you want to include visuals to the notification, you can add the image URL in .png, .jpg or .gif file format.
   

1. Provide the string name or the URL of the page/screen to which you want to redirect users to.
   

Step 4: Configure additional elements

Now that you have provided what needs to go in the notification, you can provide additional details to customize how the notification should appear and behave on the user's device. 

1. Sound - You can decide what sound should play while the notification is delivered. Provide the audio file name as saved in the app's resource directory.
   
2. Notification payload - You can provide the notification payload which contains additional data that will be sent along with the push notification. You can add the  payload data as key-value pairs in JSON format.
   
3. App badge - App badge is the number displayed on the app icon to indicate unread notifications or messages. You can decide whether to increment the badge near the app icon when the notification is sent and if the user should be notified of the unread notification.
   

You can also add some Android-specific elements to customize the notification appearance and sound. They include:

1. Notification channel - Starting from Android 8.0 (API level 26), all notifications must be assigned to a channel. The notification channel categorizes the notification and controls the appearance (visual behavior) and sounds (auditory behavior). By selecting the notification channel you can decide how the notification should behave. Learn more
   
2. App icon - You can add your app's icon in the push notification, provided the app icon's path or ID should be available in the app's resource directory.
   
3. App icon color - For Android, you can also customize the app icon's color for the notification. The color code you provide should be a 6-digit or 8-digit RGB hex value.
   

Note: If the app icon is not provided separately, the project logo provided in the Apptics console will be used as the app icon by default.

Step 5: Add interactive elements

The final step is to add interactive elements to the notification, encouraging active user engagement. You can add a maximum of three action buttons and provide the associated details, such as:

1. Category name (only for iOS) - For iOS apps, you can configure actionable notifications that let users respond and take actions within the app through various action buttons, without actually launching the app. The category name decides the notification type and action buttons that will appear. Learn more
2. Action ID - A unique action ID to track user interaction associated with each action button.
3. Button label - Button label is the text displayed on the action button. The primary purpose is to clearly communicate what will happen when the user interacts with the button. Eg: Like, reply, order, shop now, later, etc.
4. Icon path - The file path of the image that will be used as the button icon. You need to provide the icon path for Android and iOS separately.
5. Click action - The click action is an internal identifier used to associate with the button's functionality. Unlike teh button label that is visible to users, click action is used internally to track and analyze user interactions with the button.
   

Example: Say, the notification requires an action button to reply to some message. The button label would show "Reply" and the click action given by the developer could be "reply_to_message".

Note: You can test the notification on devices that are registered with APNs/FCM and have debug mode enabled in them.

1. Click on Test it on your device and a pop up will appear.
2. Select the application ID for which you want to test the notification.
   
3. Provide the device token for the test device. You can get device token ID from Xcode/Android Studio. 
4. Click on Publish on test device and test the notification in real-time. 
   

Publish push notification

Save notification draft

1. After providing the basic details, click on Save as draft to save the configurations you have done so far.
   
2. A pop up will appear. Provide the notification name and click Save. The notification will be saved as a draft, that can be edited and published later.
   

Publish notification

1. Once the notification is ready to be sent, click on Publish and a pop up will appear to provide
   
2. Once you confirm by clicking on Yes, publish, the notification will be triggered to the targeted devices immediately in case of immediate notifications, and from the scheduled date and time for scheduled and recurring notifications.
   

Push notifications stats

1. You will be able to see the list of all the notifications drafted and published so far. 
2. Click on an individual notification to view further details. 
   
3. If the notification is still in draft, you can edit the details from here.
   
4. Once the notification is triggered, you will be able to view the performance stats for the notification. 
   

Click on the menu and you will see options to:

1. Edit: Edit notification before it gets triggered.
   
2. Delete: Delete notification before it gets triggered.
   
3. Edit as new: Use existing notification configuration template for creating a new notification.
   
4. Pause: Applicable for recurring notifications
   

Push notifications performance stats

1. Target count: The number of targeted devices for the notification.
2. Success count: The number of notifications that were sent successfully from the push notification service provider.
3. Failure count: The number of notifications that couldn't be delivered due to technical issues.
4. Received count: The number of notifications delivered to the user's device.
5. Opened count: The number of notifications that users opened and interacted with.
6. Conversion count: The number of times users took the desired action after interacting with your notification.