A push message is a message you can send to users of your mobile app that links directly into your app without starting a conversation. When someone clicks on your message they’ll go straight to the page you choose. This encourages them to focus their attention entirely on your call to action.
iOS push message example:
Android push message example:
Push messages vs Push notifications
You can also send push notifications to notify customers when you send them a chat or post message. This is useful for starting a conversation with customers or when you need more space to get your message across than a push message allows. To do this, follow our guide for creating and sending chats and posts.
To send push messages or push notifications you must have the latest Intercom SDK installed in your mobile app. Find out how here.
Create and send a Mobile Push message
First, click “New” or “New mobile push” in the top right corner:
Then, choose Mobile Push as your channel:
Note:
If you’re on the “Mobile push” tab, this is selected by default, so you’ll skip this step.
You can also choose to create the message from a pre-made template. 👍
For this example we’ll start from scratch, but the following steps also apply if you customize a template.
Choose where to direct your customers
Your push message can simply open your app's home screen, or direct users with a deep link.
Deep links send your users to a specific page in your app when they open your push message. Like taking them directly to their shopping cart, for example. Studies have shown that using deep links can even improve user retention, when compared to links that open your app's homepage.
Read more about setting up deep links in your Android or iOS app.
In the ‘Content’ section, enter your iOS and Android deep link URIs. Your URI is the page you would like to direct customers to when they click your message.
Note: You might need to chat with your developer to get the URI for the page you want to link to.
To have the push message open your app's home screen, choose "Your app":
Next, choose where you would like your customers to see your message first (on an Android or iOS device). If you have both an iOS and Android app, you can select both:
Add an image to the mobile push message
You can also add an image to your mobile push message to make it more attention-grabbing and contextual. Learn more about image guidelines and sending rich push messages.
To view the image added, switch between Default and Expanded previews.
Now, it’s time to write your message content
Give your message a title and write your content. Your customers likely receive dozens of push notifications a day, so remember to keep it short, snappy and to the point. You can also add emojis and images to make it really stand out. Unlike other message types, you can’t add video or HTML blocks to your push messages.
Pro tip: Make your message even more personal by adding variables that automatically pull in your users’ first name, company name or an event that you’ve created. For example, your message can display the number of tasks a user has completed.
Important: Push messages encourage customers to take action, rather than chat. So your customers can’t reply to a push message.
A/B testing your message
To ensure that your content is performing as well as it can be, you should A/B test your message. Intercom makes it easy to create and send two versions of a message to see which is the most effective. Read all about A/B testing here.
Choose your audience
First, decide if it should be sent with a dynamic or fixed audience.
A fixed audience message will only send to people who match your audience filters right now.
A message with a dynamic audience send to everyone who matches the audience filters now, and anyone who matches the filters in the future. If you’d like your message to be ongoing for a certain period only, you can define a stop date (see “Schedule your message” below).
Then, add rules to select the exact group of people you’d like to receive your message. For example, if you’d like to send a message to active users on your free plan, the rules might be: Users with “Plan is Free” and “Last seen on iOS or Android less than 30 days ago”.
Schedule your message
Next, you can schedule a message to send at exactly the right time. There are three ways you can do this:
Set specific dates and times for your message to start and stop sending.
Schedule messages to send during or outside your office hours.
Set a custom delivery time during which your message will send.
Note: Trigger times are based on your workspace’s timezone.
To define a custom time, click the start time, then hold ‘shift’ and click the end time:
Your message will then send during the selected period:
You can also set delivery times across multiple days:
Read this article to find out more about message scheduling.
Set a goal for your message
Every message you send should have a goal, for a true measure of how they're performing.
To add a goal, choose the attribute or event for the result you want to measure under “Goal”:
Example: if you set your goal to “Plan is pro”, each user who gets this message and then upgrades to your Pro plan, will contribute to this goal's total.
You can set a goal using any data you track in Intercom, whether it's an event or a user/company attribute.
Read this article to learn more about goals.
And that’s it. Your message is ready to send!