Push notifications

Push notifications are wired in from day one. Device registration, sending, and retries are handled for you, and you send campaigns straight from the admin. The one thing you set up once is your Apple push key — Apple requires it, and no service can create it for you.

Overview

Every Appolar app is built with push notification support already in place. When a customer installs your app and grants permission, their device token is registered automatically. You never run a push server or manage device tokens yourself.

The single exception is one Apple credential, the APNs key, which you provide once when you turn push on (see Push credentials below). Apple does not let any third party create it, so this step is yours. It takes a couple of minutes and is a one-time action.

Notifications can be sent as one-off campaigns to your entire audience or a specific cohort, or triggered automatically by customer behaviour through the Automations system.

Sending a campaign

Go to Admin, then Notifications, then New Campaign. Fill in the four fields:

Before you confirm, a preview shows how the notification will appear on iOS and Android lock screens. Once you are satisfied, select your audience and hit Send.

Targeting

Two targeting modes are available when you create a campaign:

The confirmation screen shows the estimated audience count before you send. Cohorts are defined in Admin, then Analytics, then Cohorts. See the Analytics & cohorts page for details on building segments.

Cart abandonment

Cart abandonment is an automated notification triggered when a customer adds something to cart and does not complete a purchase within a configurable time window.

To enable it, go to Admin, then Notifications, then Automations, and turn on Cart Abandonment. The default delay is one hour. You can adjust the delay to anywhere between 30 minutes and 24 hours.

Opt-ins

Users must opt in to push notifications. On iOS, the system shows a permission prompt on the customer's first app launch. On Android 13 and later, a similar runtime permission prompt appears. Customers who decline can change their mind later in device Settings.

Opt-in rates for e-commerce apps typically fall between 40 and 70 percent, depending on the timing of the prompt and how compelling the first-launch experience is. Appolar shows the permission prompt after the customer has browsed at least one product, which tends to improve acceptance rates compared to prompting on cold open.

Push credentials (one-time setup)

Apple will not let any service create an iOS push key on your behalf, not even with the App Store Connect API key Appolar already uses to build and submit your app. So the first time you turn push on, Appolar asks for one Apple credential: an APNs auth key. It is a one-time, account-wide step.

Android push (FCM) follows the same idea when you ship an Android app: you provide its push credential once, and Appolar handles delivery from there.