Browser-based push notifications, which we released as part of our new Audience Engagement suite, have proven to be an incredibly powerful new channel for directly communicating with audiences. By allowing you to push important and personalized messages to your audience’s desktops and android devices, even when they are not on your site, you can drive timely and relevant re-engagement.
As of Chrome version 59, released this month, browser-based notifications now use the native notification system in macOS. This provides users with a much more integrated experience for breaking news and other notifications deployed by the Viafoura system.
So what changed?
Prior to version 59, Chrome notifications on macOS used a proprietary format that was entirely separate from the built-in notifications system. This caused user confusion and a broken experience with Chrome notifications behaving and appearing differently from all other system notifications.
With this change, browser-based push notifications will now behave in the following ways:
The overall size of the notifications are slightly smaller and are styled as standard notifications. As such, the notifications use a smaller square thumbnail that appears to the right of the headline.
The Chrome app icon is now present in the notification and appears to the left of the content.
They will now be manageable from within the system settings with all other notifications including the ability for users to set the alerts as banners (that appear and then dismiss automatically) or alerts (that stay on the desktop until dismissed manually).
They will appear and persist in the macOS notifications tray along with all other notifications until dismissed by the user. Previously, once the notifications timed out and disappeared from the desktop, they could not be retrieved.
They will respect the “Do not disturb” setting at the OS level.
Related: User Personalization
What doesn’t change?
The way you deploy browser-based push notifications and opt-ins stays exactly the same, and notifications for Chrome on Windows and Android devices remain unchanged. Notifications for Firefox were already using the system notification system on macOS.
What does this mean for you?
If you are a customer using the Viafoura browser-based notification system, no action is needed. As your audience updates their version of Chrome on macOS, they will automatically switch over to the new version of desktop notifications.
Something to keep in mind though, is the reduced size of the thumbnail image. We recommend using a square thumbnail image to maximize the available space and ensuring the image is one that is attention-grabbing at the small scale.
Interested in learning more about Browser-Based Notifications?
Connect with us today to learn how Viafoura can help you build, manage and monetize your audience.