Integrate OneSignal with your Mobile Apps

OneSignal is a leading customer engagement platform designed to boost retention and revenue for businesses of all sizes through personalized messaging.

OneSignal’s robust features include push notifications, email campaigns, SMS, and in-app messaging, all managed through an intuitive Dashboard. This dashboard allows users to manage, schedule, send, and track notifications to app users, making it a powerful tool for enhancing user engagement and interaction.

MobiLoud apps feature a native integration with OneSignal. This integration allows you to do a number of things, most notably sending unlimited mobile push notifications from your app, as well as powerful automated, personalized flows.

Keep reading to learn more about OneSignal and our native integration, or book a free demo now to discuss your project with one of our app experts.

OneSignal Features and Capabilities

OneSignal is a complete customer engagement tool, giving you a wide range of features to communicate with your customers, send personalized promotions and updates, and manage your customers' app experience at every step.

All this helps you reduce churn, increase retention, and increase revenue.

Messaging and Notifications

OneSignal supports a wide range of platforms and notification types, including:

• Mobile Apps: Push notifications for iOS and Android.
• Web: Notifications for desktop and mobile web browsers.
• Email: Email campaigns sent to users' email addresses.
• SMS: Text messages to users' mobile phones.
• In-App Messaging: Messages displayed within your app.

OneSignal also allows a variety of push notifications, including:

• Standard Push Notifications: Simple text messages.
• Rich Media Notifications: Notifications with images.
• Personalized Messages: Custom notifications based on user data, behavior, or preferences.
• Segmented Notifications: Targeted messages based on user demographics or behavior.
• Automated Notifications: Triggered by specific user actions or events.
• In-App Messages: Notifications shown while users are actively using the app.

Automated Flows and Optimization

‍There are two main methods for creating automated flows in OneSignal:

1. Automated Messages: These are push notifications that are triggered based on user segments for campaigns like re-engaging inactive users or welcoming new ones. More details on automated messages can be found here. 

Keep in mind that the number of segments you can create depends on your OneSignal plan.

2. Journeys: This is a more advanced feature where you will be able to create dynamic workflows that send push notifications based on user behavior and events, such as cart abandonment.

The number of steps and the number of messages that you can have in your journeys also depend on your OneSignal plan.

More details on Journeys can be found here:

• https://documentation.onesignal.com/docs/journeys-examples
• https://onesignal.com/journeys

Personalization

OneSignal allows you to personalize your messages with custom variables in the subject lines, content, and image URLs.

This lets you set up dynamic, personalized messages at scale, using customer attributes to send push notifications, in-app notifications, email and SMS that drive higher engagement and better results.

A/B Testing

OneSignal allows users to send and track push notifications with variants to determine which one is more effective. You can find more details about OneSignal’s A/B Testing here.

Performance and Analytics

OneSignal provides comprehensive analytics to track the performance of your push notifications. These are some of the key metrics that you can track in OneSignal:

• Subscriptions: Total, active, and opted-in subscriptions.
• Notifications: Delivery rates, opening rates.
• Outcomes: Event counts, event sums (e.g., revenue).

OneSignal’s Advanced analytics are available on the Professional plan, allowing you to track influenced opens and custom outcomes, and access the Analytics API for deeper insights. More details are available on OneSignal’s analytics overview.

OneSignal + MobiLoud Integration Overview

MobiLoud integrates seamlessly with OneSignal to enable push notifications for mobile apps.

This integration ensures that your app users receive timely and relevant notifications, driving engagement and retention.

Setting Up the Integration

To utilize OneSignal for push notifications via MobiLoud, you need to complete the following steps:

1. Register for OneSignal and Firebase Accounts: First, you must create accounts with both OneSignal and Firebase.

2. Share Admin Access: Grant MobiLoud admin access to your OneSignal and Firebase accounts. This access allows MobiLoud to configure the OneSignal integration within your apps.

3. Technical Configuration: MobiLoud handles all technical aspects of the OneSignal integration on the native side of your app.

Optimizing OneSignal’s Performance

‍To ensure that notifications open correctly in your apps, you need to configure them properly. When sending notifications from the OneSignal Dashboard, use the "Additional Parameter" field to include the URL that should be opened when the notification is clicked. Here’s how to configure it:

• From OneSignal Dashboard: Use the Additional Parameter field with the URL to be opened.

• Using REST API: Include the following parameter in your request:

"data": {

  "url": "<https://mobiloud.com>"

}

If you would like to further integrate OneSignal with your website so that specific events and behaviors trigger push notifications to the apps, you will need to integrate the OneSignal REST API on your website by following this guide.

By integrating OneSignal with MobiLoud, you can leverage advanced notification features to enhance user engagement and optimize your app’s performance. Not only that, our support team is always happy to assist with providing guidance and support when it comes to implementation.

Integrate OneSignal and So Much More with MobiLoud

MobiLoud apps are built by an expert team of app developers, using processes, tools, and infrastructure we've built over 10+ years and thousands of iOS and Android apps.

We're the only platform that can take everything from your existing web store - including every workflow, custom functionality, and third-party tool - and recreate that in mobile apps. Whatever payment gateways, cart solutions, marketing tools, or anything else you use right now, you can reuse them in your app!

Our apps also include native integrations with several analytics and engagement tools, including Google Analytics, Klaviyo, and OneSignal.

You can get started free, with zero risk.

Our app experts are waiting to answer all your questions - so get in touch today and let’s get started.

OneSignal Integration FAQs

1. Can we automate push notifications based on specific user actions or events?

Yes, for this you will need to integrate your website with the OneSignal REST API.

When a specific action or event occurs, a request should be performed to the OneSignal REST API, with the notification details (title, content, image, link to be opened).

More details on how to integrate with the OneSignal REST API can be found here: https://documentation.onesignal.com/reference/rest-api-overview

Also, if you'd like to send user specific notifications (a.k.a transactional notifications), you will need to use what we call "native functions”, in order to assign an ID that is shared between website and app, to the user in OneSignal. More details on how to do that can be found here: https://www.mobiloud.com/help-knowledge-base/integrate-your-website-with-onesignal-for-push-notifications

2. Does OneSignal support advanced targeting and segmentation based on user behavior or demographics?

Yes, there are two different ways of segmenting users in OneSignal.

Out-of-the-box OneSignal allows us to segment users based on the data it collects by default, such as:

• First session
• Last session
• Session count
• Language
• Location
• Total browsing duration
• App version
• Device type

We can also segment users based on tags that get added to the user profile.

For this, we need to integrate native functions into the website, so the user can be tagged based on specific events or behavior.

More details on how to add tags to the user profile using native functions:

https://www.mobiloud.com/docs/add-onesignal-tags-to-user-profile

More details on segmentation can be found here: https://documentation.onesignal.com/docs/segmentation

3. How customizable are the push notifications in terms of design and content using OneSignal?

OneSignal allows you to customize the basic elements of notifications, such as title, content, image, and URL.

Other aspects of notifications are defined at the system level so they cannot be customized.

4. Can we incorporate dynamic content, such as personalized recommendations or cart reminders, within the notifications?

Yes, OneSignal supports custom variables in push notifications.

Here is a list of all the elements that can include variables:

• Subject
• Content
• Image URL

Here is an example of how the syntax would look like:

Hello, {{ first_name }}
‍

More details on how to use variables in push notifications can be found here: https://documentation.onesignal.com/docs/using-liquid-syntax

5. What are the best practices for maximizing engagement and conversion rates with OneSignal?

Here are some of the best practices to maximize engagement and conversion using OneSignal:

• Personalize notifications: Customize the notifications you send based on the user behavior and preferences.
• Use Rich Media: Include images to make notifications more appealing.
• Segment Your Audience: Tailor notifications to specific user segments for better engagement. For example, send a coupon to users who haven’t opened the app in a week to encourage re-engagement, while a simple reminder might be more effective for regular users. This approach ensures each group receives relevant content, increasing the likelihood of interaction.
• Optimize Timing: Send notifications when users are most likely to engage.
• A/B Testing: Experiment with different notifications to determine which ones are more effective.
• Actionable Content: Include clear calls-to-action that encourage immediate user engagement.
• Frequency Management: Avoid overwhelming users with too many notifications to reduce opt-outs.
• Combine All Optimization Tips: Experiment with different combinations of the strategies mentioned—personalization, segmentation, timing, and content types—to find the most effective approach for your audience. Continuously test and refine these combinations to maximize engagement and conversion rates, as what works best may vary over time and across different user segments.

6. What are the common issues users might face when integrating OneSignal, and how can they be resolved?

When integrating OneSignal's REST API with your website you might face different challenges.

A frequent concern is the use of the External User ID (https://documentation.onesignal.com/docs/aliases-external-id) to identify users who should be receiving transactional notifications.

MobiLoud has a guide that covers this case: https://www.mobiloud.com/help-knowledge-base/integrate-your-website-with-onesignal-for-push-notifications

7. What level of support does OneSignal provide?

OneSignal offers the following support channels:

• Documentation: https://documentation.onesignal.com/
• Live Chat: you must create and log in to an account to access the live chat functionality. Responses usually take a few hours.
• Guides: https://documentation.onesignal.com/docs/quickstart-guide
• REST API Documentation: https://documentation.onesignal.com/reference/quick-start-api-guide
• Discord channel: https://discord.gg/EP7gf6Uz7G

You can always reach out to the MobiLoud support team if you need assistance with OneSignal implementation.

8. How does OneSignal stay updated with industry trends and ensure compliance with privacy regulations?

OneSignal is constantly releasing new features, and improvements, as well as updates to ensure proper compliance with the latest requirements from the App and Play Stores.

OneSignal is SOC II certified and compliant with:

• HIIPA
• GDPR
• CCPA

More details on privacy regulations that are supported by OneSignal can be found here: https://onesignal.com/privacy

9. Are there any upcoming features or updates to OneSignal that we should be aware of?

OneSignal doesn't have a public roadmap, but they release frequent updates about new features on their blog: https://onesignal.com/blog/tag/features-updates/

10. How easy is it to set up OneSignal automated flows, and are there templates or pre-built workflows available?

OneSignal provides you with a few segments, but you can create new ones by mixing the user behavior and data collected.

Editing and creating segments is simple, as you will just need to create a set of rules to determine which users should be included in a specific segment.

More details on segmentation can be found here: https://documentation.onesignal.com/docs/segmentation

Journeys are also easy to work with since OneSignal offers a nice and intuitive drag-and-drop interface. You will be able to determine a trigger, and then add rules, conditionals, paths, and more to determine when notifications will be sent.

More details on creating journeys can be found here: https://documentation.onesignal.com/docs/journeys-examples

Ready to learn more about building mobile apps integrated with OneSignal?
‍Get in touch now!