How to Ensure Your Push Notifications Reach Users and Avoid Spam Classification

Building an effective push notification system is crucial for engaging your audience, especially in social media applications. However, even with a well-implemented system, notifications can sometimes end up being marked as spam, reducing their effectiveness. If you’re facing this challenge, here are key considerations and best practices to ensure your notifications are delivered properly and stand out in users’ notification centers.

Developing a Robust Push Notification System with Ably

In my recent project involving a social media platform developed with Next.js, I opted to avoid web sockets due to the framework’s limitations. Instead, I integrated the reliable Ably Push Notification service. After thorough testing, most aspects of the notification delivery worked seamlessly. However, I encountered an issue: notifications were being treated as spam, despite including comprehensive metadata such as icons, badges, TTL, tags, collapse keys, and ensuring notifications were not silent.

Common Challenges and How to Address Them

Even with detailed configurations, notifications can still be filtered into spam or ignored by devices. Here’s what to focus on:

1. Properly Configure Notification Payloads
   Ensure your push payloads include essential fields that establish legitimacy:
2. Icon and Badge: Display your app’s logo to brand notifications clearly.
3. TTL (Time-To-Live): Defines the lifespan of the notification.
4. Tag and Collapse Key: Groups notifications to prevent clutter, so updates replace older ones rather than stacking.

5. Renotify and Silent Flags: Control user experience and avoid unnecessary disturbances.

6. Ensure Notifications Wake the Device and Appear Prominently
   While setting the right flags is important, device-specific behaviors can influence whether a notification wakes the phone or appears in the notification center. Test across devices to fine-tune your payload.

7. Brand Your Notifications Clearly
   Using your application or brand logo instead of generic icons helps convey authenticity, reducing the likelihood of being flagged as spam.

8. Leverage Notification Grouping
   Using proper collapse keys ensures that multiple notifications with the same intent or topic are grouped, providing a cleaner user experience.

Advanced Features and User Interactivity

Additionally, exploring interactive notifications—such as ‘Like’ or ‘Reply’ actions—can significantly boost user engagement. Many browsers and frameworks support action buttons within notifications, but implementation can vary. Check the latest Push API specifications and your chosen service’s capabilities to add action buttons for a more