Troubleshooting Push Notifications: When They End Up in Spam

Implementing an effective push notification system can significantly enhance user engagement for your web application. Recently, I encountered a scenario where, despite successfully integrating push notifications into my Next.js-based social media platform, the messages were being marked as spam or poorly received by users. I’d like to share some insights and best practices to help you optimize your notifications.

The Challenge: Notifications Marked as Spam

While developing my app, I utilized Ably’s push notification service since traditional WebSocket connections aren’t feasible within Next.js. After thorough implementation and testing, the core functionality was working smoothly. However, a persistent issue remained: notifications appeared in users’ notification panels but were flagged as spam or failed to display properly.

Despite including parameters like icon, badge, ttl, tag, collapseKey, renotify: true, and silent: false, the notifications still didn’t behave as expected. This was frustrating because I wanted the notifications to:

• Wake up the user’s device actively.
• Show clearly in the notification area.
• Display my app’s logo instead of the default Chrome icon.
• Properly group notifications with the same tag or collapseKey.

Clarifying Your Objectives

To optimize your push notifications, consider these key points:

1. Device Wake-up: Notifications should reliably alert users without being ignored or dismissed.
2. Visibility and Branding: Your app’s icon needs to appear prominently in notifications to reinforce branding.
3. Effective Grouping: Notifications with similar context should cluster, preventing clutter.
4. Interactive Actions: Adding functionalities like “Like” or “Reply” directly within notifications to boost engagement.

Tips for Improving Your Push Notification Delivery

1. Use Valid Web Push Protocols
   Ensure your payload includes all necessary fields, such as a valid icon URL, badge, and tag. Verify that these assets are accessible and correctly formatted.

2. Check the Manifest and Service Worker Settings
   Make sure your web app’s manifest.xml is configured properly with the correct icons and display settings. Also, update your service worker to handle notification actions and events appropriately.

3. Properly Handle Notification Options
   Leverage features such as:

4. requireInteraction: true to keep the notification visible until dismissed.
5. Setting appropriate vibrate patterns to alert users.
6. Including `data