Overcoming Challenges in Delivering Effective Web Push Notifications in Your Social Media App

In the development of a modern social media platform using Next.js, implementing a reliable push notification system can significantly enhance user engagement. However, even with meticulous setup, you might find that your notifications are frequently marked as spam or overlooked by users. Here’s a comprehensive overview of common challenges and best practices to ensure your notifications are both effective and user-friendly.

The Scenario

Imagine you’ve successfully integrated push notifications into your Next.js-based web application using services like Ably. You’ve configured various parameters—such as icons, badges, TTL, tags, collapse keys, and other options—to optimize delivery. Despite this, your notifications often end up in the spam folder or don’t appear as expected on users’ devices.

Key Challenges Encountered

• Notifications not waking devices as intended
• Notifications not visible in the notification tray
• Your app’s icon not displaying correctly; instead, defaulting to the browser icon
• Multiple notifications with the same tag appearing separately rather than consolidating

Many developers face similar hurdles, largely due to how browsers and operating systems handle push messages and spam filtering.

Best Practices to Improve Your Push Notification Delivery

1. Ensure Proper User Permissions:
   Make sure you’ve obtained the necessary consent from users before sending notifications. Poorly targeted or unsolicited messages are more likely to be flagged as spam.

2. Use Clear and Relevant Content:
   Craft notifications that are concise, relevant, and personalized. Avoid overly promotional language, which can trigger spam filters.

3. Configure Notification Options Carefully:
   While you’ve already set parameters like icon, badge, TTL, tag, and collapse key, double-check their implementation. Ensure icons are correctly linked, and the notification payload adheres to standards for your target browsers and devices.

4. Prioritize Notification Delivery Settings:

5. Set renotify to true only when necessary.
6. Use silent notifications sparingly—if your goal is to alert the user, avoid silent payloads.

7. Adjust ttl (Time To Live) appropriately based on the importance of the notification.

8. Implement Notification Coalescence:
   By assigning the same tag or collapse key to related notifications, you can prevent multiple alerts from cluttering the notification tray. This helps in providing a cleaner user experience.

9. Display App Branding Correctly:
   Use your app’s official icon