Create a campaign
Write a push, choose who gets it, and send it now, at a set time or at the same hour in each user's own timezone.
Go to Engage › Push and click New campaign. The composer has four steps: Message, Audience, Experiment and Delivery. Save draft keeps your work; a draft stays editable until you send it.
The example is Fitloop, a fictional fitness app, bringing back people who haven't logged a workout this week.
1. Message
What people see on the lock screen, and where a tap takes them. The preview shows the notification on iOS and Android as you type.
| Field | What to enter | Limits |
|---|---|---|
| Title | The bold first line. | 255 characters. |
| Body | The text under the title. | 1,000 characters. |
| Image | Upload an image, or paste an https:// URL. | PNG, JPEG or GIF. Uploads up to 1 MB. Around 1038 × 1038 px works well; Grovs doesn't resize it. |
| Deep link | A Grovs link from this project. Search by name, title or path. | Optional. No link opens the app. |
| Custom data | Key–value pairs delivered to your app with the push. | 2 KB in total. |
| Sound | Default sound, Silent, or Custom… with a sound file bundled in your app, such as chime.caf. | 64 characters. On Android, the sound needs a notification channel that uses it. |
The whole notification must fit Apple's 4 KB payload limit. A long body plus a long image URL or lots of custom data can exceed it. Grovs then refuses to save and shows the size.
On tap, your app receives the link's data merged with your custom data, through the same callback as any Grovs deep link. Grovs adds grovs_campaign_id, plus grovs_link and grovs_image when set. These names are reserved. Keys that would break the APNs or FCM payload are refused, such as aps, notification and keys starting with google or gcm. See What your app receives.
iOS images need a Notification Service Extension in your app, or the push arrives without its image. See Campaign images. Android shows images natively.
2. Audience
Pick one of three tabs:
| Tab | Sends to | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Segment | Every device of every person in a segment. | Evaluated at send time. Later segment edits don't change who got this campaign. |
| My user ids | Every device of each user ID your app set with the SDK, up to 50 devices per user. | Up to 10,000 IDs. |
| Devices | Single devices, by device ID. | Up to 10,000 IDs. |
For the two lists, type or paste IDs one per line or comma-separated, upload a CSV, or use Add from visitors to search and add visitors. Duplicates are dropped. To send to one person, add only their user ID or device ID.
Estimated reach updates after each saved change. Per platform, it shows the audience's devices, those with no way to get a push (No channel) and those on a platform you haven't set up. For a segment, the platform split is estimated from devices active in the last 30 days, and may be skipped for a very large segment.
The audience is frozen when the campaign goes out. People who sign in or join the segment afterwards aren't added.
Testing your campaign
There is no test button. To check a campaign on your phone, send it with the Devices tab and your device ID, or My user ids and your user ID. Then click Duplicate on the report to make the real campaign. Xcode builds only get pushes from the Grovs test environment.
3. Experiment (optional)
Measure what the push does. You can:
- set a goal, such as Fitloop's
workout_loggedevent within 1 day - hold back a control group that doesn't get the push
- add up to two variants of the title and body in the Message step, send them to a test share first, then the winner to everyone else
See Experiments.
4. Delivery
Choose Send now or Schedule.
- Send now starts a few seconds after you confirm.
- Schedule sends at a date and time up to 30 days ahead, read in your browser's timezone. You can cancel until it starts sending.
Each user's local time
Under Schedule, turn on Deliver in each user's local time to send at the same wall-clock time everywhere: 09:00 in Berlin, then 09:00 in New York. Grovs uses the timezone each device last reported. Devices without one use the timezone you pick below the switch.
The first devices to reach 09:00 are in UTC+14, so delivery starts that early and spans about 26 hours. Schedule at least 14 hours minus your zone's UTC offset ahead:
| Your timezone | Minimum lead time |
|---|---|
| Europe/Berlin, winter (UTC+1) | 13 hours |
| America/Los_Angeles, summer (UTC−7) | 21 hours |
| Asia/Tokyo (UTC+9) | 5 hours |
The composer shows the minimum when the time is too close. A device whose slot has already passed gets the push right away. Local-time delivery can't be combined with an experiment test share.
Confirm
Click Send now or Schedule…. The confirmation shows the title, audience, reach, experiment and time.
Only drafts can be edited. A scheduled or sent campaign stays as it is and is never sent twice. To resend, with or without changes, use Duplicate to make a new draft.
Cancel a campaign
Cancel a draft, scheduled or sending campaign from its menu or the Cancel button on its report.
- Scheduled: nothing is sent.
- Sending: devices not yet handed to Apple or Google are dropped and counted as Cancelled. Batches already in flight still go out, at most about 1,000 devices per platform.
- Waiting for the winner: people still waiting don't get the push.
Cancel is unavailable for the few seconds a campaign is being evaluated.