If you run a SaaS product, you’ve probably heard push notifications can boost engagement—at least when they’re used well. But actually setting up automated, useful push notifications (not just annoying spam) is a lot more work than most guides admit. This article is for anyone who wants to get real, working automation in Airship—without making your users hate you, or getting lost in a thicket of vague documentation.
Here’s how to set up automated push notifications in Airship, step by step, with a focus on SaaS. We’ll skip the fluff and focus on what actually works, what to skip, and how to avoid the most common mistakes.
1. Get Clear on Your Goals (Before You Touch Airship)
Automating push notifications isn’t about sending more stuff. It’s about sending the right stuff, to the right people, at the right time. If you don’t know what you want to achieve, you’ll just annoy your users and waste hours fiddling with settings.
Start here:
- What user behaviors do you want to encourage? (e.g., onboarding completion, regular logins, feature adoption)
- What’s actually useful to your users? (Not just what’s useful to you.)
- Where do push notifications make sense, versus email or in-app messages?
Pro tip: If you don’t want these notifications yourself, your users won’t either.
Write down 2–3 specific use cases. For example: - “Remind users who haven’t finished onboarding after 2 days.” - “Notify admins when their usage is about to hit a limit.” - “Announce new features to active users.”
Keep it short. You’ll tweak later.
2. Set Up Your Airship Account and Integrate with Your App
If you haven’t already, create an Airship account and set up your project. Airship supports a bunch of platforms—iOS, Android, web, you name it. The setup docs are honestly kind of dense, so here’s what actually matters for SaaS:
a. Register Your App(s)
- Go to your Airship dashboard.
- Add each app or website you want to send notifications to.
- For mobile, you’ll need to plug in your app’s credentials (APNs for iOS, FCM for Android).
- For web push, you’ll need to set up your site and add the Airship JS SDK.
What’s worth your time: - Double-checking your platform keys. Typos here will make you want to throw your keyboard through a wall later.
b. Install Airship SDK
- For web: Add the Airship JavaScript SDK to your site.
- For mobile: Add the Airship SDK to your iOS/Android app and follow the setup instructions.
Common gotcha: Don’t forget to ask users for permission to receive notifications, and do it in a way that doesn’t scare them off.
c. Collect User Identifiers
You’ll need a way to identify users in Airship—usually with a “named user” or a channel ID. For SaaS, use user IDs or emails for mapping.
- Make sure your app sends this identifier to Airship when users log in.
- If you want to target by segments (like “admins” or “free users”), send that info as tags or attributes.
Don’t overthink segmentation yet. Just get the basics wired up and make sure notifications can be sent to the right users.
3. Map Out Your Automation Triggers
This is where most people screw up. Automation isn’t magic—you have to define what counts as a trigger, and wire it up.
Types of triggers you’ll actually use: - Event-based: User did or didn’t do something (e.g., didn’t log in for X days). - Schedule-based: Send at a certain time (e.g., monthly usage summary). - Threshold-based: Usage hits a certain number (e.g., 90% of storage quota).
a. Track Events in Your App
If you want to automate notifications based on user actions, you’ll need to send those events to Airship.
- Use Airship’s Custom Events API.
- From your backend, POST events to Airship as they happen. For example:
- “onboarding_completed”
- “plan_upgraded”
- “storage_90_percent”
Don’t go crazy. Start with a few key events. You can always add more.
b. Use Airship’s Automation Workflows
Airship lets you set up automations based on these events. In the dashboard, look for “Automation” or “Journeys.”
- Pick your event trigger (e.g., “User did not complete onboarding in 2 days”).
- Set conditions (e.g., only for users tagged as “free”).
- Define the notification message and timing.
Tip: Keep your automations simple at first. Complex chains break easily, and debugging is no fun.
4. Write Push Notifications That Don’t Suck
This sounds obvious, but it’s where most SaaS teams fall down. A good push notification is short, actionable, and genuinely useful. Bad notifications get swiped away—or worse, users turn them off for good.
What works: - Be clear about why you’re reaching out (“Finish setting up your account to unlock features”). - Use personalization—if you have a user’s name or plan, use it. - Include a clear call to action.
What doesn’t: - Vague or generic spam (“Check out what’s new!”) - Sending the same message to everyone, regardless of context. - Over-notifying—once a day is usually more than enough for SaaS, unless it’s critical.
Don’t try to be clever just for the sake of it. Clarity wins every time.
5. Test Everything (and Expect Weird Stuff)
Push notifications can be flaky—especially across different platforms and browsers. Airship tries to smooth this out, but it’s never perfect.
How to test: - Use test users/accounts on every device and browser you support. - Try different notification types (simple, with image, with button, etc.). - Check if users get duplicate notifications, or none at all. - Test opt-in/opt-out flows.
What to look out for: - iOS is stricter about showing notifications if the app is open. - Web push is hit-or-miss depending on browser and OS. - Time zones can mangle scheduled sends—test with users in different regions.
Pro tip: Set up logging on your backend to track which notifications were sent and received. Airship’s dashboard is helpful, but backend logs save your sanity when something goes missing.
6. Set Up Analytics and Tune Your Automations
If you don’t measure, you’re just guessing. Airship provides analytics on opens, clicks, and conversions, but it’s only useful if you actually look at it.
Set up: - Define what counts as “success” for each notification (e.g., user completes onboarding, clicks to upgrade). - Use Airship’s conversion tracking (or your own) to tie pushes to real results.
What to ignore: Don’t get obsessed with open rates. For SaaS, the real win is driving meaningful actions, not just having someone glance at a message.
Iterate: - Kill notifications that aren’t working. - Tweak timing, message, or triggers based on what you see. - Ask real users what they think—sometimes the numbers don’t tell the whole story.
7. Stay Out of the Spam Folder (and Legal Trouble)
It’s easy to overdo push notifications. In SaaS, your users are often busy professionals—they’ll turn off notifications fast if you annoy them.
Best practices: - Let users opt out (or in) to different types of notifications. - Respect Do Not Disturb hours, especially for global products. - Keep critical notifications (like billing issues) separate from marketing or “nice to have” nudges.
Legal stuff: Depending on where your users live, you may need to comply with laws like GDPR or CAN-SPAM. Airship has features to help, but it’s up to you to use them. When in doubt, ask your lawyer—not a blog post.
8. When to Use (and Not Use) More Advanced Airship Features
Airship offers a ton of bells and whistles: A/B testing, advanced segmentation, in-app messaging, rich media, and so on. You don’t need most of them at first.
Worth trying once you’ve nailed the basics: - A/B testing: Try different messages to see what actually works. - Advanced segmentation: Target based on behavior, plan, geography, etc., after you have enough data. - In-app messaging: Good for onboarding tips or urgent messages, but keep an eye on user fatigue.
What to skip (for now): - Overly complex “journeys” with tons of branches. - Pushing notifications for every minor update or feature. - Obsessing over minor analytics differences—focus on big wins.
Wrapping Up: Keep It Simple, Ship It, Then Iterate
Automating push notifications in Airship isn’t rocket science, but it’s easy to overcomplicate. Start with a few useful automations, test them yourself, and pay attention to your users’ response. Skip the shiny features until you know the basics work. Most importantly, don’t send notifications you wouldn’t want to get. Keep it useful, keep it simple, and you’ll get results without annoying your users—or yourself.