Messaging basics

How messaging works, what you can send, and how you can send it

Tip

Throughout our documentation, you will see underlined terms. Hover over a term to see its definition. Most terms also function as links. We also have a full Glossary.

How messaging works

Before you can send messages, you need:

An app or website integrated with the Airship software developer kit (SDK).
The SDK enables communication with mobile devices and web browsers. If you are only sending SMS or email notifications, SDK integration is not required. Notifications sent to Open Channels also do not require SDK integration, but your webhook server must be able to process and interpret a JSON payload.
An audience of your app’s or website’s opted-in users. An exception to this is Apple NewsA news aggregator for iOS and MacOS. An Apple News notification is a push notification that links to an Apple News story. Apple News notifications are available to select publishers. If you are interested in sending Apple News notifications, please contact your Airship Account Manager. notifications, which are sent to Apple News subscribers. Apple News audience management is not handled via Airship.
A container for your messages. In Airship, this container is a project.
You will create a project in the DashboardThe Airship web interface located at go.airship.com or go.airship.eu. for each app or website you want to communicate with. Almost everything you do with Airship, including creating messages, happens inside a project. A project is essentially Airship’s representation of your app or website. A project:
- Is a record for your app, website, and any other channels you use to communicate with your audience
- Stores your message history, message templates, audience and analytic data, channel configuration, default message configuration settings, and more
- Contains the keys required to talk to various notification services — More about keys: The SDKs and APIs: Authentication

With the above in place, then:

You create a message using a ComposerA tool for creating messages using the dashboard. Composers are defined by what you can include and control: message types, delivery, and automation. or the API. Our user guide walks you through features and usage.
Your app or website interprets the message via the Airship SDK, displaying or delivering it to users. SMS, email, and Apple News notifications are instead interpreted by a native client.
Users see your message. When and where they see the message depends on message type, delivery settings, and automation.

Channels

When you read channel, it could mean one of three things:

Engagement channel — A communication medium supported by the Airship service. Supported channels include app, web, email, SMS, and Open Channels.
Development channel — An instance representing an entity addressable via the Airship service, e.g., an iOS device, email address, SMS number, or web browser.
Channel ID — An Airship-specific unique identifier for a development channel instance, e.g., a mobile device, web browser, or email address.

We specify Channel ID as such in our documentation. Engagement vs development is generally implied by context.

For more information, see: Intro to Channels.

Message types — What you can send

Mobile apps support multiple message types:

Push notification: A push notification is a message that can appear on any screen on a mobile device. Push notifications appear as banners.
In-app message: An in-app message is a message that appears inside of your app. You can send in-app messages to your entire app audience, not just users who have opted-in to push notifications.
Message Center: Message Center is both a place in your app where you can display persistent rich messages, including HTML, video, etc., and a message type. Similar to email, Message Center represents both the medium (the in-app inbox) and the message type (the messages you send to the inbox).
Scene AXP: Scenes are multi-screen experiences that are cached on users’ devices and displayed when your users meet certain conditions within your app, such as viewing a particular screen or opening the app a certain number of times. Scenes can include survey questions or be presented as a story.
Survey AXP: Surveys are question-and-answer experiences used to collect and aggregate feedback or generate a net promoter score. They are cached on users’ devices and displayed when your users meet certain conditions within your app, such as viewing a particular screen or opening the app a certain number of times.

Web also supports push notifications:

Web push notification: A web push notification is a message that slides into the top right or bottom left corner of your audience’s web browser (depending on the browser). On a mobile device, web push notifications appear similar to a push notification.

These message types are synonymous with their channel:

SMS: An SMS is a message that you can send to an MSISDN (phone number) over the SMMP protocol to devices that have opted in for a specific sender ID (long or short code). SMS messages appear in recipients’ native SMS clients. Generally speaking, SMS is inclusive of MMS.
Email: Email is an HTML or plain-text message that you send to registered users. Email notifications appear in recipients’ email inboxes.
Open channel: An Open channel message can be sent to any medium that can accept a JSON payload.

Composers — How you can send

You can create a message of any type in the dashboard using a composer. Composers are defined by what you can include and control: message types, delivery, and automation.

The Apple NewsA news aggregator for iOS and MacOS. An Apple News notification is a push notification that links to an Apple News story. Apple News notifications are available to select publishers. If you are interested in sending Apple News notifications, please contact your Airship Account Manager. composer supports sending push notifications to Apple News subscribers only.

These composers support the app channel only and a single message type, and they are referred to as in-app experiences:

These composers support all channels and all other message types not listed above, including support for combining message types and channels in a single message:

Message — Send a single message.
A/B TestUsed to send variants of a message to cross-sections of your audience. Each variant in the test returns data to help you determine the most effective ways to engage your audience. A/B tests support up to 26 variants and a control group per test. — Experiment with different variations of a message. Message Center not supported.
AutomationA set of conditions that your audience must meet before they receive a message. — Automatically send a message to users when they meet certain conditions.
SequenceA series of messages that is initiated by a trigger. Airship sends messages in the series based on your timing settings, and you can also set conditions that determine its audience and continuation. Sequences can be connected to each other and to other messaging components to create continuous user experiences in a Journey. — Automatically send a series of messages to users when they meet certain conditions.

Supported channels and message types per composer:

Composer	Channels	Message types
Message A/B Test Automation Sequence	App Web Email SMS Open	Push notification In-app message (standard format) Message Center (Not supported for A/B Tests) Web push notification Email SMS Open channel
In-App Automation	App	In-app message (In-App Automation format)
Scene	App	Scene
Survey	App	Survey
Apple News	Apple News	Push notification

Reporting

So you’ve established an audience and sent your messages. Now what? Dig into reporting at every level:

Message Reports evaluate the performance of individual messages. Messages created with the A/B Test higher-level statistical report along with a message report for each variant. For Sequences, the Performance report shows audience behavior compared to the Sequence’s goal and a message report for each message in the Sequence.
Engagement Reports explain aggregate user engagement activity, response rates, and important high-level statistics such as opt-in/opt-out and uninstall levels by platform.
Performance AnalyticsA customizable marketing intelligence tool that provides access to reports and graphs based on engagement data. provides customizable dashboard-style reports using advanced analytics to show and interpret engagement with your app, website, and across multiple apps.

You can also set up integrations with Airship partners and use Real-Time Data StreamingA service that delivers engagement events in real time via the Data Streaming API or an Airship partner integration. to send you Airship events to an outside system.

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