Send push campaigns and automated flows

Once your app is on Vunda push, a Push tab appears in Vunda with three parts: Campaigns, Flows and Settings. Campaigns are notifications you send once, to everyone who allowed notifications. Flows send automatically when something happens. Today the flow you can turn on is Welcome, which starts when a shopper turns on notifications, once per phone. The other flows need in-app activity tracking or access to your Shopify orders, which Vunda does not have yet, so they show a badge and cannot be turned on (see Step 4). If you have not switched to Vunda push yet, turn on Vunda push notifications first. If your app uses Klaviyo for push, you run campaigns and flows in Klaviyo instead, and the Push tab does not appear.

You can set everything up while Apple and Android push are still being set up. Sending and turning flows on waits until both are ready.

Step 1: pair your own phone as a test device

Every test goes only to phones you have paired, never to shoppers. Open Push, then Settings, and find Test devices. Choose Pair a device, then scan the code with the camera of a phone that has your app installed (or open the link shown on that phone). Notifications must be allowed in the app on that phone. The code expires after 10 minutes. You can pair up to five devices.

Step 2: check quiet hours and the frequency cap

Still in Push settings:

• Quiet hours hold pushes that fall inside the window until it ends, in each shopper's local time. They start as 21:00 to 09:00.
• Frequency cap limits promotional pushes per shopper across campaigns and flows. It starts at 1 a day and 3 a week. Even with the cap off, Vunda never sends more than 3 promotional pushes a day to one device.
• Flow re-entry sets how long a shopper who left a flow waits before they can enter it again. It starts at 7 days.

Save with the save bar at the top of the page.

Step 3: send a campaign

On Campaigns, choose New campaign. Write a title and a message (the counters show the lock-screen limits), optionally add an image from your Shopify files, choose what opens when a shopper taps it, and optionally add a discount code from Shopify Discounts. Images show on Android now; iPhones show them once your app includes rich push.

Choose Send test to my device to see it on your paired phone. Then choose when it sends, now or at a date and time. If you tick In each shopper's local time, shoppers whose local time has already passed when sending starts do not get it, so schedule at least a day ahead. Choose Review and schedule, check the summary, and confirm. You can schedule up to 5 campaigns in 24 hours.

Step 4: turn on a flow

On Flows, each card shows what the flow is for, what starts it and when its pushes go out. Choose Turn on to start it with the suggested messages, or Customize to edit it first. If something needs fixing before it can go live, Vunda opens the flow so you can fix it.

A flow opens on a canvas, and its steps run from the trigger at the top down to the bottom. Select a step to open its settings on the left (on a narrow screen the settings replace the canvas, and Back to flow returns to it). To add a step, choose + on the line where it should go, then pick a wait, a push or a condition under Add a step. A condition splits shoppers into two paths: shoppers who match it take the True path, everyone else takes the False path, and each path has its own steps. A shopper who takes a path with no steps leaves the flow there. A flow can have up to 3 conditions, and whichever path a shopper takes, they get at most five pushes from one flow.

On a push, choose Edit notification to change its message. Once the flow is saved, Send test sends that push to your paired phone. To move a step, drag it by its handle on the canvas, or select it and use Move up, Move down or Move to. Duplicate adds a copy of a wait or push right after it, and Delete removes a step; choose Undo in the message that appears to put it back. Steps that need fixing before you can choose Turn on are marked Review, and their settings say what to fix. A shopper leaves a flow automatically when they reach its goal, for example when they place an order. Flows that start from what shoppers do in your app (abandoned checkout, browse abandonment, back in stock, price drop and post-purchase) show Needs activity tracking, and win-back, which starts from your Shopify orders, shows Needs order access. Those cannot be turned on for your store yet. Your privacy obligations explains what each one will collect.

You can edit a flow while it is live. Message changes apply to pushes that have not been sent yet, a changed wait applies to shoppers who have not reached it, shoppers waiting on a step you delete move on to the next step on their path, and shoppers who reach a condition you deleted continue on its True path. Adding, removing or moving steps, or changing a condition, starts a new version of the flow: new shoppers follow the new steps, and shoppers already in the flow finish on the steps they started with. Pausing a flow removes every shopper waiting in it, so nothing is sent later by surprise.

Step 5: read the results

A sent campaign, and each flow and each of its pushes, shows how many messages were sent, how many devices received them and how many were opened. Pushes that waited for quiet hours to end are counted as Delayed by quiet hours; they still went out, just later. Pushes that were not sent, for example because a shopper reached the frequency cap, are listed with the reason.

The notification prompt

The screen that asks shoppers to turn on notifications is designed, worded and timed in one place: Onboarding, on the notifications step. (Push settings has a Notification prompt card with an Edit in Onboarding button that takes you there.) Under When to ask for notifications, choose:

• During onboarding: shoppers see the step when they first open your app.
• After a few app sessions: the step is skipped at first launch, then shown once a shopper has used your app the number of times you choose.
• After the first add to cart: shown the first time a shopper adds something to their bag.

Whichever you choose, shoppers see the same screen you design and preview on that step: its layout, colours, fonts, logo and wording. With a later timing, a shopper who says "Not now" is asked at most once more, two weeks later. Changes reach the app the next time it opens.