Use Cases & Best Practices

Once you get set up using OneSignal and start subscribing users, you may be asking "What's next?". Well, we've compiled a list of common use cases and features clients find success with. If there is something you can't find on the list that you would like to learn how to do, just ask us! We're always happy to help.

Increasing user retention begins with understanding your users and providing them the content they want. With OneSignal, we provide you the tools to create a great user experience and keep your users engaged.

We highly recommend starting out by reading some of our case studies – this will give you a good overview of how some of our customers are innovating with our platform.

Mapping User IDs

If your website or mobile app is connected to a database, we highly recommend associating the OneSignal User ID (player_id) with your own User IDs (external_user_id). Details in our Database, DMP, & CRM Integration but we also have many other integrations to help get you hooked up 💪.

Integration & Analytics Setup

Integrations - All your favorite vendors from Analytics to Data Management to Location and Subscriptions work with OneSignal. If they currently don't let us know, we'll get you help!
Analytics Overview - A guide on user and message tracking with OneSignal.

Web & Mobile Guides

Segment Users Based on Notification Clicks - Group users based on how long since they clicked a push and what your push was about to know what works and what doesn't.
Abandoned Cart - An eCommerce dream! Not just limited to web – if your apps have time-sensitive events, this guide provides an overview of how to set that up and get those carts checked out!
Automated Messages - Get your drip campaigns and event-triggered notifications sent automatically to your users.
How-To Guides - Dedicated support guides (with working code if needed 😉 ) are available to address the common setups for ecommerce and news/media sites. Check them out! There is something for everyone here.
Everything Game Developers Need to Know about Push Notifications and Customer Messaging - An amazing guide by George Deglin (OneSignal CEO) discussing best practices and experiences from our humble beginnings as a Hiptic Games.
Social Activity - Understand how to use push notifications with social apps and sites.

Web Push-Specific Guides

We highly recommend starting with our Web Push Best Practices Guide.

How to Increase Notification Click-Through Rate (CTR)

News Push Notifications: 5 Best Practices - Here is a great read on increasing CTR for news sites. It is a must read for anyone sending notifications.
Increase Open Rates by 23% with Intelligent Delivery - Learn more about our Intelligent Delivery option when sending push to help increase CTR
50% Higher Open Rates with Segments - After conducting an internal audit, we found that apps that use Segments generally see 50% higher click rates than apps that do not.

Advanced Targeting

Target Users Based on Clicks