Scheduling Push Notifications By Subscriber’s Timezone in VWO Engage

For your campaigns to be more effective, the time at which the notifications are sent out plays a significant role. To benefit from this VWO Engage lets you schedule push notifications in two ways, one by sending notifications based on your local time and others by sending notifications based on subscriber’s local time.

Let’s delve more into these, one by one.

Send Notifications as per Your Local Time

If your objective is to send out the notifications to your subscribers as per your local time, choose the sending option as Send notifications as per your local time. This sends out the notification to all the subscribers based on the timezone you configured for your account in settings.

NOTE: Since your local time is considered, the campaign only executes once and all subscribers receive notifications in one go.

To know, how to configure this option in your campaign, refer to Configuring Sending Options in VWO Engage.

After specifying the Date and Time, as soon you choose the Send notifications as per my local time option, a help box appears that keeps you informed on when the notification will be delivered in different timezones.

In the image below, the notification is scheduled for Jul 9, 2020, at 18:15. This typically means, as soon it’s 18:15 in the timezone that you have configured for your account, the notification will be sent to all your subscribers. 

As your subscribers reside in different timezones, it is obvious that the time at which they receive the notification is not the same as yours. Thus, the example displays that your subscribers in the Hawaii state of the USA will receive the notification at 02:45. This is because they are behind your default timezone by 15:30 hours (for some US states this may differ, as the timezone in the USA varies). Likewise, for the subscribers in Australia, the notification will arrive at 22:45.

Send Notifications as per Subscriber’s Local Time

At times, wouldn't it be more appropriate if the notifications to subscribers are sent considering their local time? Say, you have international subscribers and you would want to send time-sensitive notifications. For such scenarios, we recommend sending notifications as per the subscriber’s local time. 

To do this, choose the sending option as Send notifications as per subscriber’s local time while scheduling your campaign. This takes care of the subscriber’s local time and the notifications are sent only when the specified time arrives in their local time.

NOTE: In order to capture all time zones in your subscriber's base, it is recommended that the notification be scheduled at least 24 hours in advance.

As soon as you choose the Send notifications as per subscriber’s local time option and specify the date-time, a help box appears that keeps you informed on when the notification will be delivered in different timezones.

In the image below, the notification is scheduled for July 9, 2020, at 21:55. This typically means, as soon it’s 21:55 in the timezone of your subscriber, the notification will be sent. 

Advantages of Considering Local Time of The Subscriber’s While Sending Notifications:

• It helps you avoid sending notifications at odd hours.
• It helps in engaging with the customer in a better way and thus, the effective user experience.

What If the Scheduled Time of The Notification Has Already Passed?

There could be situations wherein a time at which the notification is scheduled has already passed for that day. To cater to this, VWO Engage has the following configurations that let you define the further course of action:

• Send Immediately: choose this option if you want to send the notification immediately after setting up your campaign.
• Send notification the next day: choose this option if you want to send the notification the very next day at the delivery time you choose.
• Drop the notification: choose this option if you do not want to send a notification if the time in subscriber’s timezone has passed.

After specifying the Date and Time, as soon you choose the Send notifications as per subscriber’s local time option, a help box that keeps you informed on when the notification will be delivered in different timezones appears. 

The example displays that the notification to your subscribers arrives when it’s 17:55 in their respective timezones. The notification to subscribers in the USA (Hawaii) arrives on Jul 9, 2020, at 17:55 PM, however, for the ones in Australia, it arrives on Jul 10, 2020, at 17:55 PM. The notification would be sent to Australian subscribers the next day because you have chosen to send the notification the next day if the scheduled time of the notification is after the subscriber’s time.

Impact on A/B Test

Subscribers to be made part of the AB Test are chosen randomly. The notifications that are sent to these subscribers are as per the timezone configured for your account in settings. Winning notification of the AB Test will get scheduled for the remaining subscribers as per subscriber's local time.

Filter Notification Campaigns Scheduled by Subscribers Local Time

To filter out the notification campaigns that are scheduled by subscriber’s local time, perform this:

Procedure

1. In the VWO Engage app, go to CAMPAIGNS > One-Time.
   A list of One-Time campaigns that you have created in the past appears.
2. To filter out the notification campaigns that are scheduled by subscriber’s local time, select the Subscriber’s Local Time filter present in the panel on the right. 
   NOTE: For all the notifications that are scheduled by subscribers local time, a globe icon appears next to the campaign name.