Push Notifications and Opt-In

Push notifications are the messages your app sends to a device's lock screen or notification center to pull someone back in, and they are the one owned channel you control without paying per message.

You have a user who installed, poked around, and drifted off. Push is how you reach back out: a reminder, an update, an offer, landing on their screen even when your app is closed. On Android, notifications historically arrived switched on, though newer versions ask too. On iOS you have to earn it. The system requires a separate notification opt-in prompt, and if the person taps Don't Allow, the channel is closed to you.

You want to be clear that this opt-in is a different thing from App Tracking Transparency. The tracking prompt is about following users across other apps and sites for ads. The notification prompt is only about whether you may send them messages. Two separate permissions, two separate questions. Confusing them is how teams end up asking for the wrong thing at the wrong moment and getting denied. You also want every push to deep-link to the exact screen it is about, so a back-in-stock alert opens that item, not your home screen.

Remember this. Notification permission is a finite resource, not a renewable one. Over-message and people mute you or uninstall, and on iOS a declined prompt cuts off the channel entirely with no easy second ask inside the app. You earn the right to keep sending by being useful, not by being frequent, so time the opt-in ask for a moment when the value is obvious.

Send like every notification costs you the right to send the next one.