How do ClubZap notifications work?

Details on in-app and push notifications and when and how they are delivered.

Declan Murphy avatar
Written by Declan Murphy
Updated over a week ago

We have made some big changes around how notifications work with the aim to provide a better user experience for your clubs followers (supporters who have downloaded the app and followed your club) and simplify the role of your club admin.
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We now support 2 types of notifications:

In-App Notifications

In-app notifications are delivered straight away and use rich media — a jewel counter indicating new notifications in our case — to help you create engaging experiences that people receive directly in our app. 

This experience is delivered via the new notifications tab introduced in our latest version of the app. From now on when a club admin publishes new content and opts to send a notification - the notification will appear in the notification feed on your followers app.

Push Notifications

Push notifications generally appear on the lock screen of a device, but they may also appear in a banner or other format, depending on the device. We add a deep link to a push notification that opens up a specific experience in your app. The general behaviour is that push notifications will now be delivered twice a day - 10am and 6pm - but this will change for fixtures and results in certain cases. A push notification will now summarise how many updates you have and from how many clubs.

Example: 

  1. If you publish news content at 3pm the push notification will be delivered to a follower at 6pm provided the content has not been viewed already. 

  2. If you publish news content at 3am the push notification will be delivered at 10am provided the content has not been viewed already. 

Note: If you have viewed a notification previously in the notification tab you will not receive a push notification at the scheduled time in this case.

Delivery Schedule for Push Notifications

News content
Standard delivery times of 10am & 6pm:

Lotto results
Standard delivery times of 10am & 6pm:

Fixtures
Notifications are now automatically generated for fixtures using the following logic:

  1. If fixture commencement is less than 12 hours - send push immediately (provided not falling into the night time threshold of 10pm - 8am)

  2. If fixture commencement is less than 24 hours - schedule for next push (10am or 6pm)

  3. If fixture commencement is less than 7 days - schedule for next push (10am or 6pm)

  4. If fixture commencement is less than 14 days - schedule for next push (10am or 6pm) and then schedule again for 3 days out from commencement day

  5. If fixture commencement is greater than 14 days - schedule for 14 days out and then schedule again for 3 days out from commencement day

Results

Notifications are now automatically generated for results using the following logic:

  1. Immediate delivery if the event for the associated result ended less than 24 hours ago Note: This is provided the delivery time is outside of night time hours (10pm - 8am).

  2. If the event ended more than 24 hours ago the result will be pushed as part of the next scheduled delivery at 10am or 6pm.

Benefits of this new approach

For the club:

  • You can now post content at any time (day or night) and when you select to send push notifications we will schedule delivery at a time that drives most engagement with your followers (10am and 6pm).

  • Master list of Fixtures/Schedules can be added in advance and we will automatically send notifications regarding events/games closer to the start date.

  • Notifications for Fixtures/Schedules/Results will now be sent automatically to followers of that team - e.g: If a result is corresponding to the U14 Boys team the notification will only be received by followers who have opted in to receive notifications for this team 

For your followers:

  • Push notifications are now received twice a day which is in line with what you experience with other popular social media outlets. In app notifications will be received in real time and display in a new notifications feed.

  • A new tab in the app lists all your notifications for all the clubs you are following in a single feed. You can now view content without having to swap between clubs.

  • The settings option in the notification tab lets you manage notifications on a per club basis. You can customise what notifications you wish to receive (e.g: News only for Club A, Fixtures for U14 only for Club B etc).

FAQs

How can I see when a notification for content I published is due to be delivered?

There are some new additions to the admin portal around scheduled delivery times which can be viewed in the Schedules/Fixtures, Results and News sections.

What if I need to send important information with immediate effect to my followers such as an emergency update?

Our new ClubZap chat has a feature to deliver an instant message to all your followers. This message can be created by a club admin via the app and will be delivered to your followers via their chat screen. A push notification will be delivered immediately to your subscribers informing them they have a new message. More details on the chat feature can be found here.

What type of content is covered by notifications? 

All content that can be published such as news, fixtures, events, results is covered by the new notifications flow.

How can I manage what notifications I receive?
A settings option is available at the top of the notification feed which will allow you to manage what notifications you receive. These can be customised on a per club basis.

Why did I not receive a notification at the scheduled time of 10am or 6pm?
The reason for this maybe that there was no new content published for the clubs you were following or you may have already viewed the notification in the notification feed on the app.

If I am not living in the same timezone as my club when will the notification arrive?

Notifications will be delivered at the scheduled time based on your local timezone rather than the club you are followings timezone. So you will still receive notifications at 10am and 6pm irrespective of your location.

What is the night time blackout for push notification delivery?

The blackout period for push notifications is 10PM to 8am. If a result for a game/event that took place in the last 24 hours is published between 10pm and 8am it will instead be delivered on the next combined notification delivery at 10am.

If I change a result will a new notification be sent?
If you edit a result the original notification will exist but when it is clicked it will open the new result. Only one notification will exist for News, Fixtures, Schedules and Results in any 4 hour time period. After this time you can enable a new notification to be sent. 

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