Omnichannel campaigns

Pushwoosh enables you to create omnichannel campaigns and seamlessly unify your communications across different channels such as push notifications, emails, SMS, in-apps and WhatsApp.This guide explains how omnichannel campaigns work in Pushwoosh, and how to set up integration to create these campaigns.

Key identifiers for omnichannel campaigns in Pushwoosh

To effectively manage omnichannel campaigns, it’s essential to understand how Pushwoosh identifies users across various devices and channels. Pushwoosh uses three primary identifiers by default:

• Device ID (HWID): A unique identifier assigned to each device by the Pushwoosh SDK. Learn more

• User ID: A unique identifier that represents the user of the device. Learn more. By default, the User ID is equal to the HWID. However, the User ID is reserved for you, allowing you to later replace the default User ID with a custom one. This enables mapping users across different systems or linking different devices and communication channels under one User ID for omnichannel campaigns.

Developer assistance needed

You’ll need assistance from your development team to set a custom User ID. Please share this guide with them to get started.

• Push token: A unique key for the app-device combination, issued by Apple or Google push notification gateways. It is collected and managed by the Pushwoosh SDK. Learn more

Understanding how Pushwoosh handles devices

In Pushwoosh, any contact method — such as a device identifier (HWID), email address, or phone number — is treated as a separate entity or “device”. Each “device” is stored as a distinct entry in the Pushwoosh database. For instance:

• HWID for mobile or web push notifications
• Email addresses for email communications.
• Phone numbers for SMS messages and WhatsApp communications

For example, if a user has both a mobile device and an email address, Pushwoosh counts the device identifier (HWID) and the email address as two separate entities (devices). As a result, there will be two separate entries in the Pushwoosh database.

Learn how to register devices in Pushwoosh

Linking devices for omnichannel campaigns

Oftentimes, users provide multiple contact methods, meaning you have several communication channels available to reach them. This enables you to build effective omnichannel campaigns. To do so, you need to link all the user’s devices under a single custom User ID.

For example, if you want to create an omnichannel campaign targeting users who haven’t opened your push notifications by following up with an email or SMS, you first need to set a custom User ID. This User ID would then be linked to the user’s mobile device ID, email address, and/or phone number, allowing you to reach the same user across all these channels.

Here’s a simplified representation of how this might look in the Pushwoosh database:

Platform	Device (HWID)	User ID
Mobile	abc123pushToken	user123
Email	user@example.com	user123
SMS	+1234567890	user123
WhatsApp	+1234567890	user123

In this example, the custom UserID “user123” is linked to four different devices: a mobile device, an email address, an SMS number, and a WhatsApp contact. This means Pushwoosh recognizes that all these devices belong to the same user, allowing you to contact them through different channels.

To see all the devices linked under a User ID, type the User ID into the Pushwoosh User Explorer and see all the active user devices a user has, as well as all user tags.

Example scenario

Developer assistance needed

Configuring the steps outlined below requires assistance from your development team. Please share this guide with them for proper implementation.

Imagine you manage an eCommerce app and want to reach your customers through various channels, including push notifications, emails, SMS, and WhatsApp, ensuring consistent and personalized messaging across all platforms.

Here’s how it might look:

Step 1. Registering the device and setting a custom User ID

When a new customer, let’s call her Sarah, downloads your app, the Pushwoosh SDK automatically registers her device in Pushwoosh using its Hardware ID (HWID) as the default User ID. After Sarah creates an account and logs in, you assign her a custom User ID, sarah_123, using the setUserId SDK method.

Step 2. Expanding to email

Next, encourage Sarah to sign up to receive promotional emails and register her email address in the Pushwoosh user base using the registerEmail API method. You can also register an email address via corresponding methods using either Pushwoosh mobile SDK or Web SDK if you need to do so from your mobile application or website. Set the custom User ID to sarah_123 and you can also include any tags that should be associated with the email record, like her preferences or activity.

Step 3. Expanding to SMS

Similarly, when Sarah agrees to receive SMS messages and provides her phone number, you should use the registerDevice API method to link her number (+1234567890) with her User ID sarah_123.

Sarah’s mobile device, email, and phone number are now linked to her User ID, sarah_123. This setup enables you to send personalized messages to Sarah through push notifications, emails, and SMS channels, ensuring a seamless and consistent user experience.

How omnichannel works in customer journeys

• When setting up omnichannel customer journeys, make sure to enable the Send to all user devices option. This ensures the message is delivered to the appropriate channel across all user devices.

• To make omni-channel campaigns work effectively, users who enter a journey should have all the channels used in the journey. For example, if you start a campaign with a push notification, only customers with registered mobile devices will receive it. If they don’t have a mobile device, they won’t be able to continue. The same goes for email campaigns.