Articles in this section

In-App Messages Overview

In-App

In-app messages are custom messages that appear while a mobile app is in the foreground. Unlike push notifications, they do not appear when the app is in the background or closed.

In-app messages can:

  • Be created with raw HTML or a template editor.
  • Contain buttons for closing the message or navigating to specific content.
  • Be sent as part of blast, triggered, or journey-based campaigns.
  • Be displayed in any order, or prevented from displaying at all.
  • Contain metadata that the associated mobile app can inspect.
  • Point to new content or functionality in your app, promotions, and other important information.

TIP

Iterable can also send in-browser messages, which are in-app messages that target a website. To learn more, read In-Browser Messaging Overview.

In this article

How an app receives in-app messages

Iterable in-app works by sending a silent push to your app to notify the client side that there is an in-app message in the queue, ready for our user to view.

Example in-app journey

  1. A marketer sets up an Iterable in-app message in the Iterable dashboard.
  2. The Iterable system sends a silent push notification to the mobile app.
  3. The mobile app receives the silent push and pulls down (does a GET request) the most recent in-app messages.
  4. Remote messages on the server are added to the local storage for increase performance and speed.
  5. The user is presented the in-app messages with little workload on client-side performance.

Custom payload

A custom payload enables developers to include:

  • Prioritization around which in-app messages to show first
  • Determine which view should present the in-app message
  • Apply additional personalization with Handlebars

Want to learn more?

For more information about some of the topics in this article, check out these resources. Iterable Academy is open to everyone — you don't need to be an Iterable customer!

Iterable Academy

Support docs

Developer docs

Related articles