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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

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