Push Notifications for News Apps

News apps need three push tiers: breaking (high priority, low frequency), daily digest (scheduled, medium volume), and topic alerts (segmented, opt-in). Wanilla handles all three.

Breaking News

Critical-priority APNs with a short headline. Cap at 1-2 per day max — over-pushing breaking news is the #1 reason users disable notifications. Tap deep-links into the article.

Daily Digest

Scheduled morning push (8am local) with the top 3 stories. Use a rich notification with a hero image. Frame it like an email newsletter — predictable, valuable, skippable.

Topic Alerts

Tag device tokens with topics the user follows (sports teams, companies, regions). Fire targeted pushes when matching content publishes. Highest engagement rate of the three tiers.

Setup

Start with the push notifications pillar for the integration walkthrough, then layer your editorial CMS on top via webhooks.

Going further: news apps need discoverability before retention. Kurve's App Store Optimization agency covers the metadata and creative work that gets news apps surfaced in the first place.