How to integrate Airship push notification with GA funnel exploration
Hi, I sent a push notification via airship dashboard. I was wondering how to integrate the data with GA funnel exploration?
I used to send push notifications via Firebase cloud message and it worked just fine with GA funnels. But after I switched to Airship, it seems GA does not process the data properly. When I try the same funnel,
Step 1
My_notification_open
Step 2
Book_details_open
Step 3
read_chapter
Step 4
view_purchasable_chapter
It shows nothing with the same parameter(book id) I used before.
I tried to toggle the open funnel option on and off, but there’s no complete funnel result displayed. Is there any step missing before I can get the funnel work again? Can someone help me solve this issue please? Thank you so much in advance.
The short answer is:
The integration issue is likely due to the different way Airship attributes a push notification open event compared to Firebase.
To fix this and get your GA funnel working again, you need to ensure that the necessary notification-specific parameters, such as the equivalent of the Firebase notification ID
or an Airship push ID
and the book ID
, are being correctly captured and passed to Google Analytics when the
event fires.My_notification_open
You may need to modify your app’s push handler to explicitly log the push open event with the required parameters into Google Analytics, possibly using the Airship API or webhooks in conjunction with a server-side solution like Stape or Google Cloud Platform for reliable and cost-effective data processing before it hits GA.
The long answer is:
Since you switched from Firebase Cloud Messaging to Airship, the mechanism by which the push open event is generated and the specific data (parameters) attached to that event have changed.
Firebase often automatically includes a notification ID
or a similar campaign identifier with the open event which GA understands and can use for funnel attribution.
Airship, while an excellent platform, requires a slightly different approach for deep integration with GA Funnel Exploration, especially if you rely on specific event parameters like the book ID
.
To solve this, you need a robust, server-side data pipeline.
An excellent and cheap solution involves using the Airship API or webhooks alongside Google Tag Manager and a server-side tagging solution like Stape or Google Cloud Platform.
Here’s why this works and how you can implement it:
First, Airship API/webhooks are key because they allow you to capture the rich data associated with the push notification send and open events directly.
The webhook can be configured to send real-time data about the push, including its unique ID
, the target audience, and any custom key-value pairs (like your book ID
) to a server endpoint.
Second, a server-side tagging solution, such as Stape (a cost-effective and simpler server-side GTM hosting solution) or Google Cloud Platform (for more complex custom processing), receives the Airship webhook data.
This server-side environment is where you’ll process and normalize the Airship data to match the format Google Analytics expects.
For example, when Airship reports a push open, you can enrich that event data with the book ID
and a unique push identifier before sending it to GA.
Third, Google Tag Manager (GTM) is used to manage the GA configuration and ensure the
event is logged with the correct parameters, specifically the My_notification_open
book ID
and the Airship push ID
, matching the required dimensions in your GA property.
This event is what triggers the funnel.
Fourth, the Google Analytics Data API is an important part of the overall picture for verification and analysis.
While it doesn’t directly solve the funnel tracking problem, once the data is correctly flowing into GA, you can use the Data API to pull the raw event data, verify that the
events contain the book ID parameter correctly, and perform custom attribution analysis that may be more flexible than the standard Funnel Exploration report, confirming the end-to-end data flow is accurate.My_notification_open
The flow would be:
Airship sends push -> User opens push (app-side handling captures the push ID and book ID and sends to GTM’s server container) -> Airship webhook sends push data to Stape/GCP -> Server-side (Stape/GCP) processes the data and sends the standardized
event with the required parameters (like My_notification_open
book_id
) to the Google Analytics endpoint -> GA processes the event and it appears correctly in your Funnel Exploration.
The use of Stape or GCP keeps the processing cheap, scalable, and reliable compared to client-side-only solutions that are prone to being blocked or timing out.
You need to ensure that the parameter used for the book ID in step 1,
, is precisely the one that is also available in steps 2, 3, and 4.My_notification_open
If the book ID
is missing from step 1’s event parameters, the funnel will break at that point.