The five stages of the notification lifecycle

Creating an effective notification system requires more than just delivering messages; it involves orchestrating a seamless, cross-channel user experience and maintaining it as new features and channels are added. Successful product teams either build or purchase systems to manage notification templates and routing logic, incorporating testing, environment versioning, and analytics. The process, known as the product notification lifecycle, includes developing templates and workflows, testing notifications before release, deploying them to production, measuring their effectiveness, and planning for ongoing maintenance. Testing is critical to ensure a positive user experience, while measuring effectiveness helps teams understand notification impact and streamline processes. As notifications become more complex, maintaining visibility and a comprehensive view of all workflows is essential, often requiring internal dashboards or third-party systems like Knock for management. Collaboration across engineering, product, and support teams, with appropriate roles and permissions, ensures effective communication and problem-solving, making the notification system adaptable and robust over time.