The Notification Center on Vimeo OTT

The Notification Center gives you one place to create, target, schedule, and track the notifications you send to your audience. Instead of messaging everyone at once, you can build reusable audience segments, send app push notifications and emails, link a notification to a specific video, collection, or live event, and schedule it for a fixed time or relative to a release. Every notification you send or schedule is listed in one history view so you can review, edit, duplicate, or cancel it.

This article explains how to reach the Notification Center, build audiences, compose and target a notification, schedule it, and manage everything from the notification history.

In this article

• What is the Notification Center?
• How to access the Notification Center
• Who receives your notifications
• Step 1: Build an audience
• Step 2: Compose and target a notification
• Step 3: Schedule or send
• Manage notifications from the history
• Sending a notification from a video, collection, or live event
• Frequently asked questions

What is the Notification Center?

The Notification Center is a tool for reaching your viewers through two channels: app push notifications (delivered to your branded iOS and Android apps) and email. You can send a notification immediately or schedule it for later, target it to a specific group of viewers using an audience, and attach a thumbnail and a link to content on your site.

The page is organized into three sections, which match the order you’ll usually work in:

• Audiences — reusable groups of viewers you can target. Build them once and reuse them across notifications.
• Send / Schedule Notification — where you compose a notification, choose its audience and channels, and decide when it goes out.
• Notification History — a list of every notification, scheduled or sent, with its status and management actions.

How to access the Notification Center

1. Log in to your Vimeo OTT admin.
2. In the navigation bar, open the Engagement menu.
3. Select Notifications.

Note: App push notifications are only available if push is enabled for your site and apps. If push isn’t available, the Notify apps option will be disabled and you can still send notifications by email. Contact Vimeo OTT support if you’d like push enabled for your branded apps.

Who receives your notifications

A notification only reaches viewers who are eligible to receive it on the channel you choose. On top of the audience you target, Vimeo OTT automatically respects each viewer’s consent and contact preferences.

App push notifications

Push notifications are delivered through your branded iOS and Android apps. A viewer receives a push only if they have installed your app and allowed notifications for it on their device. Viewers who don’t have the app, or who have turned notifications off at the device or app level, won’t receive pushes — even if they match your audience.

Email

Emails are sent only to viewers who have a valid, deliverable email address, who have not unsubscribed from all emails from your site, and who have not turned off this type of email in their account notification settings. For most audiences, email is also limited to active subscribers. Viewers can change these preferences at any time, or unsubscribe using the link included in every email.

Step 1: Build an audience

An audience is a saved group of viewers. You can reuse the same audience across many notifications, and you can also send to Everyone without building an audience at all. To create one, go to the Audiences section and click + New.

Give your audience a name, then choose one of two audience types:

• Logic-based — define rules (criteria) and the system finds everyone who matches.
• Email List — upload a CSV of email addresses to target a fixed list of people.

Logic-based criteria

When you choose Logic-based, select one or more of the criteria below. A viewer must match all of the criteria you select to be included.

💡Tip: Some criteria rely on app data and can only be used with push notifications, not email: Platform, Inactive watchers, Inactive logins, Watched video, and Watched videos in collection. If an audience uses any of these, email will be unavailable for it, and the form will tell you so.

Editing and deleting audiences

Saved audiences appear in the Audiences table, where you can edit or delete them. An audience that’s attached to a scheduled notification can’t be deleted until that notification is cancelled or sent.

Step 2: Compose and target a notification

In the Send / Schedule Notification section, fill in the following:

Audience

Choose Everyone or one of your saved audiences. When you send by email to a logic-based audience, you can click Display audience size to see an estimate of how many people match (valid for send-email only).

Channels

Select where the notification is delivered. You must choose at least one:

• Notify apps — sends an app push notification to viewers on your branded iOS and Android apps.
• Send email — sends an email. This is unavailable if the selected audience uses mobile-only criteria (see the tip above).

Message content

Each channel has its own content, with character limits so your message displays correctly:

If you send by both channels at once, you’ll see separate fields for the push title and body and for the email subject and body, so you can tailor each.

Linked content (optional)

You can link the notification to a video, collection, or live event. When a viewer taps the notification, they’re taken to that content. Linking content also unlocks the option to use that content’s thumbnail and, for videos and live events, to schedule relative to its release time.

Thumbnail (optional)

Choose the image shown with the notification:

• No thumbnail — send without an image.
• Use linked content’s thumbnail — reuse the thumbnail of the video, collection, or live event you linked (available only when content is linked).
• Upload custom thumbnail — upload your own image. Maximum size 2048×1024 px, recommended 1024×512 px (a 2:1 aspect ratio), JPEG or PNG.

Step 3: Schedule or send

Decide when the notification goes out. By default, a notification is sent immediately when you submit. To send later, check Schedule, then pick how to time it:

• At a specific time — choose an exact date and time. The time zone shown next to the field is your admin’s time zone.
• Before release / Before start — available only when you’ve linked a video or live event that has a future release time. Enter how many minutes before the content goes live the notification should be sent.

When you’re done, click Send Now to send immediately, or Schedule to queue it. You’ll see a confirmation that the notification was sent or scheduled.

💡Tip: Use Before release to build anticipation — for example, send a push 15 minutes before a live event starts so viewers know to tune in.

Manage notifications from the history

The Notification History section lists every notification, newest first, with these columns: Audience, Channels (Push and/or Email), Title, Status, and Scheduled / Sent time. The status of each notification is one of:

Depending on a notification’s status, you can take these actions:

• Edit — change a notification that’s still pending. The form scrolls up pre-filled with its details.
• Cancel — stop a pending notification from being sent.
• Duplicate — copy any notification (pending or sent) into the form as a starting point for a new one.

If you have pending notifications, a Refresh button updates their status.

Sending a notification from a video, collection, or live event

You don’t have to start from the Notification Center every time. From the actions menu on an individual video, collection, or live event, choose Send notification. This opens the Notification Center with that content already linked, so you only need to choose the audience, write the message, and schedule or send.

Frequently asked questions

• Do I have to create an audience to send a notification?
  No. You can select Everyone to send to all of your viewers without building an audience. Audiences are for when you want to target a specific group.
• What’s the difference between push and email?
  Push notifications are delivered to your branded iOS and Android apps; email is sent to viewers’ inboxes. You can use either or both on a single notification, as long as you choose at least one channel.
• Why is the Notify apps option greyed out?
  App push notifications are only available when push is enabled for your site and apps. If it’s disabled, you can still send by email. Reach out to Vimeo OTT support to enable push.
• Why can’t I send my audience an email?
  Some criteria rely on app data and only work with push: Platform, Inactive watchers, Inactive logins, Watched video, and Watched videos in collection. If your audience uses any of these, email is unavailable for it.
• Will everyone in my audience receive the notification?
  Not necessarily. Notifications go only to viewers who are reachable on the channel you choose and who haven’t opted out. For push, that means viewers with your app installed and notifications enabled on their device; for email, viewers with a deliverable address who haven’t unsubscribed or disabled that type of email. See “Who receives your notifications” above for the full rules.
• Can I change a notification after scheduling it?
  Yes. While a notification is still pending, use Edit in the Notification History to change it, or Cancel to stop it from sending. Once a notification has sent, you can Duplicate it to reuse its content.
• What does “Before release” scheduling do?
  When you link a video or live event with a future release time, you can schedule the notification to send a set number of minutes before that content goes live, instead of picking a fixed date and time.
• What size should a custom thumbnail be?
  Maximum 2048×1024 px, with 1024×512 px (a 2:1 aspect ratio) recommended. JPEG and PNG files are supported.