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I have three kontakt.io Pro Beacons. I've configured them for Eddystone-URL and all are operating correctly.

The current behavior is: Android receives the beacon URL, generates the notification, which displays the target URL along with the page favicon and specific page tags. Those tags appear to be title followed by header tags displayed in descending order until the notification window runs out of display space.

The goal of any URL beacon is to: 1. Display a relevant favicon to develop brand familiarity and 2. Get a link click.

In order to encourage a click, I would like to use a Call to Action (CTA) rather than title/header tags. Now, I could go to the specific URL being referenced and manually change all the header/title tags, but this is a clunky fix that will impact SEO for the relevant page.

Is there a method for redirecting a URL that allows the user to alter the title tags during the redirect?

In full disclosure I am not a programmer, I'm a small business owner who can occasionally navigate technology and code better than most laymen, so please answer at the third grade level.

The reason I strongly believe that this is possible is because a company called "Royaltie Gem" is selling kontact.io beacons (the same ones I have) and provides a platform for changing the notification window "call to action," which sits right where the header/title tags would be on a normal notification using the same beacon. So they appear to have found a way to substitute these tags with a call to action such as "Click for an amazing offer!" and I can only assume it is with some form of redirect.

I appreciate any assistance.

Andrew
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  • Can you show a screenshot of what this Royaltie Gem notification looks like? Do you know for sure it is triggered by Eddystone-URL? Do you know if it requires a custom app install? – davidgyoung Jul 11 '17 at 03:17
  • I can't screenshot the Royaltie Gem notification because I do not have their service, although I have the identical beacon (in fact my beacon is second generation from the same company). However, you can go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt-xRWTgWJ4 and view minute 6:39. If you look on the right hand side you will see a screenshot of the notification, with a CTA that says: "Must see technology!" This is where the URL title/header tags would normally be. Additionally, there is no app install required for Royaltie, that is one of their key selling points, and yes it is Eddystone-URL. – Andrew Jul 11 '17 at 03:53
  • Correction for anyone who finds this thread: it was NOT Eddystone-URL. It is Eddystone-UID. Although it may be possible to achieve the desired results with some kind of URL redirect, this does not appear to be the most efficient method. – Andrew Jul 11 '17 at 22:49

2 Answers2

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If I understand correctly you are using Google Chrome or Physical Web application to show notifications based on Eddystone-URL. As you found out the text shown in the notification is strictly given by the target website and IMHO the only way is to change the website itself.

But there is different way how to get the notifications (and I believe the Royaltie Gem video uses this one). Look at the Google Nearby Notifications. In summary this works based on Eddystone-UID. You register your UID with the service and configure to redirect to target website. But in the configuration you can specify the title and description. Look at the mentioned page for the details.

Dietatko
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  • Your comment makes sense, and I've been attempting to achieve it. I switched my devices over to UID, registered them, and added the Nearby Notification attachment with a https URL and a Call to Action. However for whatever reason I'm not getting notifications on my Android phone. I can't find any reason why it is not creating notifications. The Eddystone-URL was functioning, but the UID is not. – Andrew Jul 11 '17 at 21:15
  • Interestingly, when I go to Settings -> Google -> Nearby (on my Android phone) I am able to see all three beacons with the CTA I programmed for each. So they are working, but they are not displaying in the "notifications" window of the phone. If this is the default setting for UID notifications, then this can't be what Royaltie Gem is using, which means my original hypothesis was correct and they are using some kind of redirect that strips Title Tags and changes them to their CTA. – Andrew Jul 11 '17 at 21:25
  • Bizarrely, after posting the above comment all three notifications now appear on my normal "notifications" window. I did not make any changes to settings. This makes me wonder if it simply takes some degree of time for Google to update their database and begin deploying the notifications. I will have to experiment further. – Andrew Jul 11 '17 at 21:27
  • After further experimentation it's clear to me that this solution is correct. Thank you Dietatko for your assistance. I hope this thread helps someone else in a similar situation. – Andrew Jul 11 '17 at 22:02
  • The reliability of receiving notifications is a little shaky. As far as I know the notifications are shown by Goggle Play Services application. So you are depending on their implementation and it can change with every release. That is the price for not developing your own application. Currently the scan for beacons is only on "display on" events or when some other application requests a scan. So you will not get a notification when not using the phone. This is to lower the battery usage. Honestly I don't know why you can see the beacons in Nearby but there is no notification. – Dietatko Jul 12 '17 at 20:42
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In regards to this last statement "Honestly I don't know why you can see the beacons in Nearby but there is no notification" did you try turning your cache off turning the phone off and then turning them back on again. My understanding is that sometimes the notifications are saved in cache and at times do not continue to show.

Also I used a separate page for my notification and used the title of the page as the call to action. I placed text in the content area in the order I want them to appear in the notification. Once I implemented this method I can's see a easier solution.

user1759361
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