A practical guide to push notification segmentation
Segments only work if they map to your activation funnel. Here is the framework we use on every setup project.
Most teams over-segment or under-segment. Both lead to the same outcome: campaigns that don't ship because there are too many decisions to make.
The 4-segment baseline we recommend:
1. New — installed in the last 7 days, hasn't completed activation yet. Goal: onboarding nudges. 2. Active — used the product in the last 7 days. Goal: feature announcements, sticky engagement. 3. Returning — used the product 8-30 days ago. Goal: re-engagement. 4. Dormant — last seen 30+ days ago. Goal: win-back campaigns, sparingly.
That's it for a v1. Resist the urge to add a fifth segment until you've run at least 4-6 campaigns against this baseline. Once you have data, you'll know whether to split further (e.g. 'New + completed onboarding' vs 'New + stuck').
The most common mistake: segmenting by plan tier or feature usage when you're still trying to build engagement habits. That's a stage-2 problem. Get the lifecycle stages right first.
We set up these four segments by default in the Standard plan and above, with the data feeds and refresh logic documented.
