Target Specific Users

When selecting your message audience in the Message and A/B Test composers, you can select Target Specific Users to build a SegmentA grouping of audience members selected by unique or shared identifiers. Multiple identifiers can be combined within a segment. that is used for that message only. You can build a segment using unique identifiers or by an identifier that may belong to or include multiple users, such as a tag, attribute, or event, and even other segments. See Segmentation Data on this page. Use the Segment Builder to create reusable segments.

Create a segment in Target Specific Users

Segments are sets of audience conditions organized in blocks. A block contains one or more conditions, providing a way to mix and match boolean operators. For example, you might use an OR operator for conditions in a block, and use an AND operator to join the blocks together.

1. In the Audience step of the Message or A/B Test composer, select Target Specific Users.

2. Search for or select segmentation data.

   • Select — Click and choose from your 10 most recently created or modified segments, Uploaded listsA reusable audience list that you create. Uploaded lists are static and updatable. In the API, they are referred to as static lists. , and Subscription listsAn audience list of opted-in devices, browsers, and/or email addresses. , and all your Lifecycle listsAutomatically generated audience lists that capture app open, uninstall, notification, and dormancy information within the past 24 hours, one week, or 30 days. .

   • Search — You can search all segmentation data, and use the dropdown menu to select a filter before searching. Search behavior for tags and tag groups varies by filter:

     • Tags filter — Search for primary device tags (tags in the device tag group) only.

     • Tag Groups filter — Search for and select a tag group, then search within that tag group.

       

       • For Channel CoordinationA group of strategies you can use to target users where they are most likely to receive your message. , search for and select the Orchestration tag group, then search for tag last_active, priority_platform, or user_preferred within the tag group.
       • For Predicted to ChurnAnalyzes your audience for users that exhibit behaviors indicating they are likely to become inactive, and tags the users as High, Medium, or Low Risk. , search for and select Predicted to Churn, then select High risk, Medium risk, or Low risk.

     • All filter — Combines the behaviors of the Tags and Tag Groups filters. Use this filter to search for tags in all tag groups.

     • Autogroup filter — Enter the numeric value for an AutogroupA default tag group. When devices are registered in Airship, they are automatically assigned a tag within the autogroup tag group; the tag is a numeric value of 1 to 100. Some uses for autogroup tags are creating a control group, and to randomly segment your audience. Autogroup must be enabled for your account — contact Support or your account manager. tag, rather than searching.

       After selecting the filter, click Autogroup in the search results (it will automatically populate), and enter a value, 1 to 100.

3. Set the operator — True/False, Equals/Does not equal, etc. See next steps for configuring device properties, attributes, and events.

   • True/False determines whether to include users for whom the condition is true or false.
   • Predicted to Churn does not have operators.

4. (Device properties only) Select an operator, search for or enter a value, then click outside the field or hit Enter on your keyboard to save the value. Repeat for multiple values. Multiple values are evaluated as a boolean OR. No configuration is required for operators Empty and Not Empty.

    Note

   • Equals and Does not equal are the default operators for device properties. To make all operators available, go to Settings » Project Configuration and click Manage for Dashboard Settings, then enable Segment Operators. This feature requires SDKs iOS 13.2.0+ and Android 13.0.0+.

   • When using the device property Application Version, SDK Version, or Device OS Version, only semantic versioning formatting is accepted, and anything after the third decimal place is excluded, e.g., 12.2.3-alpha is compared as 12.2.3.

   

5. (Attributes only) Select an operator, then configure values or dates.

   TEXT and NUMBER attributes

   Click Add a value and enter a value in text or number format, then click outside the field or hit Enter on your keyboard to save the value. Repeat for multiple values. Multiple values are evaluated as a boolean OR.
   DATE attributes

   Configure a date or range. Availability and requirements depend on the operator.

   • Specific — Select a Year/Month/Day. With the Equals and Does not equal operators you can also use formats Day, Month, Month/Day, and Year/Month.
   • Relative — Specify the number of years/months/days/hours/minutes from today’s date.
   • Today — With the Equals operator, select Month/Day or Year/Month/Day. With the After and Before operators, Year/Month/Day is the only option and is preselected.

    Note

   For the Between operator, the end date is not inclusive, e.g., selection Between July 5 - July 17 includes dates July 5 to July 16.

   

6. (Events only) Choose whether or not the event was performed, set the frequency of occurrence, and configure options.

   1. Select Performed event, First performed event, Last performed event, or Did not perform event.

   2. For Performed event and Did not perform event, select an operator and configure the frequency of the event.

   3. (Optional) Click Specify when to target when the event was performed, then select an operator and configure a date or range.

      Availability and requirements depend on the operator.

      • Specific — Select a Year/Month/Day. With the Equals operator you can also use formats Month/Day, and Year/Month.
      • Relative — Specify the number of years/months/days/hours/minutes from today’s date.
      • Today — Select Month/Day or Year/Month/Day.

       Note

      For the Between operator, the end date is not inclusive, e.g., selection Between July 5 - July 17 includes dates July 5 to July 16.

   4. (Optional) Filter events using numeric values associated with the events, or by key/value properties attached to the events. Filtering events this way can help you more precisely target your audience.

      1. Click Add Property and search for a property, or click Add Event Value.
      2. If applicable, select the operator you want to use to evaluate the value or property.
      3. Enter a value, then click outside the field or hit Enter on your keyboard to save the value. Repeat for multiple values. Multiple values are evaluated as a boolean OR.
      4. (Optional) Click Add Property or Add Event Value to add more filters.
      5. Select AND/OR to determine how to evaluate multiple filters and alternatives within each filter.
         • AND = all criteria must be met
         • OR = any criteria must be met

   

7. (Optional) Add or edit conditions.

   • Click   to change your selection within a condition, e.g., change a tag from airship to starship.
   • Click   to add a condition to a block.
   • Click Add a block   and configure additional conditions.
   • Click   to duplicate or delete conditions and blocks:
     •   Duplicate a condition.
     •   Delete a condition. Deleting all conditions in a block deletes the block. After creating additional blocks, you can hover over a block and click Edit block   to make changes.

8. Set the logic between conditions or blocks:

   • AND = all conditions must be met
   • OR = any condition must be met

Now you can complete the remaining steps in the composer.

Generate audience count

You can calculate the number of Channel IDsAn Airship-specific unique identifier used to address a channel instance, e.g., a smartphone, web browser, email address. included in segments you create in the dashboard.

When creating segments using the Segment Builder and with the Target Specific Users option in the Message and A/B Test composers, click Generate Audience Count to see the counts for the segment and for each block in the segment. A progress bar appears until the calculation is complete. Click Regenerate Audience Count after adding or removing criteria.

After generating the count in the Segment Builder, click   /   to view the number of channel IDs per engagement channelA communication medium supported by the Airship service. Supported channels include app, web, email, SMS, and Open Channels. Within some channels there may be specific platforms with individual characteristics. Example platforms include Chrome for the web channel and Android for the mobile app channel. for each block or the entire segment. The expanded view for the entire segment also lists the number of opted-in users per engagement channel. In the composers, the number of channel IDs and opted-in users per engagement channel for a segment are listed in the Audience section in the composer’s Review step.

For email, the audience count (within a block and for the segment) is the sum of channel IDs for transactional and commercial messages, and you can hover over the count to see the breakdown; Opted-in is for commercial messages only.

In Audience » Segments the count is displayed in the Audience Count column if it was already generated when creating the segment. Click Generate for any segment that does not already display its count. Counts will appear for 7 days, then you must click Generate again for a new count. A progress bar appears until the calculation is complete. Click   to see the number of channel IDs and opted-in users per engagement channel.

Segmentation data

You can create segments using the following audience criteria:

• AttributesMetadata that you can use for audience segmentation. Attributes differ from tags in that when evaluating users with attributes, Airship uses operators, e.g., equals, less than/greater than, contains, before/after, to determine whether or not to target a user. Supported attribute types are TEXT, NUMBER, and DATE.
• AutogroupA default tag group. When devices are registered in Airship, they are automatically assigned a tag within the autogroup tag group; the tag is a numeric value of 1 to 100. Some uses for autogroup tags are creating a control group, and to randomly segment your audience. Autogroup must be enabled for your account — contact Support or your account manager.
• Channel IDAn Airship-specific unique identifier used to address a channel instance, e.g., a smartphone, web browser, email address.
• Channel CoordinationA group of strategies you can use to target users where they are most likely to receive your message. — Last active, Priority channel, and User preference
• Device PropertiesMetadata representing the default attributes and property tags of a device, such as language and time zone settings, OS and browser versions, and notification opt-in status. Device properties are used for audience segmentation. The data used for the tags and attributes is collected automatically from the Airship SDKs, and are updated daily.
• EventsEvents represent activities in the Airship system, as well as user behavior in your app or website. You can also send external activities (e.g., POS transactions) into the Airship system as events. Events power Airship data products and can be used in audience segments, as automation triggers, and for partner integrations.
• Audience ListRecipient messaging recipient groups based on either your own data or automatically-generated app user lifecycle information. You can use audience lists to target specific users. — Uploaded, Lifecycle, and Subscription lists
• Named UserA customer-provided identifier used for mapping multiple devices and channels to a specific individual.
• Predicted to Churn statusAnalyzes your audience for users that exhibit behaviors indicating they are likely to become inactive, and tags the users as High, Medium, or Low Risk.
• SegmentA grouping of audience members selected by unique or shared identifiers. Multiple identifiers can be combined within a segment.
• TagMetadata that you can associate with channels or named users for audience segmentation. Tags are generally descriptive terms indicating user preferences or other categorizations, e.g., wine_enthusiast or weather_alerts_los_angeles. Tags are case-sensitive.