1. Home
  2. Guides
  3. Audience & Segmentation
  4. Events
  5. Targeting your audience

Targeting your audience using events

Use event conditions in the dashboard or API to build audiences and to start, cancel, or exit automated messages.

View as Markdown

Audience targeting evaluates historical event activity. Triggers and cancellation act on events as they occur.

Segment evaluation

Airship uses a 90-day lookback for events and event properties used in segmentation. The exception is for first and last occurrences, which are stored even if they are more than 90 days old. For custom and predefined events, this window, and the storage of first and last occurrences, starts when the event is activated for segmentation.

Last-performed occurrences are included when evaluating segmentation queries for events without properties, even when not using the Last performed event operator.

For example, if you target all users who performed added_to_cart one or more times, the audience includes users who performed the event one or more times in the last 90 days and users whose last performance of the event was before that 90-day period.

If the query includes a property, such as added_to_cart one or more times where category is shoes, the evaluation does not include last-performed occurrences outside the 90-day window.

Targeting in the dashboard

In messages, ScenesA mobile app or web experience of one or more screens displayed with fully native UI components in real time, providing immediate, contextual responses to user behaviors. Scenes can be presented in full-screen, modal, or embedded format using the default swipe/click mode or as a story. They can also contain survey questions., In-App AutomationsMessages cached on users’ devices and displayed when users meet certain conditions within your app, such as viewing a particular screen or opening the app a certain number of times., A/B tests, feature flagsAn experimentation tool for controlling the availability of content or functionality in your app or website. A flag’s Configurations determine the audience, schedule, and property values to apply when the flag is enabled. Flag properties enable making immediate code updates, bypassing the need for traditional code changes and release processes., and Intelligent Rollouts, select Target by conditions and Target specific users in the Audience step. Instead of recreating the same audience each time, create segmentsA reusable audience group you create by selecting unique or shared user data.. Configuration in the audience step uses the same interface and process as creating segments.

Events can be combined with other segmentation data, such as attributes and tags. For full instructions and usage locations, see Segments and Targeting specific users.

When defining your audience, add each event as a condition. In the image below, the segment targets users with the purchased event occurring twice between September 1, 2020, and September 15, 2020.

Targeting your audience using events
Targeting users by event count and date range

Configure conditions

Follow these steps to configure event conditions for an audience:

  1. Select Performed event, First performed event, Last performed event, or Did not perform event.
  2. (For Performed event and Did not perform event only) Select the Equals or Between operator and configure the frequency of the event.
  3. (Optional) Select 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. For the Between operator, the end date is not inclusive. For example, 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:
    1. Select Add Property and search for a property, or select Add Event Value.
    2. Where applicable, select the operator you want to use for evaluation. Use Contains for arrays of strings. Use String contains to match a substring in a string value, and enter at least one character.
    3. Enter a value, then select outside the field or press Enter on your keyboard to save it. Multiple values are evaluated as a boolean OR.
    4. Select AND/OR to determine how to evaluate multiple filters and alternatives within each filter. AND means all criteria must be met. OR means any criteria must be met.
      Note

      Array properties can have multiple values for the same sub-property. When filtering on those sub-properties, set AND/OR to match how you want multiple values evaluated.

Targeting using the API

Use the Event Segmentation schema in any endpoint that takes an audience object, such as Send a push. Specify the event as activity, then set metric, operator, and value.

Event names in Real-Time Data StreamingA service that delivers user-level events in real time to your backend or third-party systems using the Data Streaming API. can differ from the activity name used for segmentation. For example, an email unsubscribe appears in Real-Time Data Streaming as a COMPLIANCE event with registration_type of unsubscribe, but you target it with email_unsubscribe.

Target users who unsubscribed from email
{
   "audience": {
      "activity": "email_unsubscribe",
      "metric": "count",
      "operator": "equals",
      "value": 1
   }
}

Use Boolean NOT, AND, and OR operators to combine event conditions or mix events with other audience criteria. See Audience Selection in the Data Formats section of the API reference.

As in the dashboard, you can save an audience as a reusable segment and reference it by segment ID from any audience selector. See Segments in the API reference.

Filtering by event properties

In addition to targeting by how often or when an event occurred, you can filter on event properties. Use the where object and include the path to the property along with the values you are filtering for, such as a push ID, email address, or campaign category.

The following example targets users who opened the app by tapping a push notification with the push_id of 28e9d533-c8a7-4abf-93f4-4794b09391eb.

Filter an app open by push ID
{
   "audience": {
      "activity": "app_open",
      "value": 0,
      "operator": "greater",
      "metric": "count",
      "where": {
         "property": "/_triggering_push/push_id",
         "operator": "equals",
         "compare_as": "text",
         "value": "28e9d533-c8a7-4abf-93f4-4794b09391eb"
      }
   }
}

Using events in automated messages

Events can act on automated messages at several points:

Automations and Sequences can use events from any source. Scenes and In-App Automations require events tracked with an Airship SDK: the Web SDK for Web Scenes, and the Mobile SDK for App Scenes and In-App Automations.

When an event starts an Automation or Sequence, you can personalize the message with dynamic contentVariable message content created using Handlebars syntax. The content is populated at send time, resulting in personalized messaging for each member of your audience. from that event’s properties. For example, if the event includes a user_name property, you can add {{user_name}} to the message.

In the dashboard

Configure how events affect an In-App Automation or Scene:

Configure how events affect an Automation or Sequence:

Using the API

Use the Create an Automation endpoint to create event-driven Automations. Sequences, Scenes, and In-App Automations cannot be created using the API.