Segmenting your audience

While some messages may require broadcasting to all users, typically you want to target a specific audience. The same applies to message A/B test and Feature Flag audiences.

Here are a few common scenarios and the target for each:

• App upgrade — Send an announcement about a new app version and encourage users to upgrade. Target: App version
• External user list — Send messages to a list of users created from your CRM data. Target: Uploaded List
• Re-engagement prompt — Send a re-engagement message based on users’ likelihood to stop using your app or website. Target: 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. risk profile
• Localized content — Display different in-app messages based on your users’ language and country settings. Target: Locale

Building audience groups

When defining audiences using the Target by conditions or Target specific users options, you can select data to include, such as:

• AttributesMetadata used for audience segmentation and personalization. They extend the concept of Tags by adding comparison operators and values to determine whether or not to target a user, helping you better evaluate your audience.
• Lifecycle ListAutomatically generated audience lists that capture app open, uninstall, notification, and dormancy information within the past 24 hours, one week, or 30 days.
• Channel IDAn Airship-specific unique identifier used to address a channel instance, e.g., a smartphone, web browser, email address.
• 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.
• Named UserA customer-provided identifier used for mapping multiple devices and channels to a specific individual.

To build the audience, you add conditions organized in blocks, or select a saved Segment. The procedure is the same.

Build the audience by adding 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.

Segments

To save a defined audience group for reuse within your project, create a SegmentA reusable audience group you create by selecting unique or shared user data.. You can then select that Segment when using Target by conditions or Target Specific Users. The same interface and procedure apply to both targeting specific users and creating Segments. You can also include any saved Segment within another Segment. See the full procedure in Segments.

To create Segments using the API, see the /api/segments endpoint. To target specific users using the API, use the "audience" object. See the Audience Selection API schema.

Channel-level filtering

After building an audience group to target specific users or in a Segment, you can filter messages to specific channels at the message composition stage using Channel Conditions. For example, to send to only devices that have language set as English, add a channel condition for {ua_language=EN}.

Client-side vs server-side data

Airship client-side data mostly comes from apps and websites that use our SDK. This is the source of client-side data used for targeting. Client-side data includes 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. and AttributesMetadata used for audience segmentation and personalization. They extend the concept of Tags by adding comparison operators and values to determine whether or not to target a user, helping you better evaluate your audience.. See reference: Default Attributes.

You can also group users and add Attributes and Tags yourself — this is considered server-side data. CRM and POS systems are common sources. For segmentation, you can create:

• AttributesMetadata used for audience segmentation and personalization. They extend the concept of Tags by adding comparison operators and values to determine whether or not to target a user, helping you better evaluate your audience.
• Audience ListsMessaging recipient groups based on either your own data or automatically-generated app user lifecycle information. You can use audience lists to target specific users.
• Named UsersA customer-provided identifier used for mapping multiple devices and channels to a specific individual.
• TagsMetadata that you can associate with channels or Named Users for audience segmentation. Generally, they are descriptive terms indicating user preferences or other categorizations, e.g., wine_enthusiast or weather_alerts_los_angeles. Tags are case-sensitive. and Tag GroupsAn array of tags that you can associate with both channels and Named Users.

You can then set Attributes or Tags on channels and Named Users, or group channels into Named Users. See:

• Setting Tags on your audience
• Associating channels with Named Users
• Attributes

Segmentation evaluation

Airship evaluates segmentation criteria at the Contact level, not individual channels. This means that channel-level data, such as 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. and primary device tags, is automatically available to the Contact for segmentation purposes. When viewing audience counts, the results include the total number of Contacts and channels in the audience, as well as the total number of channels and the number of opted-in channels for each Channel (Engagement)A 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. and mobile app platform.

Contact-level evaluation enables cross-channel messaging, such as:

• Sending an SMS to users who haven’t opened the app in 60 days
• Sending a follow-up push to users who haven’t opened an email
• Limiting the frequency of a campaign across all of a user’s channels

Channel-level segmentation

Projects in accounts created on or before February 26, 2026, use the channel-level segmentation system, which uses a mix of channel- and Contact-level evaluation. For example, using the criteria: {custom_tag=gold} AND {ua_language=EN}:

• The channel-level segmentation system targets all channels with a custom tag of Gold AND where the device language is set to English.
• The Contact-level segmentation system targets all channels of Contacts with a custom tag of Gold AND any device where the language is set as English.

Migration and how to identify your segmentation system

All customers will be migrated to the Contact-level evaluation system:

• Airship will contact you to coordinate migration.
• Until migration is complete, you will not experience any changes to the Airship service or see changes in the dashboard.
• After completing migration, mobile apps will require the minimum SDKs Android 19.9 and iOS 19.6. You will not be able to create legacy A/B tests.

You can identify your project’s current segmentation system. Next to your project name, select the dropdown menu (), then Project Details. If your project is using the Contact-level system, you will see “Contact-level segmentation: Enabled.” If you are on the channel-level system, no segmentation status is listed.