Publisher's Guide to Audience Segmentation for Push Notification

We've seen an average click rate of 7% for web push notifications among small publishers. Sending a generic push notifications to readers further reduces your chances of attracting visitors to your site and may bump up opt-out rates. 

Audience engagement is critical in this era. Push notifications without personalization are ineffective while reaching broad audiences with varied interests. You may deliver off-topic news to the wrong audiences, leading to churn and poor user experience.  

Understanding your target audience and tailoring the message to their interests is crucial for generating ROI, such as traffic, paying subscriptions, etc., from push notifications.

However, the target audience of news or media channels is usually a mix of readers falling under different demographics and sharing varied interests. 

In such cases, audience segmentation can help you categorize your audience base and customize your notification based on data that indicates their preferences. 

This blog will further explore the importance of push notification segmentation and lays out an action plan to help you get started. 

What are the different types of audience segmentation?

There are multiple ways to segment your audience for push notifications, and those are not limited to demographics. We have listed below a few segmentation methods that you can use to segment your diverse audience.

1. Demographics Segmentation

Demographics segmentation, one of the popular ways of audience segmentation, involves dividing the audience based on characteristics such as location, gender, and age. This type of segmentation helps tailor messages to specific demographic groups and curate a copy that resonates with the readers. 

For example, a news or media channel covering different areas can segment its audience based on their interest in politics, sports, entertainment, and more. Hence, their push notification will be tailored to emphasize the specific interests of the readers. Such as:

Political News Alerts:

• Segment: Users interested in politics.

• Message Example: "Stay informed! Get the latest updates on political developments in your region. Tap to read the latest news and analysis."

Sports Highlights:

• Segment: Users interested in sports.

• Message Example: "Don't miss out on the game-changing moments! Catch up on the latest sports highlights and scores. Tap to get your sports fix."

For instance, Let's say you want to track user-specific data such as gender for campaign activities. You can add the below code to the relevant web pages of your site, and using iZooto you can even track and segment your data based on the gender of the visitors. Later, you can use these user segments to send relevant push notifications to these target audiences in just a few clicks. 

2. Device Segmentation:

Device segmentation categorizes users based on the type of device they use, such as smartphones, tablets, or desktops. This is crucial for optimizing the delivery of push notifications, as the message format and content may need to be adjusted for different devices. 

For smartphone users, the news app or website may prioritize shorter, concise headlines with captivating images or videos that are easily consumable on smaller screens.

On the other hand, for tablet and desktop users, the same news app might present a more immersive experience with a longer copy, additional multimedia elements, and a layout optimized for larger screens. 

3. Location Segmentation:

Location segmentation targets audiences based on geographical location to deliver relevant and localized news updates. This strategy allows news publishers to tailor their push notifications to specific regions, ensuring that users receive news stories that are most pertinent to their location. 

For instance, if there is a breaking news story about a local event in New York, the publisher can send push notifications specifically to users located in New York, ensuring they receive timely and relevant updates about the event.

4. Status Segmentation (New, Returning, Dormant Subscriber):

Status segmentation categorizes users based on their interaction history with your website. This helps target different groups with personalized messages relevant to their familiarity with your website. 

For example, a news app might send a welcome notification to new subscribers, personalized content recommendations to returning users, and re-engagement offers to dormant subscribers to reactivate their interest.

To facilitate such personalization, iZooto offers some predefined segments to help you categorize your audience based on different criteria.

For example: There are a few default segments, such as returning subscribers, engaged subscribers, dormant subscribers, and more, to help you understand your audience. You can also create a custom segment within a few minutes and send personalized notifications.

5. Pages Visited Segmentation

Pages visited segmentation involves categorizing users based on the specific pages or content they have interacted with. You can tailor push notifications to match the interests of individual users by analyzing the topics that users engage with on their website or app. This approach allows publishers to provide personalized news updates, articles, or multimedia content that align with each user's preferences, ultimately enhancing user engagement and retention.

Here are a few groups and contextual push notifications: 

Technology Buffs: Users who prefer technology news, gadget reviews, and industry innovations.

Push Notification Idea: Personalized notifications might feature the latest tech releases, in-depth analysis of technological advancements, and exclusive interviews with industry leaders.

Sports Fanatics: Users regularly engage with sports news, match highlights, and athlete interviews.

Push Notification Idea: Notifications could include live score updates, exclusive interviews with athletes, and in-depth analysis of recent games and tournaments.

Using iZooto, you can add a code to your webpage to know the interests of your visitors. For example, you can deploy the below code on your web pages that cover business news to capture the data of the users who viewed the category on your site. This data allows you to send personalized notifications to these users.

Manually segmenting your audience based on surveys or forms can be time-consuming. However, you can systemize this process using audience marketing tools such as iZooto and save hours spent categorizing your vast audience base. 

Why Should Publishers Segment Their Audience?

Here are some key benefits of segmenting your audience for push notifications. 

1. Enhanced User Experience

Segmenting the audience allows you to deliver personalized content and recommendations tailored to the specific interests and preferences of different audience segments. 

A personalized approach enhances the overall user experience, as the content sent is more relevant and engaging for each group. When readers find content that piques their interests, they are more likely to click and read your post, thereby boosting traffic and CTR.  

For instance, sending fashion-related push notifications to readers who have shown interest in the latest trends is more likely to generate a higher open rate than updates about random sports events. This way, you can create a more immersive and satisfying experience for the readers, simultaneously boosting your content performance.

2. Targeting a Community of Users

Audience segmentation enables publishers to identify and target specific communities within their audience.

For instance, if you run a news website that covers local news and events in a large metropolitan area, ideally, you’ll have a mix of audiences showing interest in multiple fields such as politics, business, culture, entertainment, etc. 

In such cases, segmenting your audience based on communities such as political enthusiasts, sports fanatics, cultural connoisseurs, next-gen entrepreneurs, etc., will help you nurture communities around specific topics or themes using personalized content. 

It allows publishers to create content and experiences that resonate deeply with each community and increases the chances of converting readers to paying subscribers. 

3. Increased Click-Through Rates (CTRs)

Segmenting the audience allows publishers to tailor their marketing and content strategies to different segments, resulting in higher click-through rates. 

When the right content reaches the right users at the right time, your engagement and CTR metrics will improve significantly. 

For instance, instead of sending a generic breaking news push notification to your entire subscriber base, you can tailor messages based on user preferences. Users who regularly click on technology articles should receive a push notification about the latest gadgets, while those interested in politics get alerts on breaking political happenings.

4. Better Understanding of Audience Demographics

By analyzing data from different segments, publishers can better understand their readers, including their age, gender, location, interests, and more. 

This demographic information is instrumental in shaping content strategies, refining editorial focus, and developing messaging statements that cater specifically to the needs of different audience segments.

5. Hyper-Personalization

A basic level of personalization results in a 9% increase in open rates. Audience segmentation precisely allows publishers to achieve a level of hyper-personalization in their content that resonates deeply with the readers and influences them to read your content.  

By leveraging data insights and behavioral patterns, publishers can create highly personalized experiences for their readers, offering content, recommendations, and experiences that align with each segment's preferences. This hyper-personalized approach enhances user satisfaction and strengthens connections between readers and your brand.

Skipping audience segmentation and sending vague push notifications may lead to user dissatisfaction and increase the likelihood of unsubscriptions. 

Expanding the audience base and boosting website performance without leveraging multiple mediums will be difficult over time, as SEO and social media can only bring limited new traffic in the short run.

Meanwhile, when backed by proper audience segmentation, push notifications and proper messaging can help you build a loyal audience base that gradually converts into an active community and paying customers.

How Can You Send Targeted Push Notifications Using iZooto? 

If you’re wondering how to apply audience segmentation and send push notifications to different groups, this section will precisely illustrate how to do that using iZooto.

iZooto is an audience marketing platform that offers rich solutions, such as push notifications, news hubs, on-site interactions, email newsletters, etc., to help publishers increase brand visibility and retention. 
Step-by-step guide on how digital publishers can use iZooto to segment audiences and send personalized push notifications to different groups. 

Step 1: Visit the iZooto login page and sign in to your iZooto account. 

Step 2: From the dashboard, choose your domain by opening the all-project dropdown located at the left side of the upper menu.  If you haven’t added your domain, click the Add Project option and link your domain. 

Step 3: After choosing your domain, open the settings option listed in the left menu and choose set up from the two sub-options. 

Step 4: Ensure you have inserted the code and zip file ( izooto.html & service. worker. Js) mentioned in steps 1 and 2 on your web pages.  

Step 5: From your website file manager, ensure that the code copied from the previous step is present on all your website pages. 

The next step is to segment your audience based on your chosen criteria.  

If you want to segment your audience based on different behaviours or categories, you can find relevant codes on the iZooto sample code page. 

Step 6: Once the codes are installed on the relevant pages, visit the iZooto dashboard, where you can find the segment option at the left menu.

In the top right corner, you’ll find a create option; click on it to create a new segment.

Step 7: Enter a segment name and choose a user property; in the above case, it is “page viewed” of “sports” pages. Next, click save to store the segment. 

Now you’ll be able to send personalized push notifications to users who visited the sports page of your site. 

Step 8: Head to the send notification tab and scroll down to the segment section. Click the “send to particular segment” option to select the specific segment and send out your push notifications. 

That is how easily you can segment your audience based on demographics or behaviors to send personalized push notifications using iZooto. 

Those looking for custom segments can click on Create and use the following parameters to create one for themselves.

To simplify the process further, iZooto also offers interest-based segmentation that can automatically segment your audience based on the pages of interest that they have visited on your website. to send related push notifications to engage your readers with your content.

Next Steps

After implementing audience segmentation, it's essential to continuously test and optimize your push notifications to ensure maximum impact. A/B testing different message variations, analyzing open and click-through rates, and gathering feedback from your audience are all vital steps in refining your push notification strategy for each segment.

If you’re looking for a platform to facilitate audience segmentation and deliver customizable push notifications, check out iZooto. Access AI-powered audience segmentation, find different grouping options, user-friendly dashboard to analyze push notification performance - all in one place.