Segmentation - How to get started

Plot Projects offers 2 ways of segmentation: client-side segmentation and server-side segmentation.

In case you're not sure wich one suits your business the most please feel free to contact us so we can explain you a bit more the difference between these two.

The rest of this paragraph is about server-side segmentation.

Location based notifications are already more relevant than push notifications, but to further improve the relevancy of your notifications you can segment your users. This feature is introduced in version 1.10.0 of our plugin. The segmentation feature allows you to limit specific notifications to specific groups of users. This prevents your end users from receiving notifications that aren't relevant for them.

Segmentation is currently supported for Android, iOS, a full overview of the supported features can be found here.

Segmentation Properties In Dashboard

You can specify in notifications and campaign notifications what segmentation properties must have been set on the device before the device can receive these notifications. When a property that is set on the notification isn't set on the device or the property on the device has a different value than on the notification, then the notification isn't sent. This is also the case for apps with an older version of the Plot Plugin that doesn't have support for segmentation. Segmentation properties set on the device, but not on the notification or campaign are ignored.

The segmentation settings for a notification are under the Advanced Settings. By default all devices can receive a notification.

Device Properties

Before users can receive segmented notifications you have to specify to what segment the user belongs. Both on iOS and on Android the Plot class has methods that allow setting the segments the user belongs to. When you specify a new value for a segmentation property that is already defined, the old value is overwritten with the new value.

All currently loaded notifications on the device will be removed when calling one of the segmentation property methods. The next data update will contain all appropriately segmented notifications.

There is a specific method for each property type. Currently the supported types are integer (numeric values), double (numeric decimal values), string (text values), date (UNIX timestamp) and boolean (true or false). Below is an example snippet for each platform on how to set the segment gender to male on the device.

Example Android snippet:

Plot.setStringSegmentationProperty("gender", "M");

The Segmenting notifications chapter further explains segmentation in a technical way and examples per type can be found for iOS, Android.

It is currently not yet possible to specify segments in our test apps that are available through the Play Store or the App Store.

Segment On Campaign History

When you set the property type to “campaignhistory” you can segment on users who have, or haven’t, triggered a (geotrigger)campaign earlier. You can for example use this feature to send notifications to users that have been to your store earlier or to a store of a competitor.

You specify a Campaign Id segmentation property in the dashboard just like device properties. You have to specify the campaign id, the number of times the user has triggered that campaign and in what time frame these triggers must have occurred. You do not have to set any properties for this on the device.

The Segmenting notifications chapter further explains this in a technical way.

Automatic segmentation properties

PlotProjects SDK can set and update certain segmentaiton properties automatically. For example, if activity detection is enabled, Plot will automatically update a segmentation property with the key plot_current_activity to have the value of user's current activity.

Here is a table of the automatic segmentation properties:

Segmentation key	Available values	Description
plot_current_activity	a automotive c cycling s stationary w walking r running u unknown	When user's activity changes to riding a vhiecle, the segmentation property with key plot_current_activity will have the value of a. First time this feature is used, a permission prompt will be shown to the user asking their permission to track device's activity.
plot_previous_activity	a automotive c cycling s stationary w walking r running u unknown	When user's activity changes from riding a vhiecle to a new activity, the segmentation property with key plot_previous_activity will have the value of a. First time this feature is used, a permission prompt will be shown to the user asking their permission to track device's activity.

Custom Reporting

For customers with our Gold or Platinum plan it is possible to make the segments you define in your app part of your custom reports. Contact us for more information.

To use Advertising Identifiers in your custom reports, set the Advertising Identifiers in the Plot Plugin first. Read more at Advertising ID - How to get started