The problem with sending the same message to everyone

Imagine you're a clothing retailer with 2,000 push subscribers. Among those subscribers you have: first-time visitors who subscribed last week and haven't bought anything, repeat customers who've purchased three or more times, window shoppers who browse regularly but rarely convert, and VIP customers who spend several times the average order value.

Sending a "20% off everything" campaign to all 2,000 makes logical sense from a broadcast perspective. But what if the repeat customers were already planning to reorder and didn't need a discount? What if the VIP customers would have preferred an early-access notification over a generic discount? What if the first-time visitors needed a trust-building message rather than a sale pitch?

One message optimised for no one in particular will always underperform a targeted message crafted for a specific audience.

The core dimensions of push subscriber segmentation

Engagement level

Segment your subscribers by how they interact with your notifications. Highly engaged subscribers (those who regularly open and click) respond well to a higher frequency of messages. Less engaged subscribers — those who haven't opened a notification in 30+ days — should receive fewer messages to avoid triggering unsubscribes, and the messages they do receive should focus on re-engagement rather than conversion.

Purchase history

First-time buyers and repeat customers have very different relationships with your store. Repeat customers already trust you — they need less convincing and more of a nudge. First-time visitors may need social proof, a trust signal, or a first-order incentive. Treating both groups identically means under-serving both.

Browse and cart behaviour

A subscriber who browses your jewellery category repeatedly is telling you something about their preferences. A subscriber who abandons the same type of product multiple times is giving you data you can use. Behaviour-based segments let you connect these signals to targeted messaging rather than ignoring the data your store is collecting every day.

Recency

When a subscriber last visited your store is one of the strongest predictors of purchase likelihood. A subscriber who visited yesterday is far more likely to convert on a push notification today than one who hasn't been back in three months. Recency-based segmentation lets you send appropriately-timed win-back campaigns to lapsed visitors rather than treating them the same as active shoppers.

Practical segments to set up in Meeri

You don't need a dozen segments to see meaningful improvement. Start with three:

  1. New subscribers (0–7 days): These subscribers are in their highest-intent window. They just opted in, which means your store is top of mind. Send a welcome campaign immediately, and follow up with a trust-building notification in the first week.
  2. Active non-buyers (7–60 days, no purchase): These subscribers are interested but haven't converted. They respond well to social proof campaigns, first-purchase incentives, and browse-based follow-ups.
  3. Lapsed subscribers (60+ days, no open): These subscribers need a re-engagement approach. Send a compelling win-back campaign with a strong offer — and if they don't respond, reduce their notification frequency to protect your overall engagement rates.

The effect on unsubscribe rates

One of the most immediate benefits of segmentation is a reduction in unsubscribes. Push notification fatigue — where subscribers opt out because they're receiving too many irrelevant messages — is the primary cause of subscriber list attrition. When you send more relevant messages to each segment, unsubscribes drop noticeably.

A smaller, engaged subscriber list outperforms a large, disengaged one every time. Segmentation is how you build the former without losing the latter.

Getting started without overthinking it

Segmentation sounds complex, but the entry point in Meeri is straightforward. Meeri tracks subscriber behaviour automatically — you don't need to manually tag or categorise users. When you're ready to send a campaign, you select your target segment from the audience criteria, and Meeri filters your subscriber list accordingly.

Start simple. Even dividing your list into "engaged in the last 30 days" and "inactive" and sending different messages to each group will produce better results than a single broadcast. Build from there as you develop a sense of what each segment responds to.