How to Target Notifications to User Segments by Role, Plan, and Tenant

Common Segmentation Strategies

There are five primary ways to slice your user base for notification targeting. Most effective implementations combine several of these.

Setting Up User Attributes

Before you can target segments, you need to attach attributes to your users. This is done client-side after initializing the Notilayer widget:

// Initialize with the user's identity
window.Notilayer.init({
  appId: 'YOUR_APP_ID',
  userId: user.id,
});

// Attach attributes for segmentation
window.Notilayer.setAttributes({
  // Plan tier
  plan: 'pro',

  // Role within the organization
  role: 'admin',

  // Tenant / company identifier
  tenantId: 'acme_corp',
  companyName: 'Acme Corporation',

  // Behavioral / lifecycle
  signupDate: '2026-01-15',
  onboardingComplete: true,
  projectCount: 8,
  lastActiveDate: '2026-02-09',

  // Custom attributes
  companySize: '50-200',
  industry: 'fintech',
  country: 'US',
});

Attributes can be strings, numbers, booleans, or dates. Call setAttributes whenever a value changes — after a plan upgrade, role reassignment, tenant switch, or any significant action. Stale attributes mean misrouted notifications, so keep them fresh.

You can also set attributes server-side via the API if you prefer to manage user properties from your backend. Both approaches feed into the same segmentation engine.

Sending to Segments

Once attributes are in place, you can target segments via the Notilayer API. Here are examples for each segmentation strategy.

Target by Plan Tier

// Send to all Pro and Enterprise users
const response = await fetch('https://api.notilayer.com/v1/notify', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_API_KEY',
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    segmentId: 'seg_pro_enterprise',
    title: 'New: Advanced Analytics Dashboard',
    body: 'Your plan now includes real-time analytics. Check it out.',
    url: '/analytics',
  }),
});

Target by Role

// Send billing alert to admins only
const response = await fetch('https://api.notilayer.com/v1/notify', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_API_KEY',
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    segmentId: 'seg_admins',
    title: 'Payment method expiring soon',
    body: 'Your card ending in 4242 expires next month. Update it to avoid interruption.',
    url: '/settings/billing',
  }),
});

Target by Tenant

// Send maintenance notice to all users in a tenant
const response = await fetch('https://api.notilayer.com/v1/notify', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_API_KEY',
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    segmentId: 'seg_tenant_acme_corp',
    title: 'Scheduled maintenance: Feb 15, 2am-4am UTC',
    body: 'Your instance will be briefly unavailable during this window.',
    url: '/status',
  }),
});

Target by Behavior

// Send onboarding tip to new users who haven't completed setup
const response = await fetch('https://api.notilayer.com/v1/notify', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_API_KEY',
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    segmentId: 'seg_new_incomplete_onboarding',
    title: 'Finish setting up your workspace',
    body: 'You are 2 steps away from getting the most out of your account.',
    url: '/onboarding',
  }),
});

Combine Multiple Criteria

// Target enterprise admins specifically (role + plan combined)
const response = await fetch('https://api.notilayer.com/v1/notify', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_API_KEY',
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    segmentId: 'seg_enterprise_admins',
    title: 'SSO configuration now available',
    body: 'Set up SAML SSO for your organization in Settings.',
    url: '/settings/security/sso',
  }),
});

Real-World Examples

Here is how segmentation plays out in practice across four common SaaS scenarios.

Segmentation in Notilayer

Notilayer is built from the ground up for segment-based notification delivery. Here is how it works end to end:

For feature announcements, billing alerts, tenant-wide notices, or onboarding nudges, the workflow is always the same: set attributes, define segments, send. No custom routing logic in your backend.

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