How to segment users and personalize experiences using Pendo

If you're tired of blanket product tours, generic in-app messages, or shotgun approaches to feature releases, this guide's for you. Maybe you're a product manager, UX lead, or someone tasked with “making onboarding better.” Either way, you want to stop guessing and start helping your users get the right stuff at the right time.

Pendo promises a lot here—segmentation, analytics, personalization. But what actually works? And where should you spend your energy? We'll walk through how to segment users in Pendo and use those segments to serve up targeted, useful experiences. Not fluff. Not “delight.” Just things people actually care about.

Step 1: Get Clear on Why You’re Segmenting

Before you even log in to Pendo, pause and ask: What’s the point?

Segmentation isn’t magic. It helps you answer questions like:

  • Who’s struggling with onboarding?
  • Which features do power users love but new folks ignore?
  • Are enterprise admins swamped with irrelevant pop-ups?

Pick a goal first. Here are some common, actually useful reasons to segment:

  • Onboarding: Show new users only the basics (don’t drown them).
  • Feature adoption: Nudge users who haven’t touched a key feature.
  • Account type: Give paying customers more tailored tips (or less noise).
  • Role: Send admin-specific messages only to admins.

Pro tip: If you can’t explain who needs what (and why), your segments will be a mess and your personalization won’t help anyone.

Step 2: Set Up the Data Pendo Needs

Pendo can only segment as well as the data you feed it. Out of the box, it tracks some basics (like page views), but for real power, you’ll want to pass in more.

Here’s what actually matters:

Core Data You Should Send

  • User ID: Unique per user—no “anonymous123.”
  • Account ID: For grouping by company/org.
  • User role: Admin, end user, manager, etc.
  • Account type: Free, paid, enterprise, etc.
  • Signup date or lifecycle stage: Useful for onboarding or retention nudges.

You’ll usually pass these as metadata when initializing Pendo in your app. If you’re not technical, grab your dev and show them Pendo’s docs, but don’t let them talk you into sending every field under the sun. Just what you’ll actually use.

What to Ignore

  • Overly granular fields (“last clicked button color,” “favorite emoji”)—you’ll drown in noise.
  • PII (personally identifiable information) unless you really need it. Don’t create privacy headaches.

Step 3: Create Segments That Actually Make Sense

Now you’re in Pendo and your data’s flowing. Time to build segments.

How to Do It

  1. Head to People > Segments in the Pendo UI.
  2. Create a New Segment.
  3. Choose your criteria: This is where your earlier planning pays off.

Common examples:

  • New users: Signup date in the last 14 days
  • Power users: Used Feature X more than 10 times in the past month
  • Enterprise admins: Account type = Enterprise AND User role = Admin
  • Users not adopting a feature: Haven’t used Feature Y in 30 days

Mix and match criteria. Pendo’s UI is pretty straightforward here.

What Works (and What Doesn’t)

Works: - Keep it simple. Start with broad segments, then get more granular if needed. - Test your segments. Pendo shows how many users match—make sure it’s not zero (or everyone).

Doesn’t work: - Creating dozens of micro-segments. You’ll just overwhelm yourself and your users. - Relying on vague criteria (“engaged users”) without defining what that actually means.

Step 4: Personalize Experiences with Guides and Messages

Now for the fun part: actually showing different things to different users.

Targeting with Guides

Pendo calls in-app messages, walkthroughs, and tooltips “Guides.” When you set one up, you can choose which segment sees it.

Example use cases: - Show a new feature pop-up only to users who haven’t tried it yet. - Give onboarding tips just to users in their first week. - Remind admins about security settings—skip the rest.

How to do it: 1. Create your Guide (choose from tooltips, banners, walkthroughs, etc.). 2. In the “Targeting” or “Segment” section, pick the segment you made earlier.

Don’t Overdo It

  • One guide per experience is usually enough. Don’t pepper new users with six pop-ups.
  • Watch your timing. If everyone logs in Monday morning, don’t blast them all at once.

Pro tip: Preview your guide as a user in that segment before launching. Pendo lets you do this.

Step 5: Measure, Iterate, and Don’t Fall for Vanity Metrics

Personalization isn’t “set it and forget it.” You need to check if your efforts are actually helping people—or just annoying them.

What to Track

  • Guide Views/Dismissals: Are people seeing and interacting, or just closing out?
  • Feature Adoption: Did targeted users actually start using that feature after your nudge?
  • Funnel Drop-off: Are specific segments bailing at certain steps?

Be Honest With Yourself

  • If nobody’s clicking your guides, maybe they’re not useful (or your timing is off).
  • If “personalization” means every user gets a pop-up, that’s not actually personal.
  • Don’t chase “engagement” for its own sake—focus on outcomes (like fewer support tickets, or more users finishing setup).

Step 6: Learn What to Ignore (and Where to Push Back)

Pendo’s marketing says “personalize everything!” Reality check: users don’t want a firehose of nudges. Here’s what you can skip:

  • Over-segmentation: You don’t need a segment for “users who logged in on a Tuesday and like cats.”
  • Heavy-handed personalization: Calling users by first name in every tooltip is just weird.
  • Unnecessary data collection: More data ≠ better personalization. Use what’s actionable.

Focus on the basics: right message, right person, right time. That’s it.

Step 7: Keep It Simple, Ship, and Iterate

You don’t have to get segmentation perfect on the first try. In fact, you won’t.

  • Start with just a few segments and one or two targeted guides.
  • Watch what happens—are people actually helped?
  • Adjust as you go. Kill what’s not working, double down on what is.

The real secret: Most users just want to get their job done. Personalization should remove friction, not add it. So keep it simple, and don’t let shiny features distract you from helping real people.

Want to get smarter with Pendo? Pick a single friction point, segment users around it, and build one guide that actually solves a problem. That’s where the magic happens. Everything else is just noise.