Summary
Cohorts let you create named groups of subscribers and target them directly when publishing an announcement. This is useful when you need to reach a specific audience — like beta users or a single customer's team — regardless of which categories they're subscribed to.
Cohorts affect email and Slack DM notifications only. Cohorts are available on Premium plans.
How cohorts affect who receives your announcement
Understanding how cohorts interact with categories will help you use them correctly.
What you select | Who gets notified |
Categories and/or roadmap items only | Subscribers who match those category/roadmap items |
Categories and/or roadmap items + cohorts | Category/roadmap item subscribers plus all cohort members |
Cohorts only | Only cohort members |
The key thing to know: cohorts are additive by default and they expand your audience rather than replace it. However, if you leave categories and roadmap items empty and select only cohorts, your announcement is sent exclusively to cohort members. This is how you scope a send to a specific group.
How to create a cohort
Navigate to your LaunchNotes workspace.
Go to Audience > Cohorts.
Click New Cohort.
Give your cohort a name and optional description. Use something specific enough for your team to understand at a glance — for example, "iOS Beta Testers" or "Acme Corp Internal."
Add members by searching for existing subscribers individually, or by adding an audience domain.
Click Save.
How to use a cohort in an announcement
Open or create an announcement in draft.
In the Categorization section, find the Cohorts field.
Select one or more cohorts.
To confirm who will receive the announcement, click View recipients. In the modal that appears, select the Cohorts tab to see which cohorts are included and verify your audience before sending.
Publish as usual.
View recipients modal:
To send to cohort members only, leave the Categories and Roadmap Items fields empty and select only your cohort(s). The notification step will confirm that only cohort members will receive this announcement.
Notes & important info
Cohorts are additive. Selecting a cohort alongside categories means cohort members receive the announcement in addition to category subscribers — even if the cohort members aren't subscribed to that category.
If you want to reach only cohort members, intentionally leave categories and roadmap items blank.
You must be a workspace admin to create and manage cohorts.
Cohorts are available on Premium plans. If you're on a different plan and want to try cohorts, contact [email protected].
Troubleshooting
The Cohorts field doesn't appear in my announcement. Confirm that your workspace is on a Premium plan.
My cohort members aren't receiving notifications. Check that the cohort has active subscribers (not just email addresses — they must have verified subscriptions). Also confirm that email notifications were enabled when you published.