Custom Events
Led Custom Events from inception through GA — 97 customer organizations ingesting 377M events weekly within months of launch.
Overview
Led Custom Events from inception through GA, shipping support for complex JSON event objects ingested from 25+ sources and used for event-driven segmentation and journey triggers. Within months of launch, 97 customer organizations were ingesting 377M events weekly, putting OneSignal in direct competition with larger enterprise engagement platforms.
The Problem
Customers were losing context converting rich event data from tools like Amplitude, Mixpanel, and Segment into flat key-value Data Tags. OneSignal's existing tagging model couldn't represent the structure, timing, or relationships in that data — and customers knew it.
My Approach
Launched in three phases: Alpha (API ingestion), Beta (CDP integrations), GA (data warehouse support via Census and others). Used an AI-led process to build out the Events Index documentation at scale.
What We Built
- →Custom Events Ingestion API — Alpha (Apr 2025)
- →CDP ingestion support (Apr 2025)
- →Data warehouse ingestion via Census (Apr 2025)
- →Events Index — largely AI-led documentation process
- →AI-powered intent-led onboarding prototype
- →Custom Events Beta (Jun 2025) → GA (Sep 2025)
- →Pricing model updates to support Custom Events
Outcome
97 customer orgs were using the product within weeks of GA, with approximately 377 million custom events ingested weekly and growing. Bitcoin.com reported improved user engagement. Sales teams cited Custom Events as bringing OneSignal toe-to-toe with larger enterprise engagement platforms.