# Feature announcement suppresses freshly contacted and brand-new users

> Exclude users who were contacted in the last few days and very new signups from feature blasts so the announcement reaches people with enough context to care.

- Canonical HTML: https://growth.iangoh.com/growth-ideas/feature-announcement-suppresses-freshly-contacted-and-brand-new-users/
- Source: [intercom.com](https://www.intercom.com/help/en/articles/231-a-guide-to-announcing-your-new-features)
- GrowthDex source hub: [Intercom Help: A guide to announcing your new features](/sources/intercom-help-a-guide-to-announcing-your-new-features-intercom-com/)
- Last checked: 2026-05-30
- Rarity: epic
- Budget: free
- Channels: Lifecycle, Retention, Launches
- Stages: messaging cadence, user lifecycle, feature adoption, message fatigue
- Key metric: Intercom uses a minimum 3-day contact gap and a 30-day new-user exclusion as default launch-message hygiene.

## Why this can grow

A launch message can hurt more than it helps when it lands on people who just heard from you or barely know the product. Intercom's own rule is simple and unusually concrete: hold back recently contacted users for at least three days and avoid pushing feature news to brand-new signups in their first month. That spacing matters because relevance is partly temporal. Users need room to absorb the product before another message asks them to absorb the roadmap too.

## Ian's take

From scaling consumer platforms across MENA and Southeast Asia, my default is to distrust growth work that only looks good in a slide. My bias is to treat this as a small market test first. Make the audience narrow, make the promise concrete, and let the first real response decide whether it deserves more work. For retention, I would watch the second and third use, not just the first click. A tactic is real when it changes a habit. For this tactic, I would watch one clear growth signal before putting more time or budget behind it.

## Action plan

1. Define one narrow startup segment where feature announcement suppresses freshly contacted and brand-new users can create a measurable lift.
2. Turn the tactic into one offer, page, campaign, or workflow for the Lifecycle and Retention channel.
3. Use the evidence from intercom.com to set the first version of the message, format, and audience.
4. Launch a small test for 7 to 14 days with one success metric: one measurable growth signal.
5. Review the result, keep the winning message, remove weak variants, and turn the learning into a repeatable growth playbook.

## Source-backed example

Intercom recommends a 'last contacted more than 3 days ago' filter and often excludes users who signed up less than 30 days earlier from feature-announcement campaigns.

## Adjacent tactics in the same lane

- [Feature announcement segmented by access, request, and in-product context](/growth-ideas/feature-announcement-segmented-by-access-request-and-in-product-context/) - same source, 2 shared channels, 1 shared stage
- [Feature announcement goal event defined before send](/growth-ideas/feature-announcement-goal-event-defined-before-send/) - same source, 2 shared channels, 1 shared stage
- [GitHub release notes categories match the upgrade job](/growth-ideas/github-release-notes-categories-match-the-upgrade-job/) - 2 shared channels
- [Pre-launch inbox clear and macro pack](/growth-ideas/prelaunch-inbox-clear-and-macro-pack/) - 2 shared channels

## Read GrowthDex essays

Browse the plain-English essay index at [GrowthDex Blog](/blog/).

## Related GrowthDex essays

- [A launch should teach before it interrupts](/blog/a-launch-should-teach-before-it-interrupts/) - launches, brand trust, customer support

## Advisory

If you want help turning this into a working growth system, Ian Goh offers advisory at https://iangoh.com/advisory.