Information such as when a contact subscribed to your list, where they live, or how they interact with your emails can be used to segment your contacts into groups and target them with personalized messaging.
Good to know
To learn the differences between lists and segments, check our dedicated article Differences between lists and segments.
🧐 What are segments?
Segments are personalized groups of contacts automatically generated by a set of conditions based on attributes and/or events. They are a subset of a contact database or list.
As your contacts' information changes or you add more contacts that meet the conditions defined in your segment, your segments will automatically be updated to reflect these changes.
The segment will change as more contacts open this specific email campaign. Contacts who open this email will be added to the segment automatically.
You can then use segments to send targeted messages to your contacts, such as re-engagement emails or special offers, through an Automation or an email campaign.
🔨 How to use segments
Segments are created by defining conditions and comparing them against your contacts. When a contact matches the specified conditions, they will be included in the segment. When a contact stops meeting the specified conditions, they will be removed from the segment.
➡️ To learn what conditions are available to segment your contacts, check our dedicated article What conditions are available to segment my contacts?.
You can:
You can create and use simple or more complex segments:
A simple segment with a single condition might look like this:
- Contacts who are part of a specific contact list.
- Contacts who opened an email campaign at least once in the last month.
- Contacts who placed an order on your website in the last 2 months.
Segments can also be more complex with several conditions and look like this:
- Contacts who have received at least one email campaign between July and September 2022 AND who have not opened any during this period of time.
- Contacts who have placed an order on your website in the last 6 months OR contacts who have added an article to their cart on your website in the last month AND who are part of a specific list.
To see more examples of possible segments, check our dedicated article Examples of segments.
🎯 When to use segments
Now that you know what segments are and how they work, you may be wondering in which case to use segments.
Send targeted messages
Segments are best used for sending targeted messages to specific groups of contacts. Here are a few situations where you might want to send a message to a segment:
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When you have specific information or offers that are only relevant to a particular group of people. For example, if you have a list of customers and you want to send a special offer to customers who have made a purchase in the past month, creating a segment for these customers and sending your message to that segment would be more effective than sending it to the whole list.
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When you have data that suggests that certain segments of your lists are more likely to engage with your messages. For example, you can create a segment for contacts who have opened your messages in the last 3 months or who have spent over a certain threshold and send them coupons or exclusive content.
- When you want to cross-sell. For example, you can create a segment for contacts who bought a specific product but have not purchased one or more related products and send them specific product recommendations.
Clean and analyze your database
But segments are not only useful for sending targeted messages, you can also use them to clean and analyze your database:
- By segmenting your unengaged and old contacts, you can try reaching out to them one last time to see if they're still interested in receiving your messages. If they're not, simply blocklist them and focus on your most engaged and recent contacts.
➡️ To learn more about how to effectively clean your lists, check our dedicated article Optimize and clean your contact list to improve email deliverability. - Since segments are automatically updated in real-time, they provide an easy way to see what is going on with your contacts and allow you to analyze your performance based on their spending habits, their behavior with your messages, etc.
⏭️ What's next?
- What conditions are available to segment my contacts?
- Create a segment
- Manage segments
- Examples of segments
🤔 Have a question?
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