In marketing, segmentation is grouping your customers based on shared qualities. It allows sending the right message to the right people. Using segmentation, you can group customers based on shared qualities like gender, location, purchase history, and more. Use created segments when sending campaigns, automations, etc.
Typical results after adopting segmentation are increased campaign engagement, improved customer loyalty, retention, fewer unsubscribes, spam reports, etc.
At Omnisend, we continuously improve our Segmentation solution by introducing new filters and additional data points.
In this article, you'll find information about segment structure and how to create and utilize them to get the most out of your reach.
Contents
Accessing Segmentation
To find segmentation, you can just go to your Audience tab. There are two ways how you can create a segment.
Go to the Segments tab and click Create Segment;
Click Create Segment button on the Contact list tab once you enter your Audience;
Segment Filters
Every Rule-set in the Segmentation menu offers a wide range of different filters. Filters have different priorities, starting with the broadest categories and working down to the most specific ones.
Channel & Subscription status. The Channel rule allows you to segment your contacts by their subscription status to promotional messages in the following channels: Email, SMS, and Browser push notifications. Each of them has its own set of filters and subfilters.
Customer Properties. You can segment based on attributes associated with contacts in your account. This descriptive data usually comes with order info from your store and can also be collected via Omnisend, third-party signup forms, or manually imported. The filter contains city, country, state, tags, RFM segment ID., gender, address, email, first name, last name, phone number, zip code (postal code), birthday, and more.
Engagement. You can segment based on your customer activity, whether someone has/ has yet to do some actions with your promotional materials, including opens and clicks from promotional messages and web tracking on your website. The filter contains: viewed page, clicked on a message, opened a message, and received message events.
You can also segment based on messages you sent to your audience and segment out those who reported spam and failed delivery of your messages.
Shopping behavior. You can segment contacts based on their shopping behavior. Whether they ordered from you, bought a specific product, or purchased a number of products.
Web activity. You can segment your contacts based on their activity on your website. You can create groups of people who just viewed your website or went to a specific page.
Custom events. You can segment contacts based on custom events you create or upload. These events could cover anything, e.g., show size, car model, etc.
Segment structure
The Segment can have a simple or complex structure based on the following:
Rules that identify the main rule to which the filter is applied;
Filters that identify the qualification or qualifications for each of the Rules;
Rule sets are several rules that can be connected either with "AND" or "OR" operators. Every rule is separated by a dividing line and has unique conditions connected with individual connectors.
On the scheme below, you can see a more detailed description with the parts of the Segment named.
1. Contact property;
2. Operator;
3. Secondary operator;
4. Condition;
5. Event;
6. Count filter;
7. Contact property value;
8. Date filter & date filter value.
Connectors and operators are used between different rules in your Segment to help you build more sophisticated segments.
"AND" and "OR" operators combine different rules for a single segment.
If you change one operator, the rest of the operators will change as well. Apart from adding the rule, you can also add any number of filters to each rule, all combined with the "AND" operator.
Only one connector type can be used between rules, either "AND" or "OR."
"AND" makes the Segment more exclusive, while the "OR" connector is more inclusive.
Using "AND," every condition must be true for the contact to be added to the segmentation. If a single requirement is false, it will not include the contact in the Segment.
Using "OR" if a single condition is true will add the contact to the segmentation. Use "OR" to target users who meet at least one requirement in a group of conditions.
Negative events allow you to identify customers who haven't done something.
Date filters give more flexibility while creating segments.
Auto-suggest to ease work with text or list attributes.
ANY OF filter. Contact will be added to the Segment when they meet 'any of' conditions chosen from the list.
Copy&Paste logic
Sometimes you can have a long list of tags, ZIP codes, custom properties, etc., that you'd like to base your segment on. For this sake, you can enter the value manually or copy and paste all the values you need into the field.
Use case: If you need to base your segment on a long list of ZIP codes, you can add 100 by copying and pasting all of them into one rule. If you have a long list, add another property to the segment, use the same filter rule, and add another 100 ZIP codes.
Combine two segment groups
The most straightforward way to combine two Segments is to specify both rules and connect them with the OR operator. Create the first set of rules → click on the small arrow sign → Add a group of filters and create another set of rules. You can read more here.
Segment Update Timing
The main advantage of using segments is that they update automatically and in real time. When the customer meets or stops meeting the Segment's conditions, they enter or exit the Segment, respectively. By setting the rule, you define the qualities your customers should meet to be added or removed from the Segment.
Depending on the Segment update time, we can distinguish two main types of Segmentations:
Conditional Segments;
Date-based Segments (specify the time when the event took place).
Conditional Segments
Conditional segments update instantly. Every time new information is added, it is checked against the rule, and the contact is added/removed from the Segment.
If information is synced from your store platform with a delay, it will be checked against the rule in the Segment as soon as it hits Omnisend.
Note! Although we say that Segments are updated instantly, it takes some time to process information. The delay is a minute at maximum.
Date-based Segments
This type of Segment is also updated in real time according to the date settings.
Let's say your Segment should filter out the contacts that placed an order in the last 30 days, as shown in the screenshot below.
In this case, the Segment is updated daily at 12 am in your time zone. The time zone can be changed in the Store Settings → Contact information → Time zone.
Updating an Existing Segment
If you want to update an existing Segment, you should open that Segment, change the rule, and click on the Update segment button.
Segments in Automations
Editing the Segment that is used for automation
Whenever you make any changes to the rules of a segment used by automated workflows (entry or exit based), you will be prompted with the question of whether we should continue sending the automated emails based on the new rules.
Once the rules of the Segment are changed, there are two options:
No - means that the automation will not send messages to contacts who instantly populate due to the update in the Segment setting.
Yes - it means that the automation will send messages to contacts who instantly populate due to the update in the Segment setting.
If customers were in the middle of the flow (e.g., received 2/5 messages) and stayed in the new Segment, they will continue to receive the rest of the messages. If they got out of the Segment due to the new rules, they would not receive the left messages (the rest 3/5).
Manual Import & Automation Trigger
Automation workflows that contain segment entry or exit rules can be affected by the manual import of customers in case those newly added customers appear on the segments in use.
However, you have total control over whether you want to use them in automation. Every time you import your contacts manually, you are prompted to ask what should be done with these newly added contacts.
There are two options you can go with:
No - means that newly added contacts will be added to your list and appear on the needed segments but will not receive the automations that said segments would trigger. You can choose this option if you want to add contacts but not trigger any automations for them.
Yes - it means that these contacts will be added to the list of needed segments and will receive the automations that said segments would trigger. You can choose this option to add contacts and trigger automations for them.
When it comes to automatically imported contacts (from your store) and contacts added after filling a form, those are considered as organically added to a segment, and automation for them is sent automatically.
FAQ
What is the best way to segment users based on their country?
Segmentation based on the country uses the "country" parameter in contact information.
You can also see their geolocation based on the IP address of the contact. Please note that you see geolocation displayed, but it's not used by segmentation.
The screenshot below shows you how to view geolocation and country information on the contact page. Only country information is used for segmentation.
Note! Because VPNs are used, geolocation isn't reliable, so this data is overwritten when the contact has an actual address.
To have the most reliable information, we advise using a set of rules "Country exists" AND "Country is/is not [Country name]."
If you have more questions or need more help, please get in touch with us at [email protected].
