Segmentation is a powerful tool that helps you send personalized and targeted messages to your subscribers, leading to better engagement and conversions. In this guide, we'll share 10 segmentation ideas (+ 2 bonus segments) that can help you better understand your subscribers, tailor your messaging, and drive more revenue for your business.
These ideas include basic demographics, behavior-based segments, engagement-based segments, and more. So, let's dive in and explore the power of email segmentation!
Contents
Engaged in 30/60/90 days Segment
The engaged contacts segment is important because it helps you identify and target the subscribers who are most interested and active in engaging with your emails. You can improve your email engagement metrics, such as open and click rates by sending campaigns specifically to this segment.
When you send emails to your entire list, including those who may not be engaged or interested in your content, it can negatively impact your sender's reputation and deliverability. Email providers like Gmail and Yahoo monitor how recipients interact with your emails. If they see low engagement rates, they may start filtering your emails to spam folders or blocking them altogether.
It is recommended to send all campaigns to the engaged contacts segment, especially if you have 10,000 subscribers or more. This will improve your average engagement metrics, such as open and click rates, and signal inbox service providers that you are a high-quality sender. You can still send campaigns to all contacts occasionally, but most of your campaigns should be sent to the engaged contacts segment.
Tip 💡 To include more subscribers, you can adjust the timeframe to 60 or 90 days.
Country-based Segment
First off, you'll need to decide which country you want to target. Let's say you want to offer free shipping to your US-based customers only.
In the segment builder, select the option to filter by location or country. Set the filter to "Country" and select "United States" as the country. This will ensure that only customers with a US address are included in the segment.
However, you may also have customers who have not provided a country in their profile or do not have an address listed. To capture these customers, you can also add another filter to your segment using the "OR" operator.
For this filter, select "Country" and set the rule to "Does not exist." Then, select "Viewed Page" and set the rule to "Country is US." This will include customers who have viewed your store from a US IP address or location, even if they have not provided their country information.
Remember that this may sacrifice a bit of accuracy in exchange for more reach, but it can be a helpful way to capture more customers in your segment.
If you have a list of specific zip codes or countries you want to target, you can copy and paste them directly into your segment builder. Select the zip codes or countries you want to target, copy them, and paste them into the appropriate filter using the "Zip Code" or "Country" rule.
By following these steps, you can create a targeted, country-based segment for your customers and ensure that your promotional emails reach the right audience.
Past Purchasers Segment
This is a straightforward segment based on your customer's purchasing history. When targeting past purchasers, excluding recent buyers is essential if you're promoting a discount code. To do this, segment past purchasers and exclude those who bought within the last week or two weeks.
You can also narrow your segment further by targeting people who bought a number of times or specific products. For instance, if you run a motorcycle store, you can create a segment of customers who have placed an order at least once and have purchased a helmet by using the product name contains "helmet." By doing this, you can promote riding apparel such as jackets, pants, and gloves to these customers because they already own a helmet.
Exclusion Segment
To optimize your promotions, there are specific segments of customers that you should exclude.
The first one is customers who have recently made a purchase. For most stores, this means excluding customers who have placed an order at least once in the last 14 days. Make sure to factor in your shipping times when determining the exclusion period.
Another group to exclude is customers who have just signed up for your email list. If you have a welcome flow, exclude customers who have opted in during the first seven days of the flow to avoid overwhelming them with too many emails.
You should also exclude customers who have received automated messages within the last 24 hours, such as abandoned cart messages. This ensures the automated messages have time to work their magic without additional distractions.
On the Recipients stage of your campaign, click on "exclude segment" and choose the exclusion segment. If sending to engaged subscribers, still exclude the exclusion segment.
VIP Segment
This can be based on the customer life cycle stages, such as loyalists, champions, and high-potential customers. You can also add additional filters, such as placing orders at least three times to include frequent buyers.
Once you have this segment, you can send them exclusive sneak peeks into new releases and special discounts that you don't ship to the rest of your list. VIP customers will appreciate this, and it can help strengthen their loyalty to your store.
Non-buyers Segment
This segment consists of people who have never purchased from you before. You can create this segment easily by applying a filter that identifies customers who have not placed an order at least once. This segment can be helpful in cases like abandoned checkout or cart flows.
For example, in an abandoned cart flow, you can split people based on whether they are a buyer or non-buyer. If they match the non-buyers segment, you can send them a 20% off discount code. On the other hand, if they are a past buyer, you can simply send them a regular abandoned cart reminder. It's a simple but effective way to entice non-buyers to make their first purchase.
At Risk or Can't Lose Segment
By targeting this segment with personalized messaging and offers, you can increase engagement and loyalty among at-risk customers and reinforce the commitment of your valuable customers. This can help reduce churn, improve customer lifetime value, and drive revenue growth.
Additionally, using automation to trigger messaging and offers when customers enter these segments can help you stay on top of customer engagement and reduce the risk of losing valuable customers.
By automating the flow based on the segment, you can ensure that the right message is sent to the right customers at the right time without manually tracking who falls into the "at risk" or "can't lose" category.
Opened / Not Opened Promotion Segment
The "opened" segment can be helpful in resending a message to those who opened the email but didn't take action. For example, suppose you sent out a promotional email and noticed that some subscribers opened it but didn't make a purchase. In that case, you can create a segment for those who opened the message but didn't convert and send them a follow-up message with a special offer or incentive to encourage them to take action.
Additionally, the "not opened" segment can be helpful for re-engagement campaigns. If you have subscribers who last opened your emails a while ago, you can create a segment for those who haven't opened any message in the last 30 or 60 days and send them a re-engagement campaign to win them back. This could include a special offer, a survey to gather feedback, or simply a friendly reminder of the value of your store and content.
Inactive Segment
Essentially, this segment consists of subscribers who have not opened any of your emails for a certain period of time. It's essential to regularly clean up this segment and unsubscribe those who fall into this category.
To create this segment, you can start by selecting contacts who have opted-in to your emails and ensure they're not new subscribers who haven't received any emails yet. You should also set a time frame for how long they've been subscribed to your emails, typically 3-6 months, to ensure they've received enough campaigns before being included in this segment.
Add a filter for those who haven't opened any of your emails during the specified time frame. These subscribers are likely disengaged and not interested in your content, so it's best to remove them from your list and save yourself the cost of paying for subscribers who aren't engaging with your content.
Removing inactive subscribers can also help improve your email deliverability by ensuring that your open and click-through rates are higher, which can boost your email sender reputation. Overall, regularly cleaning up your list and removing inactive subscribers can help you save money and improve the effectiveness of your email campaigns.
Custom Property-based Segment
Custom properties allow you to ask subscribers for specific information that may not be available in Omnisend. You can add custom properties inside sign-up forms or in the Preference Management Center.
For instance, if you're a pet supply store, you could include a question asking subscribers if they have a cat, dog, turtle, or giraffe. This way, you can send targeted emails promoting specific products to subscribers based on their pet type.
To create a custom property, include a radio button or checkbox in your sign-up form, and then set up the custom property in your Omnisend account. You can use the custom property to segment your subscribers based on their responses.
Segment for Testing
An extremely simple and valuable segment that you can use for testing. Using a testing segment can help you identify any issues with your email content or formatting before it reaches your entire audience, allowing you to make any necessary adjustments and avoid negative impacts on your store reputation.
We advise using your email for testing; ensure not to use your sender's or role-based emails.
Tag-based Segment
Tags are like labels that help categorize your contacts based on the information you have about them. You can add tags to a contact's profile, import contacts with tags, or add tags in automation flows. Learn more about working with tags here.
Remember, segmentation is an ongoing process that requires constant analysis and adjustment based on the performance of your campaigns. You can improve engagement and conversions by implementing these ideas and continuously optimizing your segmentation strategy.