Email segmentation basics: send the right email to the right people

Sending every email to your whole list is the easiest way to start, and the fastest way to train people to ignore you. A customer who bought last week gets a “first order” discount. A reader who only wanted recipes gets your product launch. Each of those emails is a small reason to unsubscribe, or worse, to click “Report spam”.

Segmentation fixes that. You split your list into groups based on what you know about people, and send each group something that fits.

Lists, segments and tags

Three ideas do most of the work:

• A list is where contacts live. Most businesses need only one or two.
• A tag is a label on a contact, such as customer, webinar or vip. Tags can be added by hand, by forms, by automations, by your store or through the API.
• A segment is a saved filter inside a list, such as “tagged customer and clicked in the last 90 days”. It updates by itself as contacts change.

A common mistake is creating a new list for every group. Keep one main list and use segments and tags to slice it. Contacts stay in one place, and nobody gets the same email twice from two lists.

Segment by engagement

Engagement segments are the most useful ones to build first, because they protect your deliverability as well as your results.

Use clicks rather than opens where you can. Some email apps load images automatically, which records an “open” whether or not anyone read the email. A click is a real action.

When you have a big send, such as a sale or launch, consider sending it to the engaged and cooling segments only. You will reach nearly everyone who would have responded, with fewer bounces and complaints. For the inactive group, see Re-engagement emails.

Segment by behaviour

What people do tells you more than what they say. Useful behaviour signals:

• What they signed up for. Someone who joined from your free guide popup wants different emails from someone who joined at checkout. Tag them by form, or segment by Lead source.
• What they clicked. If a subscriber clicks three emails about running shoes, tag them running. In an automation, a Condition step can check whether someone clicked, and an Operation step can add the tag.
• What they started but didn’t finish, such as a checkout. Stores connected to SendCoop tag these shoppers abandoned-cart automatically.
• When they joined. A segment of contacts created in the last 30 days is a good audience for an introduction or a starter offer.

Segment by purchase

For stores, the biggest split is simple: has this person bought or not?

• Subscribers who haven’t bought: lead with reviews, best-sellers, your story and the welcome offer.
• Customers: lead with new arrivals, care guides, refills, accessories and loyalty perks. Never send them a “first order” discount.
• Repeat or high-value customers: early access, a thank-you gift, a preview of what’s coming. Tag them vip when they reach a threshold you choose.

When you connect Shopify or WooCommerce to SendCoop, buyers get the customer tag automatically, so the first two segments take a minute to set up. For anything more detailed, such as product category or total spent, store it in a custom field or tag through an automation, Zapier or the API.

Eight segments worth building first

1. Engaged: last link click within 30 days.
2. Inactive: no click in 90 days and joined more than 90 days ago.
3. New subscribers: created in the last 30 days.
4. Customers: tag contains customer.
5. Not yet customers: tag does not contain customer.
6. Engaged non-buyers: no customer tag and clicked in the last 30 days. Your warmest audience for an offer.
7. Lapsed customers: tag contains customer and no click in 90 days. A good audience for a win-back.
8. Local: a city or country field equals a place, for events, store openings or shipping news. Ask for it on your form or bring it in with an import.

You don’t need all eight on day one. Start with engaged, customers and not-yet-customers, and add the others as you have something to send them.

Use segments in automations too

Segments aren’t only for campaigns. Most of the best automations are segmentation in motion:

• A welcome series that stops when someone buys.
• An abandoned cart flow that starts when the abandoned-cart tag is added.
• A branch that sends a different follow-up depending on whether someone clicked.

Each of these sends a different email depending on what the contact did, without you building a new list.

Keep it simple

More segments isn’t better. Each segment you send to needs its own email, and a segment of 40 people is too small to tell you much. A good rule: only build a segment when you have a different message for it. If both groups would get the same email, they don’t need splitting.

Set it up in SendCoop

1. Open your list under Audience → Lists and click Segments, then Add.
2. Choose whether contacts must match All or Any of the conditions, and add conditions on fields, tags, activity (Last opened email, Last link click, Created date) or lead source.
3. Save. The segment keeps itself up to date.
4. Pick it on the Recipients step of a campaign, or as the segment of an automation.

Full steps are in Create a segment and Tag your subscribers. Segments and tags are on every plan, including Free.