Segmenting Emails 101: What Segments Are Right For Me?

Segmenting campaigns is the new norm; we’re hearing it all over the place, and it’s hard to avoid. If it's one of those things you’ve been putting off, today is the day to change that. What is segmenting, and why do you need it?

Segmenting emails is the division of contacts into smaller groups (segments) and sending the emails out based on the criteria you choose.

Not only will segmenting your emails and choosing the correct contacts to send out your marketing return more revenue per recipient, it will also maintain deliverability and ensure you are communicating to your customers in the correct way. Send your personalized emails to customers who can relate to them.

Segmenting your emails will also increase your open rates, increase your click-through rates, decrease your subscribers, and, most importantly, avoid spam filters based on flags from email providers like Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, and others!

Privy makes it very easy to target your audience using Smart Segments. Start by sending emails to current customers, engaged or unengaged customers, and potential customers with the pre-built segments. It will make sending the right message to the right contact at the right time easier on you and resonate better with the contact you are engaging.

Privy takes the hard work out of segmenting for you; if you have contacts in your dashboard, you already have segments pre-built right in your dashboard.

A few other examples of how you might use segments to reach your target audience include:

• Send a special promotion to customers who currently have any amount in their shopping cart and have never made a purchase.
• Attempt to re-engage inactive subscribers who signed up at least six months ago but haven't been seen recently or haven't opened your last few emails.
• Send a thank you or special reward to VIP customers who have purchased at least X times before or have spent over X amount of money.
• Send a special offer to contacts who have purchased a specific product or an item from a particular collection (Shopify only).

Segments can be larger groups of people (think those who have purchased from you in the past) or smaller bunches of segments to target a more direct audience (think customers who have spent a minimum of $100 + made 2 or more purchases with your store.)

Email segmentation can be used in a variety of ways and evolve into a technique you will use on a regular basis; sending your emails and marketing to the right customers at the right time will drive sales and make your business a better brand overall - in the new age of email that were in, utilizing these strategies can make the difference between emails opened and revenue-driving or emails ending up at the bottom of the inbox or the unmentionable spam folder.