EMAIL MARKETING | 4 minute read
A practical guide to email segmentation
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Segmentation is a powerful strategy in email marketing that can significantly enhance the relevance of your messages, increase engagement, and improve conversion rates. Rather than sending the same email to your entire subscriber list, segmentation allows you to group recipients based on shared characteristics or behaviors. This targeted approach ensures that your emails are tailored to the specific needs and interests of your audience, leading to better results.
What is email segmentation?
Email segmentation refers to the practice of dividing your email list into smaller groups, or segments, based on specific criteria such as demographics, purchase history, engagement levels, or behaviors. Each segment receives targeted content that is more relevant to them, increasing the likelihood that the email will be opened, read, and acted upon.
By tailoring your messaging to each group’s specific needs or interests, segmentation allows you to deliver a more personalized experience, which can lead to higher customer satisfaction and ultimately better business results.
Why is email segmentation important?
Segmentation is important for several reasons, all of which contribute to improving the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns.
Improved engagement
When you target your emails to specific segments, you’re speaking directly to their needs and interests, which encourages more interaction. Engaged subscribers are more likely to respond to your CTAs, share your content, or make a purchase.
Higher conversion rates
By targeting subscribers with relevant offers or content, you increase the likelihood that they will take the desired action, whether that’s making a purchase, signing up for a service, or engaging with your brand in some other way.
Stronger customer relationships
Sending personalized, relevant emails to each subscriber increases the chances of your messages resonating with your audience. This leads to better open rates, higher click-through rates, and more conversions.
Reduced unsubscribe rates
Sending irrelevant emails is one of the main reasons subscribers opt out of email lists. Segmentation helps to avoid this by ensuring your emails are targeted to the right people, reducing the chance of unsubscribes.
Better customer retention
When subscribers receive content tailored to their preferences or needs, they are more likely to stay engaged with your brand over the long term. Segmentation also allows you to nurture relationships with customers based on their lifecycle stage, keeping them coming back for more.
How to get started with email segmentation
Now that we’ve discussed why segmentation is important, let’s look at how to implement it in your email marketing strategy.
1. Collect data on your subscribers
To effectively segment your email list and send the right messages to each group, it’s important to gather as much information as possible about your subscribers. This can include basic demographics like age and gender, as well as more detailed insights such as past purchase history and behavioral data. Keeping your customer data up to date is key to ensuring your segmentation remains accurate and effective. One of the best ways to do this is by simply asking—use surveys, polls, or interviews to learn more about your audience’s interests and preferences.
2. Identify key segmentation criteria
Once you have collected data, the next step is identifying the criteria that will allow you to create meaningful segments. There are many ways to segment your audience, such as past purchase history, signup channels, or their stage in the buyer’s journey. For instance, if someone joins your email list after reading a blog article about email segmentation, it’s a strong indicator that they’re interested in more content on that topic. By using data from their signup channel, you can place them into the right segment and send targeted emails that match their interests, keeping your messaging relevant and engaging.
3. Create targeted campaigns for each segment
Once your segments are defined, you can begin creating tailored campaigns that address each group’s specific interests, needs, or behaviors. Tailoring your messaging ensures subscribers receive content that feels relevant and valuable, whether it’s welcoming new customers, nurturing loyal ones, encouraging conversions, or re-engaging inactive users. By personalizing your approach, you can improve engagement, build stronger relationships, and drive better results from your email marketing campaigns.
3. Test and refine your segments
Segmentation is not a one-time process. It’s important to regularly test and refine your segments based on the performance of your campaigns. Use A/B testing to see which subject lines, offers, or content resonate most with each segment, and adjust your strategy accordingly.
5. Automate your email campaigns
To save time and ensure timely delivery of targeted messages, automate your email marketing campaigns. Many email marketing platforms, such as Mailchimp and HubSpot, allow you to set up automated workflows for specific segments. For example, you can create a welcome series that triggers automatically when a new subscriber joins or set up a series of cart abandonment emails that are sent when a user leaves items in their cart.
3 effective tactics for email segmentation
To wrap up this article, we’ve outlined three effective email segmentation tactics that can help enhance your marketing strategy. Each tactic is explained in detail, with insights from our team to help you better understand how to apply them for maximum impact.
Engagement frequency
Segmenting your email list based on engagement is a powerful strategy that works for any business, whether B2B or eCommerce. By grouping subscribers based on their interactions, you can tailor your messaging to match their level of interest and intent.
- Recently engaged (interacted within the last 120 days)
- Engaged but never purchased (active in the last 180 days but no purchase history)
- Active site visitors (visited your site within a specific timeframe)
- Active but no purchase (visited recently but never completed a transaction)
- Re-engaged inactive subscribers (previously unengaged but have recently interacted)
- Past purchasers still engaged (customers who continue to engage post-purchase)
Purchase history
Understanding purchasing habits and preferences allows for more personalized and effective communication. By segmenting based on purchasing behavior, you can send targeted offers, loyalty incentives, and personalized recommendations that encourage conversions and long-term customer relationships.
- High-spending customers (Average Order Value > X or Lifetime Value > X)
- Upsell opportunities (those who spent below AOV and could be encouraged to spend more)
- First-time buyers (those who made one purchase and can be turned into repeat customers)
- Repeat customers (buyers with multiple purchases over time or within the last 90 days)
- Lapsed customers (those who purchased between 140–365 days ago but haven’t returned)
- Engaged non-buyers (subscribers who interact with emails but haven’t made a purchase)
Browsing behavior
Tracking a user’s browsing habits and product interest is a powerful approach for email segmentation. By understanding which products a customer has shown interest in, whether by viewing, clicking, or adding items to their cart, you can send send targeted reminders, such as abandoned cart emails, or offer alternatives to the products they showed interest in.
- Abandoned cart (customers who added items to their cart but never completed the purchase)
- Abandoned checkout (users who started the checkout process but did not finalize their purchase)
- Viewed but never added to cart (buyers who looked at a product but didn’t add it to their cart)
- Purchased product + similar interest (customers who bought one item and later viewed or showed interest in related products)
Conclusion
Email segmentation is one of the most effective ways to improve your email marketing performance. By dividing your audience into smaller, targeted groups, you can send more personalized and relevant content, resulting in higher engagement, better conversions, and reduced unsubscribes. Whether you’re segmenting based on demographics, behaviors, or lifecycle stages, segmentation helps ensure that your messages are reaching the right people at the right time. With careful planning and consistent optimization, segmentation can be a game-changer for your email marketing strategy.
Contact us to learn more about how we can help with email segmentation to improve the efficiency of your email marketing campaigns.
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