List Segmentation

Segments are a useful way to divide a subscriber list into groups of people with common traits. After you create a segment, you can use it to:

• Send a campaign to a specific audience.
• Tailor content to specific audiences within a campaign.
• Exclude certain subscribers from receiving an email or text.

Here's some useful information if you're just getting started with segments.

• Segments are created based on subscriber data stored in your account.
• Subscribers are automatically added to segments when data associated with their subscriber profile matches the rules of a segment.
• You can create as many segments as you like within a list, however they are contained to that list — you can't create segments that span multiple lists.

Create a Segment

To create a new segment:

1. Click Segments under Smart Send navigation.
2. Click New Segment button.

Once the segment builder loads, enter a name for the segment. This name will be used in the Campaigns to identify this segment for you to choose, so be precise. Select the list that you would like to use for this segment from the dropdown and choose the mailing type of segment you're creating. There are 2 mailing types, email and SMS. The difference is that for each mailing type we would make sure that the correct subscriber is added to the segment.

Segment Types

On the next section you'll find different segment types that you can use:

• Custom Query Segment uses Custom Query to select the subscribers for your segment. This is the most powerful tool to narrow down your list.
• Simple Segment, if you are creating a simple segment based on a single value, this option is for you.​
• Create a Segment From All Form Subscribers uses all subscribers that were added to your list by a certain Form to create the segment.

We'll cover Custom Query Segment here since that is the most advanced option.

Creating a Rule

Once you have selected Custom Query Segment option, click next. You can either create rules by clicking Add rule or Add group, the difference is in how your rules will be evaluated. If you select Add rule each rule is evaluated by its own whereas if you select Add group all rules in that group will be evaluated together.

Click the Add Group on menu to create a group for your first rule. An attribute dropdown will appear, select an attribute that you like to segment on.

After you've selected an attribute, you then need to apply a condition to it to create a rule. For example, the screenshot below shows the attribute "Email" with the condition "contains" which would select all gmail emails. The value entered is "gmail", so the rule created for this segment is: email contains @gmail.com.

Each attribute has a specific set of conditions that can be applied to it. Here's another example where Email Client equals Outlook has been selected to build a rule:

Refer to Rules Guide for more details.

Save Segment

When you have finished adding the rules to build your segment, click Next. This creates the segment of people on the subscriber list who match the criteria set by your rules, or rule.

The total number of active subscribers in the segment will be displayed on the page. You'll also get a sample of some of those subscribers. Once you're happy with the segment click Save & Exit.