Database segmentation for email newslettering

If you were selling snowboarding gear, would you open a store near the Sahara? And if you had an insurance company, would you waste your time trying to persuade a person without a car to buy a compulsory motor insurance policy? You would probably not.

The same logic applies in the online space. Instead of making the same offer to all customers, it is better to focus on those people who need your product.

What is segmentation

Audience segmentation is the practice of dividing subscribers into groups based on certain characteristics. Segmentation should be carried out before sending messages. Do not send the same email to all customers in your database. It is important to select a group of subscribers who are most likely to be interested in your offer.

You can select subscribers of a certain gender, age, location, or segment them by interests, behavior and purchase history. For example, if you create an email newsletter offering a student bank card, your audience will be 18 to 23 years old.

Why is it important to segment the audience?

• to keep the database of email addresses in order;
• to personalize your offers;
• to increase the conversion rate.

Segments: dynamic VS static

There are two types of segments in Altcraft Platform: dynamic and static. Dynamic segmentation is used to determine the target audience of marketing campaigns. Static segmentation is used to work with groups of subscribers.

A dynamic segment is a segmentation request to one or more databases. It selects profiles based on specific conditions. It is calculated automatically when you start your campaign. If you need to segment your audience to send newsletters, select this option.

A static segment is a group of customer profiles that, at the moment the segment was calculated, matched certain sampling conditions. It is not recalculated automatically, but it is still possible to add profiles manually or via API.

How to segment the audience

Before segmenting, you should already have databases created. The more information you have about the customer, the more detailed the segmentation will be.

Step 1. Create a new segment

Go to “Data” → “Segments”. Click “Create”:

Select the segment type: static or dynamic.

Enter its name for in-house use. Optionally, add a brief description, access groups and tags for quick search:

Step 2. Make a segmentation request

Now you need to make a segmentation request, i.e. specify the conditions for users to enter the database. Please note that one segment can contain subscribers from several databases. However, in this case, it is necessary to create a separate segmentation request for each database.

Let's create a request to one of the databases. Click “Add a database”:

Select the database to segment its subscribers:

Next, set the condition for segmentation:

You will find all conditions in the drop-down list in the “Selection by” field. The following conditions are available:

• Status
• Scenarios
• Segments
• Identifier
• Subscriptions
• Default fields
• Custom fields
• Raw requests
• Behavioral in each channel (Email, SMS, Push, Telegram, WhatsApp or a custom channel)
• Browser
• UTM
• Loyalty
• Relations
• Orders
• Forms

Examples of segmentation

Below, you will see some examples showing how to segment subscribers in the Altcraft Platform.

1. Age

Segmentation by age allows you to select, for instance, those subscribers who are likely to use a student bank card — 18-23-year-old subscribers.

2. Gender

Let's suppose that you want to make an email newsletter to inform subscribers about the new arrival of women's clothing in your online store. Here your target audience is young women from 20 years old. You can add these subscribers by adding a selection by gender and age.

3. Message opening

This segmentation allows you to reactivate sleeping customers. In the example below, we select those subscribers who have not opened emails and push messages for 30 days.

4. Birth date

Dynamic segmentation gives the opportunity to wish happy birthday to each subscriber. To set up such a segment, select «selection by date of birth» and add two conditions: «the month is the same as today» and «the day of the month is the same as the current one». Then set up a regular campaign that will send emails with birthday greetings to all subscribers from this segment.

5. Custom fields

You can also segment subscribers depending on the custom fields in the database.

6. Pixel

Using the tracking pixel, you can gather the most active subscribers to, for instance, send them a promo code to encourage further actions. In the image below, you can see those customers who have made a purchase in the online store at least once in the last 7 days.

Conclusion

Audience segmentation allows you to create more personalized newsletters and, as a result, simplify lead cultivation process. In the Altcraft Platform, you can create dynamic and static segments in a few clicks: just select databases and set entry conditions.