Email Database Segmentation
So, you’re collecting email sign-ups and have a growing master subscriber list. Now how do you use these to maximise revenue? The answer is segmentation.
Segmented Campaigns = More Sales
According to Klaviyo, highly segmented campaigns return more than 3 times the revenue per recipient as unsegmented campaigns, simply because the content is more relevant. Higher relevancy means higher engagement and higher sender reputation for you, so it’s an extremely important part to any email marketing strategy. Simply put, we don’t want to send everything to everyone.
Email service providers allow you to build cross-sections of your contacts that update in real-time. Building segments allows you to filter your master list by certain conditions to identify new audiences.
How To Segment Your List
So, how can you segment? Segments can be built from many conditions that pull directly from tracked metrics and Shopify data within profiles. These include what someone has, or has not done, properties about someone, where they’re located, if they are in the EU or in a specific list, whether they are suppressed for email, and if they’ve given specific permissions. You can also use predictive analytics about someone, for example you can build a segment based on predicted gender, which may help you identify products that will be more relevant to that group.
Target Your Audience
Considering all the data you have to hand, anything is possible - it’s just deciding which people you want to find.
While the specific segments you build will be heavily dependent on your brand and product, there are some applicable to most ecommerce brands. You’ll find that these will open up possibilities and ideas for segment-specific campaigns.
Examples Of Segmented Campaigns
- Gender - this can prove particularly valuable for brands that offer specific gendered collections, for example a fashion brand
- Repeat purchasers - people who have placed more than x orders
- Winback opportunities - e.g. people who have purchased once, but not again within the last x months
- VIPs - those who have placed over a certain number of orders, or placed orders totalling over a certain value
- Customers with a high predicted customer lifetime value (CLV) who are likely to be future VIPs
- Engagement - find your group of highly engaged customers, and those who never engage. These are called engagement tiers
- Email frequency - requiring this information at signup allows you to market to people based on how often they’d like to hear from you. This way, you keep contacts engaged by letting them choose how many emails they receive from you
- Location - allows you to run region specific campaigns, or even provide copy in other languages
Keeping It Personal
While setting up segmentation can be simple, it requires pre planning to achieve effective results. When initially setting up your segmentation, it’s best to investigate how your customer wants to communicate with your brand, and consider what kind of products you are selling. Then consider how customers buy your products. Do you offer a subscription model; are customers likely to return to purchase again? Are your products consumable? Can you sell accessories or upgrades for their purchases?
Properly segmenting email lists will help you ensure you don’t end up caught in spam folders, and means you can be personal and relevant in your communications.
Segments Vs Flows
It’s also important to know when to use segments and when to use flows. The key distinction here is the frequency of email send. Segments are valuable tools to both identify cross-sections / groups of your audience to send one-time campaigns to. Identifying these groups will very likely inspire segment specific sales and promotions, for example. On the other hand, if you’d like to send an email when someone orders a specific product, this should be set up as an automated flow, instead of a segment and campaign.
By segmenting, you’ll not only provide highly relevant and interesting content to your subscribers, but you’ll also see 3 times the revenue than unsegmented campaigns. You have a world of data within your email service provider - we can help you use segmentation to find new audiences to target and build valuable relationships.