A simple checklist to get started with segmentation to make sure you’re reaching your most engaged and active customers, re-targeting your list, and re-engaging subscribers.

If you’ve got a smaller list or you’re just getting started, hyper segmenting your list isn’t going to be worthwhile. There’s just not enough value in breaking out your list into a dozen different segments. (Or the 15 that I cover in my FREE Klaviyo course.)

Simple segmentation is going to pay enormous dividends as you grow your list and increase your email revenue.

Starting with the simple segmentation strategies I’m about to show you will help you:

Increase open and click through rates…

Improve deliverability, helping more emails land in the inbox…

Come up with more campaign ideas that DON’T involve a promotion…

AND

Ultimately, generate more revenue from your list.

Once you grow your email list, you can begin to implement more granular segmentation, but let’s start with the basics.

Before we jump in. Two definitions you need to know.

List – They include everyone who has completed a certain action that you define. People can be added to a list when they sign up to a form, make a purchase, etc. but subscribers are never removed unless you do it manually.

Segments – These include subscribers who match a certain set of descriptors. Segments are dynamic in that subscribers can move in and out of segments depending on what actions they take and when they take those actions.

Engaged

If you do nothing else, do this.

Create a segment of your engaged subscribers. 

Literally, if you stop reading now and that’s all you take away from this post… you’re winning the email game already.

The best way to run your email into the ground is to continue to send to people that aren’t opening or clicking.

It tells the email algorithms of Gmail, Outlook, and Apple that your emails aren’t worthy of the inbox. And the more that you do it, the better chance you have of ending up in the SPAM folder and on SPAM blacklists.

So, let’s do the opposite.

You can create engaged segments with whatever ESP you use (Klaviyo, ActiveCampaign, Convertkit, etc.) They each will be set up a little bit differently, but the concept is the same.

You are looking for anyone who has opened and/or clicked on an email in the last X days.

I typically set up two engaged segments. 

Anyone who has opened or clicked in the last 30 days. And anyone who has opened or clicked in the last 90 days.

Why the difference?

Because you have two groups of engaged people on your list.

Group 1: These subscribers are going to open most of the emails that you send because they enjoy your content and connect with your brand.

Group 2: These subscribers are on the lookout for a sale or promotion. They are most likely only opening emails that are going to get them a discount.

So here’s how you are going to differentiate.

Send all of your “value” content to your 30 day engaged segment. Any emails that are focused on education, entertainment, or inspiration should go to these subscribers. You can send one of these emails to your 90 day segment on occasion if you want to.

Then whenever you have a promotion, sale, or new product drop, you’ll send those emails to the 90-day segment.

What happens here is you can hook in someone on the 90 day segment with a product drop or promotion and then for the next 30 days they will get all of your value emails. If they connect with what you are sending, you’ll see your 30 day segment increase in size.

I’ll repeat… if you stop reading now and ONLY implement this one tactic. You’ll be winning the email game.

But if you’re looking to do a little more… 

Re-Engaging

When you first segment out your 90 day engaged list, you may be shocked at how many people you have on your list who aren’t in that segment.

I’ve worked with some clients that have had 40%, 50%, or even 60+% of their list fall into this unengaged segment.

So what do you do with all of these subscribers?

My advice is to group them into two buckets.

Unengaged subscribers who have purchased in the past (customers) and unengaged subscribers who have never made a purchase (prospects).

For your unengaged customers, you are going to try and win them back.

There are a lot of variables here, so I don’t want to give you a cookie cutter approach to this.

But what I will say is that you should send emails to this segment with their specific situation in mind. How can you re-engage them and potentially get them to purchase again.

A few ideas:

• Offer a discount or promotion of some sort
• Share updates on products, product lines, or new products
• Ask for a review/testimonial/feedback

For your unengaged prospects, you may want to give them one more opportunity to engage with your brand before you suppress their profile. (Remove it from your active list.)

Depending on how long they’ve been unengaged, you may just want to suppress the profile. (If John Doe hasn’t opened an email in 9 months… you can probably just suppress his email.)

But having a sunset flow is a great asset. And the best way to build it is through testing.

So create a few “last chance” campaigns and send them to your unengaged prospects. Be relatable, but not creepy.

You’ll see a lot of “We’ve missed you,” “Come back for X% off,” and “Is this it?” type emails in this category.

And while there’s nothing wrong with these emails, (they obviously work or they wouldn’t be so prevalent) I would also test out some more relatable approaches like:

• What could we do differently?
• How can we help?

Once you have a few emails that do really well, you can build out a flow and automate the process.

WARNING: If you are unsure about your deliverability, DON’T email your unengaged subscribers. Work on getting your deliverability improved and strengthening your sending reputation. THEN you can email SMALL portions of your unegaged list.

Whatever you do… DO NOT batch email 20K+ unegaged subscribers. Please.

Active

Let’s take segmentation one… step… further…

You’ve got two groups of subscribers that you really want to focus on. The first are the ones who engage with your emails.

The second are the ones who have been active on site.

This second group are going to be your hottest prospects.

So let’s create a special segment (or two) and send some specific emails to this audience.

Just like the engagement group, you can create an active segment on whatever ESP you are using as long as your website is integrated with your ESP. I’ve seen this work really well with Klaviyo and Active Campaign, but I know you can use it with other ESPs as well.

And just like my engaged segments, I typically create two active segments.

14 day active and 30 day active.

I’ll be completely honest… I don’t do much with the 30 day active. It’s more of a running data segment that shows me how many of my email subs are active on site.

But the 14 day active segment… that’s a money maker.

Now, if you have a browse abandon flow, you’re already doing some of this work. That browse abandon flow is firing anytime someone lands on your site, views a product, but then bounces. And it’s great for about 48 hours.

But most browse abandon flows that I’ve seen stop after 2 days.

Why wouldn’t you continue to retarget these subscribers? 

Think browse abandon, but for 7 days. Not two.

The best part, as you test different emails (discounts, product benefits, featured products, customer reviews, etc.) you can identify the ones that work really well and then build out a bigger, better browse abandon flow.

Re-Targeting

Ok… I can’t help myself. I’m going to nerd out for a second and get a little too granular with segmentation. You can stop reading now if you just rolled your eyes.

Retargeting is something most often attributed to ads. We’ve all experienced it.

You’ve viewed a product and then for the next 2 days you see that product on every single website you visit. It pops up on your Instagram feed and your Facebook scroll.

If we do this with ads, why wouldn’t we do it with emails?

This is as granular as I’ll get in today’s post, but I think it’ll be valuable.

Go in and create your active segment(s). And then clone those segments to focus only on specific products that someone’s viewed.

Look at your entry products or your best sellers.

Then develop campaigns specific for those products.

So now when someone checks out product X but doesn’t purchase… not only do they get targeted ads, but they also see the same product pop up in their inbox.

I would make sure that smart sending is turned on for these emails so that people don’t get bombarded if they check out multiple products and find themselves in multiple segments.

I would also start with just one (or maybe two) products to test this out with.

Over time you can build out more segments, more campaigns, and eventually automate the process.

You can even focus only on prospects as you try to get that first sale, or you could look to cross-sell upsell.

Data is your only limitation. The more data you have, the more you can do.

OK… nerd rant over.

Summary

Engaged

• Who’s opening and clicking
• 30 day vs. 90 day

Re-Engaging

• What do you do with those not on the 90 day engaged list?
• Win-back and sunset

Active

• Who’s on-site looking?
• 14 day vs 30 day
• Get em’ while they’re hot prospects

Re-Targeting

• We do it with ads, do it with email
• To discount or not to discount?
• How often?

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