You can create targeted audience segments based on specific criteria such as engagement behavior, demographics, or purchase history to send more relevant email campaigns. This segmentation capability enables marketing teams to deliver personalized messaging that can substantially improve engagement rates and campaign effectiveness compared to broadcasting the same content to their entire contact database.
The Legacy Segment Builder organizes contacts into groups using rule-based criteria. When properly configured, segments can significantly improve email marketing ROI by focusing your efforts on contacts most likely to engage with specific types of content or offers.
Marketing Cloud enables you to group contacts and build segments using the Legacy Segment Builder based on defined criteria, which you can then use to send personalized campaigns. To learn more about the rules and conditions available for creating a segment, view our Segment Rules in Legacy Segment Builder article.
Creating a New Segment
To create a new segment, perform the following steps:
- From your Marketing Cloud account, go to CDP and select Segments. On the Email Segments page, click New Segment.
- On the Create New Segment page, select Legacy Segment Builder.
- On the New Segment page, enter a name in the Segment Name field. Choose the basis of segmentation and select one of the following contact matching options to define how rules are applied across the segment:
Select Contacts Who Match All Rules Described Below: Rules are connected by an AND operator, meaning contacts must satisfy every rule to be included. For example, a segment using "Clicked" AND "Location" is Toronto will return only contacts who meet both conditions.
Select Contacts Who Match One or More of the Rules Described Below: Rules are connected by an OR operator, meaning contacts must satisfy at least one rule to be included. For example, a segment using Clicked OR Location is Toronto will return contacts who meet either or both conditions.
Include All Active Contacts: This option includes all contacts registered in Marketing Cloud, regardless of list subscription status. It will still exclude contacts present in the Do Not Mail (DNM) list or those who have hard-bounced. Select this option when you are using a process other than list subscriptions to define active contacts.
Note:The "Total Filter Count" indicator shows the number of filters currently applied to the segment. Keep the total number of filters limited to 100 to maintain optimal segment performance and efficiency. - Click Add New Rule to begin building your segment. You must add at least one rule, but you can add as many rules as your criteria require. A rule contains at least one set of criteria. To add more criteria within a rule, click Add Criteria. By default, criteria within a rule follow OR operator behavior, meaning contacts who satisfy any one of the criteria are included. Select the Match all criteria checkbox to switch the behavior to AND operator logic, where only contacts who satisfy all criteria within the rule are included.
- Click Save Segment to complete the segment creation process.