Segmentation is the practice of grouping your contacts based on shared traits such as location, age, interests, purchase history, or email behavior. Since every contact is different, a one-size-fits-all approach rarely works. By identifying common characteristics, you can organize your audience into meaningful groups and tailor your marketing strategy accordingly.
The core goal of segmentation is to send the right message to the right person. Instead of blasting the same email to your entire contact list, you can deliver content that is relevant to each group, making your campaigns more engaging and your audience more likely to act, which in turn helps drive online sales over time.
While setting up segments can take some effort, the payoff is well worth it. When done right, segmentation can noticeably improve engagement, reduce unsubscribes, and help you hit your marketing targets more effectively. Marketing Cloud makes this process easier by offering a straightforward set of tools to create, manage, and use segments without added complexity.
Managing Segments
The Email Segments Index page is a place where you can view and manage all the previously created segments. The Index page is designed to allow you to easily create, edit, duplicate, delete, and sort various types of segments with ease.
First, to access this feature, navigate to CDP and select the Segments option.
The segments are displayed with the following information:
- Name: Displays the name of the created segment. For more information on segment creation, read our Creating Segments with Next-Gen Segment Builder article.
- Builder: Displays whether you have used a "Legacy" or a "Next Generation Builder" to create your segments.
- Contacts: Displays the number of contacts grouped to build a segment.
- Created and Updated At: Displays the date and time the segment was created and modified.
- Actions: This enables you to export, edit, archive, delete, refresh, and create duplicate segments, respectively.
Viewing Segment details and Ruleset
To see a detailed overview of the segment, click on the segment name. This section displays information such as the segment name, as well as the date and time at which the segment was created and modified. You can also view the number of contacts that are grouped together to create the segment. Additional options, such as refresh contact count, delete, and export options, are also available.
At the bottom part of the detailed page, there is the ruleset criteria used to determine the contact grouping. The ruleset layout is not only made up of a simple and clean UI, but the rules are also arranged in a flowchart-type linear format, which makes the overall flow easy to understand.
If you want to modify the rules or segment details, you can make the changes directly from the view section by clicking on the edit icon. To learn more about the criteria that define a segment, read our Segment Rules (Next-Gen) article.
Using Segments and Refreshing Contact Count
The main use of segments occurs when you are creating email campaigns and journeys for specific audiences.
Segments are also used for dynamic content, where different blocks of content appear in your contacts' emails depending on the segment to which they belong.
Segments are dynamic in nature, pulling up-to-date contacts depending on the selected criteria when refreshed. You can click on the refresh button manually, either from the index page or from their overview section.
However, the segments get automatically refreshed whenever they're being used. For example:
- If used in email campaigns, the segment is refreshed when the emails are sent.
- If used in journeys, the segment is refreshed when the contact passes through the segment.
- The segment is also refreshed when exporting the segments.
Archiving and Exporting Segments
You can view a list of segments currently not in use from the Archive section.
This section is useful if you want to recheck some legacy or redundant segments that you may plan to modify and utilize in the future, depending on your marketing strategies.
Besides archiving, you can also export your segments by clicking on the Export option from the Actions column.
Select the fields from the segment that you wish to export. Opt for the MD5 Hash functionality to securely receive files from your Marketing Cloud account in your mailbox.
