Email Segmentation: 6 ways to increase ROI

November 28, 2022 Stan

Email segmentation is one of the most important building blocks of email marketing. If you are not sending to the right people, no one is going to open your email. Segmentation also helps with personalization and sending relevant information to your audience. Even If you are sending the wrong information to the right people, you are still not going to get conversions.

Mailchimp found that segmented campaigns received 14.31% more opens than non-segmented campaigns, 10.64% higher unique opens, 100.95% higher clicks, 4.65% lower bounces, 3.90% lower abuse reports, and 9.37% lower unsubscribes.There are many ways to slice and dice your email database, but we are going to focus on 6 ways to segment email marketing lists for maximum conversions.

1. Demographics

Demographic data helps us to deepen our knowledge of the target audience. Demographic data is information about groups of people according to certain attributes such as age, sex, and place of residence. You can collect this information from your audience by using contact us forms or surveys. Demographics also enable you to send messages that are relevant to a specific location in the world, when your audience is online and to the group that would be most interested in your products or services. By identifying and differentiating these people, you can better target them individually with your messages.

2. Geolocation

Geolocation refers to the geographical (latitudinal and longitudinal) location of an Internet-connected device. Geolocation is an estimate based on IP address data only. Geolocation data in email segmentation is used to discover the location of your subscribers. This information will help you to send localized subject lines, offers, products, etc. Get creative, send a custom-tailored newsletter to all your subscribers in a certain location, or send weather-based/season-based offers–the sky’s the limit.

3. Website Behavior

Actions do speak louder than words. Website pages/menus your users visit or CTAs they click on will tell you what your subscribers are interested in. These actions can be used to create email marketing automation programs – welcome nurtures, targeted product recommendations, or even remarketing campaigns based on past user behavior. With this type of behavioral segmentation, your emails become part of an ongoing conversation with your individual website visitors based on their relationship to your business.

4. Purchase History

Segmenting by past purchases is another simple way to optimize targeting and boost conversions for repeat customers. An example of this would be Amazon’s “if you viewed or purchased this in the past, you might like this.” That previous purchase gives you exactly what you need to send a segmented email encouraging another purchase. Look at your customers’ purchase history to see what type of products they’re interested in, and promote related products in your emails.

5. Survey Results

We have all taken a survey at some point in our lives–either for personal reasons or work requests. They are basically marketing tools used to collect information and opinions of customers. A segmentation survey is a survey that is specifically designed to help you to classify your customers or the market by segment. By posing a series of demographic, descriptive, attitudinal and behavioral questions to your customers, you will find out who they are, what they want and need and how they interact with your products and services. Using the collected survey data, you can customize products or services to the needs of distinct segments, expand the reach of marketing channels, and avoid unproductive marketing campaigns.

6. Email Activity

Behavioral segmentation is the process of sorting people into groups based on actions they take, in this case, their actions with your emails. Some trackable behaviors that can be used to define segments are visiting specific pages, submitting a form, clicking a link, and not engaging with your emails. You could also create 30-day engaged, 60-day engaged, and never-engaged lists based on how often a recipient opens your emails. That way, you can focus on your most engaged customers.

The six strategies above are just some of the many ways you can segment your email lists. Don’t just batch and blast to your audience, make sure you have a targeted approach and strategy to make the most of your data and your marketing automation tool. To learn more about email segmentation, you can visit our blog articles below:

Oracle Eloqua Segmentation
Audience Segmentation & Targeting: Listen – Don’t Ask
Advanced Ways to Run Segmentation
Audience Segmentation Strategies and Best Practices
eBook: A Marketing Geeks Guide to: Segmentation and Targeting

If you need help with your email segmentation strategy or Eloqua segment functionality, Relationship One is here to help. Contact us today to make sure you are sending the right message to the right people!