How to Create a Segment in EMM

Segments filter contacts based on criteria you specify, this helps send targeted email campaigns to appropriate contacts, such as those that will receive the most value from it. Providing relevant content to a focused group of contacts builds strong customer relationships.

• They are dynamic, as long as a recipient meets the criteria for the segment, they will automatically be added to that segment.
• If a recipient does not match the criteria for the segment, they will automatically be removed or not be included in the segment.
• Will only pull emails that have a Subscribed or Soft Bounce status. Any Hard Bounce or Unsubscribed statuses will not be included in the segment, even if they match the criteria.

Creating a New Segment

1. Select Lists and Segments on the left
2. Select Segments
3. Click New Segment button

Step 1 Define Segment

A. Choose a Filter Type

Select from dropdown list: Email Action, Form Submission, Contact Field, Segment/Mailing List, Workflow

• Contact Field: This pulls recipients based on contact fields usually created from the Accounting System. Filters contacts whose field matches a specified value.
  • Member Status
  • Age
  • Gender (either male or female)
  • Where they live
  • Balance 30 days overdue
• Email Action: Filters contacts who performed an action (open/click, reply, bounce) within an email campaign during a specific time period 
• Form Submission: Filters contacts who subscribed or updated their information in a form

Select Contact field, this is used most to build specific criteria in segments.

B. Using the Field:

Determine which field to build criteria with

1. Select More… if the field desired, does not appear in the dropdown 
2. Contact Fields pop up window displays the full list of fields alphabetically
3. Click check box beside field name to find contacts
   • If the field desired, is not appearing in the list, it will have to be added from your accounting system with these instructions to manage fields uploaded to email marketing
   • Notice the Data type column, depending on the field selected the condition options will vary in the next section
4. Click Select button

C. Contacts whose value:

Select the condition to find recipients.
Depending on the data type that is assigned to the field selected, the number if condition options in the drop down will vary.
Example: Memberstatus is set up with Text Data Type

• Text Data Type = 17 options
• Numeric = 12 options
• Date = 10 options
• True False = 2 options

The 4 commonly used conditions include: 

Contains: Will look for a partial match for the entry in the text box

• Use this to look for any value with a partial word or number
• Example: type word active, this will find any member with an active or inactive status because the word inactive contains the word active

Is: (most common) Will look for an exact match for the entry in the text box and is a precise filter search

• Use this to look for any value with a specific word or number
• Example: type word active, this will only find members with an active status, this is not case sensitive

Is one of: Will look for all the entries in the text box separated by a comma (as long as those values fall within the same Contact field)

• Example: type word active, spouse, dependent, this will find any members that have the status active, spouse or dependent

Is not: Will look for everything but the entry in the text box

• Example: type word active, this will find any members without an active status

D. Click to get an up-to-date count: 

As the conditions are being entered to build the segment, the number of contacts with a match can be recalculated

1. Click on the two arrows going in a circle to calculate number of contacts that match the conditions in the segment
2. Click View contacts in this segment to see the email, first name, last name and Email Status, reminder only those with a Subscribed or Soft bounce status will be included in the segment
3. To see more info about a contact, save segment and access Segment from Segments or Manage Contacts table

Add more filters to further refine the segment criteria (if applicable)

1. Press Add filter to create a new filter (or Remove filter to delete it)
2. Select AND or OR from the drop down (this drop down will be added when there is more than one filter in the segment, which will help better define the logic of the segment when using multiple filters). From the drop down, choose one of the following options:
   • Or: This option will look for recipients who match either filter
   • And: This option will look for recipients who match both filters
3. When there are multiple filters, you may choose to connect them with an AND or OR logic operator. Choosing AND will check to see if contacts match all of the filters created and OR will check to see if contacts match at least one filter
4. Repeat steps A through D above to set additional conditions and criteria

Ready to Save

When all the conditions are setup, click Next in the top or bottom right corner. 

• if you cannot see the Next button, use the vertical or horizontal scroll bars within the browser to find the button

Step 2 Describe and Save

1. Segment Name: Enter a name for the segment, this name is internal and not visible by contacts
2. Segment type:
   • Dynamic (recommended) should be defaulted, segment will update automatically
   • Static could be used to find contacts that match the condition on a given day and no longer has to be updated.
3. Description: (optional) Is an internal reference for administrator use  
4. Click Finish in the top or bottom right corner
   • if you cannot see the Finish button, use the vertical or horizontal scroll bars within the browser to find the button

TIP: Save as Segment feature

To create a simple segment by using search in columns, the Save as Segment feature can be found in the Manage Contacts table.

1. In left navigation select Contacts > Manage Contacts
2. Start by adding columns of information to search contacts.
   • On the right look for gear icon to show/hide column, this will display the Contact Fields window to select max 15 fields to be displayed at one time. 
3. Under the field type in search criteria
   • It can only search for one thing in each field though.
   • Not possible to separate search with comma Active, Spouse in the manage contacts table
4. Click Save As Segment button 
5. The segment is created, this usually uses the contains condition
   • Option to fine tune the segment where necessary 
6. Click Next to go to Describe and Save the segment