Ecommerce Email Marketing Segmentation That Actually Works

Segment Name

Segment Definition

Segment Use Case

90 Day Engaged List

(You can use any time frame, 90 is recommended to start)

Someone can receive email marketing because person is subscribed
AND

Someone has Opened Email at least once in the last 90 days
OR 

Someone has been Active on Site at least once in the last 90 days
OR 

Someone has Placed An Order at least once in the last 90 days

This is your base segment for sending all your email campaigns to.

We want to only send emails to our active subscribers so we keep high open rates and click rates.

If we send to unengaged people they will hurt our engagement rates, Google will notice, and we will land more often in the spam folder.

High-Potential Purchasers

Someone can receive email marketing because person is subscribed
AND

Someone has placed order 0 times in the past 30 days
AND

Someone has been active on site at least once in the past 30 days

For sending 1x-2x extra emails per month (on top of engaged list sends)

This list is a set of people who have been active on your site and have made it somewhere in the funnel but haven't made a purchase.

You can send them more emails to try to get them over the edge and increase your sales.

Winback Potential Customers

(Time frames will vary based on your store and how soon people typically come back)

Someone can receive email marketing because person is subscribed
AND

Someone has placed order at least once in the past 150 days
AND

Someone has placed order zero times in the last 90 days

For sending 1x extra email per month (on top of engaged list sends) OR triggering into a Winback email flow.

This list is exclusive to people who have bought a certain period of time ago but haven't purchased recently.

The amount of time is going to vary based on the store and the average buying period in between purchases.

For this group you will want a few flow emails to fire when they enter the segment encouraging them to come back and make another purchase. It may be a good idea to send them a discount as well.

VIP Customers

(This will again vary on store, use your gut on what counts as a VIP customer)

Someone can receive email marketing because person is subscribed
AND

Someone has placed order at least 4 times over all time

For sending 1x extra emails per month (on top of engaged list sends) AND/OR triggering into an email flow

This segment is pretty self explanatory.

These are your customers who are fans of your brand and keep coming back.

You can choose to make your VIP list either on their total number or purchases with you or total amount spent at your store.

I prefer total number of purchases because you can predict it a little better and send emails to people every purchase letting them know how many purchases they are away from the VIP list.

It's a good idea to have a simple VIP email flow to anybody who joins this segment thanking them, giving some exclusive content, and giving a generous offer.

On top of this, it may be smart to send a VIP email once a quarter with an exclusive deal or offer.

Interested in X Product / Category

(You can replace "category" in this segment with "product" if you choose)

Someone can receive email marketing because person is subscribed
AND

Someone has viewed item where category is [category] at least once over all time.
OR

Someone has added item to cart where category is [category] at least once over all time.
OR

Someone has started checkout with item where collection is [collection] at least once over all time.
OR 

Someone has placed order with item where collection is [collection] at least once over all time.

This is a list of people who have had any interest in a specific product / category in your store that you set.

This list can be great to send targeted sales, announcements, or releases related to the item(s) you have.

You can do this for both products or specific categories, you just have to customize the filter on the segment definition to choose either "product" or "category".

Suppress List

Someone can receive email marketing because person is subscribed
AND

Someone has received email at least 5 times over all time
AND

Someone has opened email zero times in the last 365 days
OR

Someone has bounced email at least 3 times over all time
OR

Someone has marked email as spam at least once over all time

For not sending ANY emails to

This is an email segment of people that aren't engaging with your emails and / or are high risk email profiles that don't deserve to be sent emails.

You should be looking at this once a month and suppressing these profiles to save money on your Klaviyo bill, which will charge based on your email profiles.