Email Segmentation: Comprehensive Guide to Boost Engagement and ROI

TL;DR: Email segmentation is the secret to making your email marketing more relevant, targeted, and effective.

This guide covers what segmentation is, how it differs from personalization, and step-by-step strategies to implement it like a pro.

 

Have you ever ignored a marketing email because it wasn’t relevant? You are not alone. Tons of emails never get opened because they simply don’t apply to recipients’ needs and interests.

But how can you achieve this personalization at scale? The answer is email segmentation.

In this article, we’ll explore email segmentation and discover best practices to personalize your emails in bulk. Get ready to boost your conversions!

What is email segmentation?

Email segmentation is a marketing technique of dividing subscribers into groups based on specific characteristics. This practice lets you adjust messages to particular audiences and so reach out with emails that better align with recipients’ interests, geography, needs, etc.

Email segmentation can be based not only on basic demographics but also on behavior factors, purchase history, and other shared criteria by which email subscribers can be combined into groups to target.

Email segmentation vs. personalization: what’s the difference?

Email segmentation and personalization are closely related but serve different purposes. Using segmentation, you group your target audience based on shared characteristics, while personalization is about tailoring email content to specific groups or individuals.

For example, as a B2B consulting agency targeting small businesses, you can use segmentation to group your email list by industry (healthcare, retail, tech, etc.). Then, personalization lets you tailor content to each group by sharing case studies or solutions relevant to their industry.

📌 Key takeaway Both techniques work together to ensure the relevance of your emails. Segmentation helps you reach the right audience, while personalization makes your outreach more appealing. This combination lets you boost engagement and drive more conversions via emails.

Benefits of email segmentation

With email segmentation, you can adjust your content to your target audience and make your emails more relevant and meaningful. This, in turn, will help you boost the overall effectiveness of your email marketing efforts. 

Here are all the benefits email segmentation brings to the table:

• Better campaign performance

When you tailor campaign elements to specific groups—from timing to CTA—you increase the chances people will open your email, engage with the content, and take action. Email segmentation ensures better campaign results, including open rates, clicks, and, above all, conversions. 

• Improved deliverability

Segmentation ensures your content stays relevant, increasing engagement and reducing bounce rates. It helps you avoid spam filters, maintain a healthy sender reputation, and improve overall email deliverability.

• Targeted promotions

As mentioned above, email segmentation helps you tailor promotions to different audiences based on their interests, job roles, etc. This targeted approach drives more revenue to your business by making offers feel more exclusive.

• Higher subscriber retention

By implementing segmentation, you can send emails based on where subscribers are in their customer journey. This way, you nurture customers and provide content that perfectly fits their needs, helping you build loyalty and move them toward conversion.

📌 Key takeaway Rather than wasting resources on broad campaigns, segmentation allows you to target customers with customized messages that spark their interest. This helps boost ROI and drive more conversions, making your email marketing campaigns cost-effective and impactful.

Practical strategies for email segmentation

There are many ways to segment the email list, so you need to choose the right criteria first. For example, you can divide subscribers by location, demographics, behavior, purchase history, etc. 

Choosing how you segment your email list depends on your audience and marketing objectives. So, let’s review practical email segmentation strategies to help you select the best option for your goals.

Here are the top email segmentation strategies:

1. Geography
2. Demographics
3. Behavior
4. Customer personas
5. Company type
6. Customer journey
7. Purchase history

Geography

Segmenting email lists by geography means dividing your audience based on location-related criteria, such as country, city, time zone, or language. This email segmentation option suits businesses with region-specific offers or time-sensitive campaigns.

For example, you can set up segmented email campaigns and customize content around local holidays or promote location-specific offers, ensuring your emails stay highly relevant.

Demographics

This strategy involves creating email segments based on demographic data, like gender, age, income level, job title, education, etc. Using this method, you ensure your email content is relevant to different segments.

For instance, segmenting customers by income level lets you reach out with different pricing tiers or exclusive offers, making your proposal equally tempting for each segment.

Behavior

You need to know how your customers engage with your emails, website, or brand to segment customers based on this criterion. Segmentation by behavior ensures you address the specific needs of your clients by providing highly customized copy.

This approach will also help you increase conversions and re-engage inactive subscribers with personalized follow-ups.

For example, this method is used in the case of abandoned carts to target customers who haven’t finished the purchase. Such emails often include an extra discount to push them toward completing a purchase.

💡 Expert tip Implement multichannel outreach to double your sales Convert your customers even faster using several channels for your outreach. For example, in Snov.io, you can combine emails and LinkedIn actions to make your campaigns twice more effective. Create personalized email sequences and add automated LinkedIn touches like profile views, post likes, connection requests, messages, and InMails to empower your marketing efforts. Snov.io LinkedIn outreach automation tool provides safe and secure operation due to smart delays between automated actions, cloud-based servers, and built-in proxies for each LinkedIn account.

Customer personas

Another effective email segmentation strategy is creating campaigns based on ideal customer profiles. These hypothetical descriptions represent various client types and their interests, occupations, pain points, etc. So, if you’ve already defined your customer profiles, we highly recommend using this information for more precise email marketing.  

Say your customer persona is a female, 29-37 years old, living in the United States, working in the tech industry, with interests including music, traveling, and yoga. If you are a travel agency, you can reach out with a compilation of upcoming yoga tours in the customers‘ region.

Company type

Segmenting by company type ensures messages are relevant to different industries, company sizes, or job roles. This way of email list segmentation is beneficial for B2B businesses. Using this method, you can customize cold emails to address industry-specific pain points, increasing the chances of a positive response.

Segmenting your email list by company size lets you launch different outreach campaigns for startups, small businesses, and large enterprises. Thus, you can better showcase your product or service, describing how it covers the specific needs of each segment.

Customer journey

Segmenting based on where a subscriber is in their customer journey allows you to send timely, relevant messages at each sales funnel stage. For example, new leads may know little about your product, so you can reach out to them with introductory content or nurturing emails.

Prospects who have shown interest or engaged with your content might need demos, testimonials, or more information about the product at their consideration stage. Loyal customers can be distinguished into a separate segment for more personalized emails that offer special perks or referral programs.

Purchase history

This email marketing segmentation strategy allows you to create targeted email campaigns based on past purchases. Thus, you can drive new conversions, encouraging subscribers to repeat purchases with relevant recommendations.

For example, you can single out seasonal customers and email them reminders of upcoming seasonal sales. You can also reward frequent buyers with special discounts or early access to new deals to keep them engaged and coming back for more.

💡 Expert tip All email examples you’ve seen above are built using the Snov.io app. This means you can adjust your email content to different customer segments and send personalized emails in bulk with the help of: Variables that let you automatically add the data from your customer database. Spintax variables that allow you to create multiple unique emails by automatically randomizing words or phrases for better deliverability. Dynamic Content that helps quickly adjust your messaging based on the set conditions. Create effective email sequences in Snov.io and stand out in crowded boxes with highly personalized messages.

Implementing email segmentation: a step-by-step guide

Now that you know different email segmentation strategies, it’s time to use them in practice. Here is a guide on segmenting email lists to increase ROI, boost conversions, and build strong customer relationships.

How to segment your email list

Let’s walk through the key steps of effective email segmentation:

1. Define your goals
2. Choose your segmentation criteria
3. Collect and organize customer data
4. Set up your workflow
5. Create personalized emails

Let’s break down each stage.

Step 1: Define your goals

Think about your email marketing objectives: what do you want to achieve with segmentation? Are you trying to boost sales, re-engage inactive subscribers, or increase open rates? Your goals will determine how you approach segmentation.

For example, if you want to re-engage inactive customers, you should focus on engagement metrics to identify them. If you aim to drive repeat sales, you might segment your audience based on past transactions.

Step 2: Choose your segmentation criteria

Once your goals are set, it’s time to decide how to segment your list. You should select the criteria that align with your email marketing objectives and enable sending more relevant emails.

Analyze your data to find characteristics that set different groups apart. Consider how these insights can help you tailor your messaging. For example, you can notice that some customers make frequent small purchases while others buy less often but in larger amounts. Use this data to create segmented campaigns that match their buying habits.

Step 3: Collect and organize customer data

It’s time to gather all the necessary information to segment your audience. Analyze how your customers engage with your emails. Collect their purchase history and demographic data. The more data you have, the more accurate segments you can create.

I also recommend organizing all information in one place for a more overall view. Consider email marketing platforms with good data management options. 

For example, Snov.io cold email software provides an in-built CRM system that lets you keep all the customer data at your fingertips. Quickly upload your prospects’ profiles, easily filter them by necessary criteria, and create segmented campaigns directly in the app.

Step 4: Set up your workflow

Now that you have all the data collected, you can set up your workflow. Assign tags and labels to subscribers based on the segment. This will help you quickly filter the necessary groups to create targeted campaigns. 

You can also create automated sequences for some segments. For example, you can set a trigger to send automated welcome emails to new subscribers. Or you can automatically send emails to customers based on their actions (unopened email, abandoned cart, etc.). 

→ Check out the ultimate guide on how to send automated emails effectively

Step 5: Create personalized emails

Consider what types of emails each segment should receive. To make your emails truly impactful, you should create content that reflects the group’s needs, interests, or behavior.

Customize your emails with data like name, location, industry, subject of interest, etc., to convey a personal approach. Consider using different tones of voice for different segments.

You can also adjust your emails based on engagement level. For example, you can nurture users who frequently open your emails with enjoyable content. At the same time, consider a more compelling subject line or detailed product description for inactive subscribers.

Step 6: Test, measure, optimize

Once you’ve launched the first segmented email campaigns, start analyzing their performance. Track the metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and conversions. Regular campaign analysis allows you to refine the strategy and optimize email marketing efforts for better results. 

Test various approaches to see which strategy shows the highest results for specific subscriber segments. For example, you can experiment with subject lines, try different email frequencies, and more to identify what works best with your audience.

🔎 Did you know? Snov.io provides comprehensive built-in analytics on your email marketing campaigns. Get an overall view of your progress by tracking key engagement metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and reply rates. Intuitive interface and easy-to-use dashboards allow you to quickly create custom reports and focus on KPIs necessary for your goals. Measure your campaign performance in Snov.io and get valuable insights on improvement.

Your time to shine

When done strategically, segmentation can be a powerful tool to elevate your email marketing strategy. Grouping your subscribers by shared characteristics allows you to reach the right audiences with the right messages, boosting ROI and conversions.

It was the good news. The excellent news is that email segmentation can be a true game changer for your business with the right tool. And we at Snov.io are ready to accept this challenge with you! Segment your audience and personalize email sequences at scale with the Snov.io Cold Email tool.