Jeanne Jennings from ClickZ has some excellent tips on segmenting your email list (Really Simple E-mail Segmentation). For example:
- Segment by most recent subscribers
- Segment by “inactive” subscribers
- Segment by people who opened, but did not click.
Segmentation sounds like it could be a little complicated, so it’s understandable why some people avoid doing it. But they’re really missing out. We recently ran a study (See: Effects of List Segmentation) on how segmentation can help your email marketing, and found that overall, it can improve your open and click rates by over 14%.
Also, MailChimp makes segmentation super easy. We thought we’d put together 3 quick videos that show our customers how they can do what Jeanne Jennings recommends…
Video #1: Segment on most recent subscribers
Video #2: Inactive members of your list
Video #3: People who opened, but did not click a recent campaign
[...] your email campaigns so that they only go to the “active” members on your list? Here’s how to do that in MailChimp. Spread the monkey [...]
Nice site and cool looking tool. FYI you have many broken links on your site. For example “Mobile Friendly” on the Features page. The videos on the segmentation page don’t work either. Looks like Flash is biting your butt.
I’ve found when segmenting lists that the subscriber count doesn’t work most of the time. You select the parameters and a lot of the time is just goes to zero rather than the right number of subscribers.
Is there a fix for this soon or is there some sort of sensitive order of doing this so the back end works as it should.
Hi Mark, there haven’t been any other similar reports of problems that I’m aware of. Could it be that your segmentation criteria is actually resulting in zero? I’d screenshot the segment you’re trying to create, then send it to help -at- mailchimp -dot- com.
[...] http://blog.mailchimp.com/3-quick-email-list-segmentation-examples/ [...]
Can we perform list segmentation through API? We are using API to send campaigns and we need to send these campaigns to some users based on subscription date.
Pramod, I believe you can do segmentation via API. Documentation can be found at: http://blog.mailchimp.com/api/rtfm/
Thanks Ben.
I went thru API and wrote some code but But I’m getting an error “Server
returned a fault exception: [506] op=”is” is invalid for field=”Email
Address”…… “. I’m not sure about “op” parameter in below code
segment_opts.conditions[0].op = “is”;
MCSegmentOpts segment_opts = new MCSegmentOpts();
segment_opts.match = “any”;
segment_opts.conditions = new MCSegmentCond[2];
segment_opts.conditions[0].op = “is”;
segment_opts.conditions[0].field = “Email Address”;
segment_opts.conditions[0].value = “a…@asb.com”;
int segmentResult = api.campaignSegmentTest(“1234567″,
segment_opts);
I’m trying to figure out how to have some criteria be and OR and others be an AND. Any way to do this?
I have a list segment problem, hoping there’s an answer…
I’m creating a monthly newsletter for my list of subscribers, and want to do 2 versions of the same newsletter – the only difference being one will promote a prize giveaway that is only relevant (can only be used by) subscribers who live in the Hunter Region area of NSW [Australia].
So your geo-targeting list segment tool makes it nice and easy for me to section off my Hunter Region subscribers, but…
Then I want to send the same newsletter (minus the location-specific prize giveaway) to EVERYONE ELSE on my subscriber list – and everyone else is scattered all over Australia.
Please, please, please tell me there’s some handy way you can go “send newsletter to this segment” and then “send slightly different newsletter” to “everyone else in the list”…..?
Hi Carlee, we’ll be adding “IF NOT within this geo” as a segment option sometime soon. Meantime, you’d need to manually generate two lists based on the segment criteria, and then send 2 separate campaigns.
Hmm, would that “sometime soon” be in the next 24hrs, maybe? (ha-ha).
But thanks for the quick response. It will help me work out my best option for the meantime.
I’ve just discovered something I thought I should bring your attention to.
Today I got to work on manually generating 2 new lists. But I realised I have 466 people in my list who don’t have post codes linked to them.
The thing is, I have all their post codes. Those 466 were my first subscribers and I used Presto for newsletters back then. So when I uploaded everyone to MailChimp, I entered them as first name and email address only. (stupid, in retrospect)
But anyway, I thought I should bite the bullet and add ALL of everyone’s details – solve my problem once and for all. However… I’ve just discovered your geo location tool is quite a bit off the mark. At least for Australia, anyway.
One subscriber, who is from Thornton NSW, 2322 is appearing in your system as (bizarrely):
Location: Bridgewater Quest Inn, Aus
Timezone: Australia/Brisbane
Brisbane is in the state of QLD, which borders with the state of NSW – but it’s a helluva long way away.
The other subscriber is from Warners Bay NSW, 2282. But is appearing in your system as:
Location: Canberra International Airport
Timezone: Australia/Sydney
The time zone is correct in this case. But Canberra is about 350km away from Warners Bay.
Just to make note: there’s also no possible mistake with their post codes because I also collected actual suburb names originally + I happen to know who these 2 people are, and they both definitely reside where my pre-MailChimp data says they do.
Thanks Carlee, you’re right — geo location via IP address is a rough approximation, and is nowhere close to being as accurate as postal/ZIP code targeting. That’s something that we cover in our geolocation blog post here. Tracking via IP address usually tells you the person’s ISP, which is sometimes in a neighboring city or state.
No, no… what I meant was those weird locations only appeared (linked to the subscribers) after I entered their post codes.
In the 2 cases I mentioned, the subscribers don’t even have an IP address because I entered them myself (they originally signed up for my newsletter when I was using Presto).
Actually, I should say, they DO have an IP address but it’s not their own. It’s mine.
Both say – “IP Address: 125.255.41.167 (You added this member)”.
Hmm, have you sent a campaign to them? Geolocation will start to appear for recipients as they open emails, click, etc. Otherwise, I’m probably the worst person to get help from. I’m basically the pretty face around here. Talking head who draws monkeys. The folks on our support team can help you waaaaay better if this continues to be a problem for you.
Is there a way to make a compound segment? For example, I want to send a campaign to everyone who attended X workshop on Y date and I also want it to come to me, even though I wasn’t at the workshop. So ideally it would look like “All of these criteria” OR “this criteria too.” Am I able to do this or do I have to create 2 campaigns to make it happen?
Thanks so much!
Hi Jess, not currently inside our web app. We try to keep the number, and complexity, of segmentation queries to a minimum inside the web app (b/c there are so many users with so many lists on the system). But we’re launching an Adobe AIR app shortly (early July 2010) that allows you to run all kinds of powerful queries, with unlimited criteria, on your desktop. After running the query there, it’ll allow you to sync it back up to MailChimp for delivery. Until then, the answer is yes — you’ll need to do 2 separate campaigns.
So very helpful. Many thanks!
I can apply a segment (condition) no problem, but there is no way to select that entire segment.
If you click view segment, it applies the condition. But will not select the entire segment.
I can click “select visible” but my max is 100 rows in the dropdown.
I have 3,000 plus users I need to move to a new list.
How can I select an entire segment so that I can move or copy them to a new list?
Is download segment and reupload that csv to a new list my only option?
Yeah, that’s a problem with pagination. Instead of clicking, “select visible” click on “select all.”
Ben, unfortunately there is no “select all” once you click “segment list”
http://www.myvideosnapshots.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/mailchimp_selectall.png
Here is a screenshot when you view the full list.
http://www.myvideosnapshots.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/mailchimp_segment_noselectall.png
Once you add a condition – the “select all” disappears.
Am I doing something wrong? ps I’m running Firefox 3.6.x
This is *extremely* helpful. Thanks. We’ll look into why it’s hiding the option like that.
Hi Ben,
Is there a way to segment a list based on if the subscriber has clicked (or not) on a specific link within an email? I’d like to send a followup to those on my list who showed interest in a new product and clicked on a “read more” type of link to a URL.
For now, the only way to do that is to grab the “who clicked” data from “subscriber activity” in your campaign reports. Then, download those people and create a new list in MailChimp.
How we can save first name and last name in a segment along with the email address?
Hi Ben,
Any news about the “Select All” disapearing when we browse segments ?
I have a major update to do and doing it might be very painfull if i dont have this feature.
Please help
I’ve FWD’d your comment to our support team to have a look at your account.
Seb, I’ve found a bandaid/temporary fix. Tech support is telling me that select all is not available at this time. I believe it is because they cannot handle the bandwith it would create. As you and I are both on a pinch for a deadline, I’ll explain via email.
emailme
{my username} at
myvideosnapshots.com
Hi,
I’m a newbie, I can see the segmentation headings that you can choose from, is there a way to create your own headings?
Hmm, not sure I follow you. I think you might want to customize the labels for your merge tags, so that they’re not “merge1,merge2,merge3…” ? If that’s what you mean, then yes — it’s under the list’s settings area. If that’s not what you meant, contact our support team. They’ll take good care of you.