Segmenting my contact list

Before you start

Requirements

Make sure your contact list has already been imported into E-goi. If not, import it using an Excel or CSV file, including as much information as possible for future segmentation.
Familiarize yourself with the interface and location of menus in E-goi. You will mainly work with the "Contacts" menu.

Costs

Standard and advanced multi-criteria segmentation is available on any E-goi account.

AI-powered segmentation is available for Pro and Corporate plans.

Templates

To help you slice-and-dice your audience in no time, E-goi provides a set of quickstart templates for multiple scenarios.

1) Go to the Contacts menu and click Contacts for the list you'll be segmenting.

2) In the left-hand panel, under Segment templates, click the "+" icon to create a new segment.

3) In the window that appears, choose the template that best fits how you'll segment the list.

4) Once you choose your template, you'll see a preview of its criteria. You can now change the segment name if necessary. Click Save to proceed.

5) The segment will be created and will be available in the left-hand panel under My segments, ready to use. If you click on it, the page will show all contacts matching it. You can also change the segmentation criteria if necessary.

Available templates

Ecommerce
Important: To use ecommerce-driven segments, you need to sync your shop with E-goi.
- VIP High Spenders: Your contacts with the highest total spending or high average order amount.
- Premium Carts: Abandoned high-value carts.
- Non-buying Visitors: They often browse your site but haven't bought anything yet.
- Loyal Customers: Frequent and recurring buyers.
- Occasional Buyers: People who purchase once in a blue moon. Perfect for win-back campaigns.
Engagement
- Mobile Users: Mobile-based email opens.
- High Intent: Engaged people (nice click and open rates), but who haven't purchased yet.
- Apple Mail Users: People opening your emails from Apple devices.
- Recent Replies: Replied to emails you sent them via E-goi in the last 7 days.
- No Mobile Push: People using your mobile app but who haven't enabled its push notifications.
- SmartSMS Inactive: People who haven't interacted with your SmartSMS messages in a long while.
- WhatsApp Lovers: High WhatsApp-driven engagement.
Opportunities
- Premium Lookalike: Your best customers. Handy to find similar audiences in your list.
- This Month’s Birthdays: People with a birthday this month. Ideal for special offers.
- Active Multichannel: People you have in E-goi with 3 or more communication channels enabled.
Source
- Imported List: Contacts added via manual file import.
- Social Media Source: Contacts you acquired via social media campaigns.
- Hot Leads: Leads with strong, organic purchase intent.
Quality
- No Phone Number: Recent contacts without a mobile or phone number.
- Email Bounce Risk: Email addresses with a history of delivery issues.

Step-by-step

Basic segmentation

1) If you haven't done so already, import your contact database into E-goi (you can't obviously segment an empty list ;). Make sure your Excel or CSV file includes as much information as possible on your contacts, sorted into different columns (email, name, mobile, city, etc.). This will make segmenting much easier later.

2) Once the import is finished, go to the "Contacts" menu, head to the mailing list you want to segment and click on the "Contacts" button.

3) A page listing all contacts in that list will come up. Segments in E-goi are basically stored searches - you just search for something, get the matching results and save them as a segment. So, for example, to set aside all your contacts using Hotmail, just go to "What do you want to search for?", click where it says «All fields», select «E-mail» (to narrow the filter down to email addresses), type in "@hotmail" and hit «Apply». After a few seconds, the contact listing will display only those with Hotmail addresses (glancing at the lower right corner of the listing will tell you how many they are). Now simply click "Save as" (upper right corner), enter a name for this segment and save it. Done! To go back to the full contact listing again, just click "Reset search".

4) Your segment is now saved. How can you put it to use? Simple, when you're about to send out your mailing, just make sure to change the "Segment" option in the deployment page from "No segment" to the one you created. The subscriber counter at the top of the page will reflect this change and your mailing will go out to the segment you selected instead of the whole list.

5) Segments in E-goi are dynamic, so any new sign-ups or imported/updated contacts matching the segment you created will automatically become part of the segment.

Segment contacts by city

1) If the database you imported into E-goi has a "city" field and you mapped it to an E-goi field with the same name, just go to the segmentation window, click on "All fields", head down to "Extra fields" and select "City". Then simply type in your desired city name, click "Apply" and save your segment.

2) You can do this for every city you want to create a segment for. Great for deal-of-the-day sites, which are often based on the subscribers' location!

3) This segmentation method also works for any other field you create in your E-goi list.

Reward your biggest fans

In addition to fields, E-goi allows you to segment by stats as well! This is a terrific way to reward people who click through and share your mailings.

1) Just go to "What do you want to search for?", click on "All fields", head down to "Statistics", select "Clickthroughs", choose "greater or equal than", type in "1" and keep "all campaigns" selected. Then hit "Apply".

2) This will have E-goi fetch all contacts who clicked through any of your mailings once or more. Want to add those who shared them on Facebook as well? No problem, just hit "Add another condition" right next to the criteria you set for referrals and a second criteria line will come up. Click "All fields", head down to "Statistics", select "Social shares", choose "greater or equal than", type in "1", select "Facebook" and leave "all campaigns" selected. Make sure you change "And" to "Or" and then hit "Apply".

3) E-goi will now go and get those contacts who either clicked through or shared your mailings. Simply save that segment and use it later on to send these people a special gift celebrating their awesomeness!

Segment contacs who didn't open any email

The more unresponsive people you have in your mailing list, the more your deliverability is hampered, so it's always a good idea to section these contacts off after you mail them a few times.

1) Just go to "What do you want to search for?", click on "All fields", head down to "Statistics", select "Email opens", choose "equal", type in "0" and keep "all campaigns" selected. Then hit "Apply".

2) E-goi will pull up all contacts who didn't open any of your emails. Save this segment and use it to send these people a win-back campaign! Those who still remain unresponsive can then be removed from your list to keep it squeaky-clean.

Send an SMS to contacts who didn't open your email

If the database you imported into E-goi includes the contacts' mobile numbers in addition to their email addresses, you can have E-goi send an SMS just to those people who don't open your email.

1) Send your email campaign and wait 24 hours. Then go to "What do you want to search for?", click on "All fields", head down to "Statistics", select "Email opens", choose "equal", type in "0" and pick the campaign you sent. Then hit "Apply".

2) E-goi will display all contacts who didn't open that specific email. Save this segment and use it to text them a 160-character version of your email. They'll be much more likely to read it and you'll save on your SMS costs (no need to text your whole list)!

Encourage buys from contacts who left products in their cart

1) If you've got an online shop, E-goi's Track & Engage can pinpoint who left their cart with unpurchased items so you can win these people back with, say, a discount offer. You may even single out abandoned carts over a specific amount only!

Tagging contacts

Tags are the easiest way to quickly slice and dice your contact list in E-goi. Need to single out a high-value customer? Just tag it with, say, "VIP"! Want to mail an exclusive deal to a handful of contacts in your list? Tag them with the promotion title and off you go! It's that simple. See our tagging how-to.

Viewing previous versions of a segment

It may sometimes come in handy to go back and take a look at the criteria a segment had on certain date, especially when dealing with complex multi-criteria segments.

1) Head over to the Contacts menu and click on Contacts for the list you created the segment in.

2) Click the segment you created. Once it loads, hit the Versions button.

3) You'll see the criteria for this segment (ie, how it's currently segmenting contacts). To see the criteria it had in the past, click on Versions and choose a date. The old criteria will be shown.

4) If you'd also like the current segment to revert back to the criteria it had on that date, click Go to this version.

Important! If your current segment jumps back to a previous version which had different criteria, the number of contacts it contains will likely change.

Creating AI-powered segments

Beta feature! As we're currently trialing AI segments, it might not yet be available in your account. If you're interested in giving it a whirl, drop us a line via your E-goi account's Help widget.

E-goi's AI can help you create highly targeted segments for your contact list. It'll look at your list and suggest relevant segments.

1) Head over to the Contacts menu and click on Contacts for the list you'll be creating segments in.

2) Under the segment area (left-hand panel), click Generate segment with Assistant.

3) A window will pop up. Under Goal type what you want the segment to be (eg. "customers who clicked through my latest 3 email sends") and hit Generate suggestion.

4) After a couple seconds, the Assistant will suggest a segment for your goal. Under This is how the segment will be, you'll see its criteria. If all seems good, click Save segment.

Important! When suggesting the segment, E-goi's AI will look at a random sample of data from your contact list.

5) You'll see your saved segment under the segment area marked with an AI icon.

They'll behave just like a standard segment. Click on one of them to view any contacts matching it plus the segment's criteria. You can also edit it as you would any segment.

Viewing segment revenue

Important: To use this feature, you need to sync your online or offline shop with E-goi.

In addition to E-goi's performance dashboards, your segments can also help you track how much money your marketing strategy brings in.

For each segment you create, E-goi will show the total revenue generated by all purchases of any contacts in it.

Example: You created a "Monthly Promo Customers" segment containing shoppers who bought from you at the promo you run every month. The segment will display the total revenue from those people and will be updated every time a shopper in it makes a purchase.

How it works

Revenue for each segment is the sum of the amount of all purchases made by contacts in that segment. The amount is recalculated whenever the segment is regenerated or whenever you use it E-goi (eg. in a campaign or automation).

Viewing segment revenue

1) Click the Contacts menu and then Options in the contact list where you've already created the segment.

2) In the left-hand panel, click Segments. On the right you'll see all segments in that contact list.

3) For each segments the Revenue column shows you total revenue and when this was last updated (if the segment contains no purchases synced with E-goi yet, it'll be shown as zero).

Frequently Asked Questions

My segment doesn't return any contacts

The segment is empty

A segment may become empty when the criteria and conditions you set are too limiting or when your contacts don't meet all criteria simultaneously.

A few common scenarios:

Incorrect use of the AND or OR operators when creating the segment
Contacts with no data in the fields you choose for the segment
Segment conditions which go against each other

The segment is being generated or updated

Although most segments are shown in real time, some of the more complex ones may take some time to display contacts. If that happens, E-goi will ask you whether you'd like to wait or if you'd rather keep using E-goi while the segment generates in the background (you'll be notified when it's ready).

How do I know the ID of a segment?

If you're using our API, you may need to get a segment ID. Just head over to the "Contacts" menu, hit "Options" of the list containing the segment and then click "Segments".

Can I apply multiple conditions when creating a segment?

Yes, you can add multiple conditions/filters when creating a segment to further refine your target audience.

Are segments automatically updated when new contacts are added?

Yes, any new contact that meets the segment's criteria will be automatically included in it.

Can I send campaigns specifically to tags?

Yes, when sending out a campaign, you can choose to send it to contacts with specific tags.

Why do I sometimes get no results when creating segments based on empty fields?

Segments using empty fields combined with certain operators may return you no contacts, even if the segmentation criteria seems logical to you.

Example: If you create a segment using "ID" and "does not contain" and leave the field empty (meaning "give me all contacts with a non-empty ID"), you'll get zero contacts. This is because the segmentation can't figure out whether the field is filled in or not.

Recommendations for creating segments based on empty fields

The operators contains, does not contain, starts with and ends with behave as follows when used with empty values:
- Contains + empty value: behaves like "is equal to empty"
- Does not contain + empty value: behaves like "is different from empty"
- Starts with + empty value: behaves like "is equal to empty"
- Does not start with + empty value: behaves like "is different from empty"
- Ends with + empty value: behaves like "is equal to empty"
- Does not end with + empty value: behaves like "is different from empty"

When you need to segment based on whether a field is filled or not, use the criteria "is equal to + empty" or "is different from + empty". These are are clearer and help avoid unexpected results.

Segments using the "between dates" operator with empty dates won't any contacts at all. Always enter a specific date.

The more simple and straightforward your criteria are, the more reliable your segment will be.