10 ways to use email segments in your eCommerce store

When it comes to promoting your eCommerce business, the more targeted your marketing, the better.

One of the easiest and most efficient ways to personalise your email marketing list? Segmentation.

By splitting your main email marketing list into smaller chunks, you can send messages that answer your customers’ questions and pique their curiosity.

In this article we’ll share ten different ways you can use email segments in your eCommerce store’s marketing, as well as answer some of your questions about how segmentation works.

Article topics

1. To target your VIP customers
2. To send information about relevant products
3. To create content tailored to your customers’ demographics
4. To re-engage inactive customers
5. To avoid upsetting customers
6. To target customers geographically
7. To encourage customers to advocate for your brand
8. To target customers based on what they’ve clicked on
9. To appeal to customers depending on where they are in the sales funnel
10. To identify unengaged email addresses
11. Email segmentation: Frequently asked questions

1. To target your VIP customers

It’s always easier to sell to an existing customer than it is to try to appeal to a brand-new one. According to McKinsey, while VIP customers only make up to 1 to 10% of your customer base, they can account for between 20 to 50% of your total revenue.

One of the best ways to use email segmentation is to appeal to your most important customers – those who spend the most and buy from you most regularly.

By providing an exceptional customer experience and offering your VIPs special perks like early access to sales and exclusive products, you can make them feel special and increase their customer lifetime value.

You can easily set up a segment in your email marketing platform of choice based on eCommerce activity. For example, how many orders a customer has placed, their average order value, and the last time they placed an order.

Some email marketing platforms will also let you designate contacts as VIPs.

For example, in Mailchimp you can apply VIP status to up to 5,000 email contacts.

2. To send information about relevant products

If you sell a lot of different products in your online store, chances are that your customers won’t be interested in everything you have to offer.

You can use segmentation to make sure you only send information that’s of interest. There are a couple of ways you can do this.

When you collect email addresses for your mailing list, you can ask customers what products they want to hear about.

Schuh does this in the example above by asking customers what types of shoes they’re interested in receiving emails about: women’s, men’s, kids, or everything.

Alternatively, you can dig into your existing customer data and create segments based on what people have bought previously.

For example, let’s say you run a beauty wholesaler and are about to launch a brand new range of gel nail polishes.

You can create a segment based on who has bought nail polishes and nail products from you recently, as these people are more likely to be interested in your new range.

3. To create content tailored to your customers’ demographics

Demographic data refers to basic information about your customers, like age, gender, income, and family status. As it’s statistical, it’s often the easiest type of data to find and act on.

You can use demographic data to segment your emails and make them more appealing to your subscribers. For example, if you run a clothing store and launch a new clothing line for children, you can send an email campaign to customers who have young children.

You can ask your customers for this information when they sign up for your mailing list. Alternatively, some email marketing platforms can predict demographic data like gender and age based on how your customers interact with your emails.

4. To re-engage inactive customers

As we mentioned at the start of this article, it’s far easier to promote your eCommerce business to an existing customer than it is to promote it to a new one.

You can use segmentation to identify customers who haven’t bought from you in a specific time frame and encourage them to check out your latest products.

You can even offer a discount code or a perk like free shipping to sweeten the deal.

5. To avoid upsetting customers

As well as using segmentation to determine which customers to contact, you can also use segmentation to determine which customers not to contact.

Many eCommerce brands use segmentation to allow customers to opt out of specific promotional email campaigns, like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and even Black Friday.

This gives customers more control over the emails they receive without having to opt out of your email marketing list.

Another option is to provide a clear link to a ‘preference centre’ in your emails, so customers can choose which email campaigns they want to receive, anytime they want.

6. To target customers geographically

You may have eCommerce customers located all over the world. If your subscribers are in different time zones, it’s important to think about when you send them emails.

For example, you may send your email campaigns at 10am. While this may be the optimal time for customers in London, your customers in Melbourne will receive it at 9pm!

You can use segmentation to group your customers by country, ensuring you always send your emails at the perfect time. Most email marketing platforms can predict where your subscribers are based on the IP address they use to engage with your emails.

Most email marketing platforms can also detect the language your customers use in their browsers. You can use this information to send subscribers email marketing campaigns in the language they’re most comfortable with.

7. To encourage customers to advocate for your brand

Over half of customers consider themselves ‘superfans’ of at least one brand.

If you have customers who are obsessed with your brand, products, and customer service, you can use this to your advantage.

For example, if you connect your email marketing platform with your reviews platform, you can create a segment of your customers who always give you positive feedback.

You can then reach out to these customers asking them to spread the word about your eCommerce store, perhaps in the form of a referral programme or some user-generated content.

8. To target customers based on what they’ve clicked on

You can segment your customers based on the actions they take (or don’t take) on your website.

For example, let’s say a customer has put £500 worth of items in their shopping cart but hasn’t made a purchase. You may want to send them a more persuasive and engaging cart abandonment email than you would for a customer who has only put £20 worth of items in their shopping cart.

Some email marketing platforms offer web tracking as standard so you can track the customer journey. Alternatively, you can integrate them with your eCommerce platform of choice.

We really like what AppSumo has done in the segmented email above. It has targeted customers who have looked at multiple products but haven’t bought anything, asking them to provide valuable feedback in exchange for a discount.

9. To appeal to customers depending on where they are in the sales funnel

Not all your website visitors will be ready to buy from you straight away. This is especially true if you sell high-value products or services, or there’s a long sales cycle in place.

You can use segmentation to appeal to customers at different stages of the sales funnel, nurturing them and keeping them interested until they’re in a position to buy.

Here’s a great example of an email segment for people who attended a webinar. The email thanks them for attending, provides a rewatch link, and offers a link to additional services users can take advantage of.

As subscribers move through the sales funnel, they will move through different segments, meaning they always receive the content that’s most relevant to them.

10. To identify unengaged email addresses

Email lists depreciate surprisingly quickly – by about 22% a year.

People change their email addresses, leave jobs, or enter their email addresses incorrectly. Some people may get a lot of emails and just may not get a chance to read what you’re sending.

By identifying and removing unengaged email addresses, you can focus your attention on the customers who are most likely to click and convert. You can also increase your overall sender reputation, reducing the chances of your email campaigns ending up in spam.

You can create a segment for people who aren’t clicking or opening your emails and send them a message asking them if they still want to receive content – this is known as a ‘sunset flow’.

You can choose a specific parameter or let your email marketing platform do this for you.

For example, Mailchimp sorts your customers into those who engage often, sometimes, or rarely.

Email segmentation: Frequently asked questions

What is email segmentation?

Email segmentation is the process of splitting your main email marketing list into smaller, more targeted groups, based on shared characteristics.

What are the benefits of email segmentation?

Email segmentation means you can share more personalised, relevant content with your customers. This means customers are more likely to be interested in what you have to say, leading to increased levels of trust in your eCommerce business.

According to Moosend, segmenting your emails leads to 100% higher click-through rates and a 760% increase in revenue!

How can I build email segments?

Most email marketing platforms have segment-building tools.

This allows you to take advantage of pre-built segments, as well as create your own.

Bear in mind that different email marketing platforms offer different types of segmentation. This may mean that if you want to segment your emails a certain way, you may need to consider a specific platform.

Do I need to get permission from people to add them to an email segment?

No. As long as they have given consent to receive promotional emails from you, you don’t need to ask for their permission to add them to an email segment.

However, it’s best practice to give them the option to unsubscribe from a particular segment if they want to in your emails.

How many email segments can I have?

Most email marketing platforms will let you create as many email marketing segments as you want.

However, to keep things as simple as possible, we only recommend creating segments that you are going to use in your email marketing campaigns.

We’ve seen some eCommerce companies build hundreds of segments that they never end up using!

Can I use automation with email segments?

Yes! Automation, where you send pre-written emails automatically to subscribers, works well with email segmentation.

The benefit of automation is that you don’t have to send emails manually, saving time and effort. For example, you can use automation to send emails to your VIP customers when a new product launches in your shop.

How small can my email segments be?

Some eCommerce businesses see great success with ‘micro segmentation’. This is when you build very small email segments to market to, sometimes only with a handful of customers in them.

The benefit of this is that you’re sending highly specific messages to customers, increasing the chances of them converting.

How can I create a high-quality segmented email?

Check out the following guides to get you started:

• 7 types of engaging emails to send your customers
• 8 elements to designing the perfect marketing email
• 10 ways to write a call-to-action that gets the right results
• 10 ways to write a killer email subject line

Xigen: Your number one email eCommerce agency

If you have an email marketing list, segmentation is a brilliant way to break your list down and ensure you send the right emails to the right people.

Let us leave you with one final tip – don’t forget to check your metrics! Look at your click-through rates, conversion rates, and unsubscribe rates to see if your segments are delivering optimal results.

If you need a little extra help setting up your segmentation, we’re the eCommerce agency you can rely on. We specialise in planning, designing, and delivering high-quality campaigns that build trust, boost engagement, and most importantly, drive sales.

Get in touch today and take the first step towards perfecting your email marketing lists.