Legacy: About segments (preferences)

Attention
If your account already works with interests instead of with interest labels and preferences, you can find more information here.

What are segments?

Segments are sections of your contacts that you have gathered together based on certain criteria. You can later use that segment to send campaigns, only to that segment.

Segments are particularly interesting because you can use multiple criteria, not just one. What is more, you chose if those multiple criteria should simultaneously be true or meeting one criterion will be enough to enter that segment. Therefore, segments allow you to really tune the audience that receives your messages quickly, easily and precisely.

How do segments work in Flexmail?

The way segments work in Flexmail depends on the different segmentation options you set up:

Basic segmentation options

Your basic options for segmentation are naming your segment and your criteria. You can create relationships between your various criteria. You may create a segment based on criteria that are met simultaneously and only if they are met simultaneously for a particular contact, it will be added to your segment list. Or, you could choose to add various criteria where contacts covering any of the criteria will enter the list. You can have any variation of those.

Advanced segmentation options

In your advanced options, you can select a special opt-in form that will be valid for that particular segment. When contacts in that segment click on the update link in the message, they will be forwarded to their special opt-in form, instead of the form specified in the general settings.

Also in your advanced options, you will discover you can manage your unsubscription level. If your contact clicks on the unsubscribe button, based on what you decide here, they could be excluded from the segment, or from your entire database.

Support tip
It's recommended that you allow contacts to be unsubscribed from the database. In the general settings, you can choose that unsubscribers will be added to the general blacklist.

You can also manage the preferences. You may pre-select a set of preferences, applicable for the segment, and decide if the preference application here will overwrite the preferences of those contacts already in the segment. The preferences you select here will be added to the contact, as soon as they are added to this segment.

What can you do with segments in Flexmail?

You can create segments to divide your contacts in different contact lists.
You can create subsegments to further subdivide your contacts.
You can show personalised content in messages, based on the segments the contacts belong to.
You can send campaigns to one or more segments.
You can create workflows for contacts in a specific segment.

Segmentation criteria

There are six criteria types for the segmentation of your contacts: a contact field, a source, an interest, a preference, an opt-in form and a campaign. When a contact meets one of those criteria it can be added to a segment.

Attention
If your account already works with the new interests, the working method for segments will remain the same, but segmenting with the interests will be somewhat easier.

The available criteria, with all their possible combinations, can be found in the following tables:

Contact fields

Trigger	Field	Function	Value
Contact field	Email	Starts with	The value of the field*
	First name	Doesn't start with	The value of the field*
	Name	Ends with	The value of the field*
	Language	Doesn't end with	The value of the field*
	Your custom fields	Contains	The value of the field*
		Does not contains	The value of the field*
		Equals (exact)	The value of the field*
		Not equals (exact)	The value of the field*
		Smaller than	The value of the field*
		Less than, equal to	The value of the field*
		Larger than	The value of the field*
		More than, equal to	The value of the field*
		Empty value	N/A**
		No empty value	N/A**

* Add the value as you have indicated it in your database.
** Depends on which field you select. There are exceptional fields that require you to enter a value, e.g. language and creation.

Example 1 - Contacts who have a language equal to English may be added to the segment.

Example 2 - Contacts who have an email address that contains '@yourdomain.com' may be added to the segment.

Example 3 - Contacts who have no empty value for the (custom) field 'client number' may be added to the segment.

Sources

Trigger	Field	Function	Value
Source	Your sources	Contact has source	N/A

Example - Contacts who have a certain source may be added to the segment.

Interests

Trigger	Field	Function	Value
Interest labels	Your interest labels	Is member of	N/A
		Is member of with x clicks	Number of clicks*
		Is no member of	N/A

* It's the amount of times that a contact must have clicked on a particular link with that interest before it can enter that segment.

Example 1 - Contacts who are member of a certain interest may be added to the segment.

Example 2 - Contacts who are member of a certain interest after clicking three times at a particular link may be added to the segment.

Preferences

Trigger	Field	Function	Value
Preferences	Your preferences	Has the preference	N/A
		Doesn't have the preference	N/A

Example - Contacts who do not have that certain preference may be added to the segment.

Opt-in forms

Trigger	Field	Function	Value
Opt-in form	Your opt-in forms	Subscribes via	N/A

Example - Contacts who subscribes via a certain opt-in form may be added to the segment.

Campaigns

Trigger	Field	Function	Value
Campaign	Your campaigns	Sent	N/A
		Not sent	N/A
		Delivered	N/A
		Not delivered	N/A
		Opened	N/A
		Not opened	N/A
		Clicked	A link
		Not clicked	A link
		Form completed	A form
		Form not completed	A form

Example 1 - Contacts who were sent a certain campaign may be added to the segment.

Example 2 - Contacts who completed the chosen form in a certain campaign may be added to the segment.

What else is there to know about Flexmail?

How to do that exactly in my account?

Need some inspiration?

Thou shalt not interrupt