Email's not dead. It's just bored of you sending the same newsletter to 12,000 people who signed up in 2019. Segmentation fixes that. It's also the single highest-leverage change most businesses can make to their email programme, and it costs nothing but a bit of thinking.
Why one-size-fits-all is killing your open rates
Gmail, Outlook and Apple Mail all now use engagement signals to decide where your emails land. Send irrelevant stuff to someone who hasn't opened an email in eight months and the algorithm punishes everyone on your list. Segmentation isn't just nicer for subscribers, it's mandatory for deliverability.
The five segments you should have yesterday
Forget the fancy stuff. Start here.
- New subscribers (0-30 days): they like you. Send a proper welcome series.
- Engaged regulars: opened something in the last 60 days. Send them the good stuff.
- Lapsing (60-180 days inactive): win them back before the algorithm writes them off.
- Dormant (180+ days): one last-chance email, then suppress. Stop emailing people who've mentally left.
- Customers: different message entirely. They've already bought.
That's five segments. Most businesses have one. You're already ahead of 80% of competitors just by building that list.
Behavioural segmentation: where the money is
Demographic segmentation (age, location, gender) is fine. Behavioural segmentation is better. What someone's actually done tells you far more than who they are on paper.
Track things like: pages visited, products viewed, cart abandoned, last purchase date, email link clicks, downloads. Every one of those is a segment waiting to happen.
Lifecycle segments that print money
Three automations that work in every industry we've touched.
- Welcome series: five emails over two weeks. Average 50-70% higher conversion than regular sends.
- Abandoned cart: three emails over 72 hours. Recovers 10-15% of lost revenue when done right.
- Post-purchase: thank you, usage tips, review request, cross-sell. Turns buyers into repeat buyers.
Build those three, segment the triggers properly, and you've basically built a second salesperson who works weekends.
RFM: an unsexy framework that works
Recency, Frequency, Monetary value. Score every customer on those three axes, 1 to 5, and you get 125 possible segments. Most businesses only need about 8 of them: champions, loyal, potential loyalists, new customers, at-risk, can't-lose-them, hibernating, and lost.
Your champions want early access and loyalty perks. Your at-risk need a nudge with a sweetener. Your lost deserve a graceful goodbye, not another promo. Treat them differently. Sales go up.
Engagement-based suppression
This one hurts people. If someone hasn't opened an email in six months, stop emailing them. Yes, your list shrinks. Yes, your metrics improve dramatically. Deliverability rises, open rates climb, and the people you are emailing actually convert.
Keeping dead weight on your list to make the number look bigger is ego, not strategy.
Content matching: the often-forgotten bit
Segments are pointless if the content's the same. If you've segmented dog owners from cat owners, don't send them both an email about "your pet". That's worse than not segmenting at all because the subscriber notices.
For more on making the content itself earn its keep, our piece on elevating your email content strategy covers the writing side. And if you're rebuilding the whole programme, email marketing strategy in 2024 has the framework.
Testing segments properly
Don't test subject lines across your whole list. Test within segments. A subject line that wins with new subscribers might flop with loyalists, and averaging the two tells you nothing.
Small segments also mean smaller sample sizes, so be honest about statistical significance. Twelve opens isn't a trend, it's a coin flip.
The tools bit
Klaviyo, Mailchimp, HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, they all segment just fine. The tool isn't the bottleneck. The bottleneck is someone actually sitting down and mapping the segments. Agencies love to blame platforms. It's almost always the strategy.
Email programme feeling a bit shouty?
We'll audit your list, your segments, your automations, and show you exactly where revenue's leaking out.
Get an email auditWrapping up
Segmentation sounds like something you do once and tick off. It isn't. It's a habit. Every month you should be refining segments, suppressing the dead, promoting the engaged, and matching content to behaviour. Do that, and email stops being a cost centre and starts being your highest-ROI channel. Simple as that.
