Segmentation - Online Help | Zoho Campaigns

Segments

Segmentation is one of the most widely used techniques to target your prospects and customers in the marketing arena. In the Segments section present under the Contacts module in Zoho Campaigns, you can create segments to categorize your contacts and send targeted email campaigns (when creating an email campaign, you can select segments as recipients).

Targeting a specific portion of contacts means you're sending campaigns to only those who are interested in receiving them. Therefore, segmenting your contacts is a necessary step you need to perform.

This contact-based segmentation is based on specific criteria such as geography (country, state, city), demography (age, gender), behavior, buying patterns and more. Zoho Campaigns provides you the option to choose from quite a lot of criteria to create super-specific segments. It is a matter of exploring the options you have and creating segments based on that.

Moreover, segments are dynamic. If a contact is added in Zoho Campaigns after a segment has been created, and if it satisfies the criteria of that segment, it'll get captured by the segment and added to it automatically.

You can do various operations on a segment, such as creating a campaign, assigning topics to a segment, cloning it, exporting contacts, and creating bulk segments.

Feature Availability

Standard and Pay-as-you-go plans have Basic segmentation. Professional and Bundle plans have advanced segmentation.

Create segment

You can separate contacts using basic details such as first name, last name, company name, state, country and other custom information and campaigns can be sent out to a particular set of contacts.

To create a segment:
  1. From the Navigation Toolbar to the left, click Contacts and select Segments.



  2. Click Create in the top-right, and then choose Segment.

    create segment

  3. In Create Segments page, do the following:
    1. Name - Give a name to your segment. This is for your reference to identify and relate to the criteria.
    2. Criteria - This would be the basis to segregate the contacts.
    3. Click Save.


Note:
  1. You can choose to set more than one criteria while creating segments.
  2. Segments created before November 17, 2021 will be listed under the respective mailing lists until September 30, 2022. You cannot edit these segments, however you can clone them.
  3. Segments created after November 17, 2021 are organization-level segments and they will be listed under Contacts -> Segments.

Create Campaign

You can create a campaign for a segment. The contacts in the segment will be set as the recipients. 
  1. From the Navigation Toolbar to the left, click Contacts and select Segments.



  2. Open the required segment.
  3. Click the More icon at top-right and click Create Campaign.

    create campaign

  4. Enter the necessary details and click Save.

    create campaign for segment
  5. In the next page, you can choose the template for your campaign and proceed creating it. 
  6. You can also hover over the segment in the segment list page, and click the email icon to create a campaign from a segment.


Assign topics

You can associate one or more topics with a segment. 
  1. From the Navigation Toolbar to the left, click Contacts and select Segments.
  2. Open the segment you want to assign a topic.
  3. Click the More icon at top-right and then click Assign Topics.

    assign topics to segment

  4. Select the topics to be associated with the segment and click Save.

    assign topics popup

Edit segment

To edit a segment:
  1. From the Navigation Toolbar to the left, click Contacts and select Segments.
  2. Hover over the required segment.
  3. Click the Edit icon.

    edit segment

  4. You can edit the segment name and criteria. Make the necessary changes.
  5. Click Save.

Delete segment

To delete a segment:
  1. From the Navigation Toolbar to the left, click Contacts and select Segments.
  2. Hover over the required segment.
  3. Click the Delete icon.

    delete icon
  4. In the pop-up that appears, click Go Ahead. You'll also have an option to delete the contacts of this segment when deleting it. In case you have any workflows created in which this segment is involved, it'll be disabled.

Once a segment and also its contacts are deleted, they can't be retrieved.

Delete Contacts

To delete contacts from a segment:
  1. From the Navigation Toolbar to the left, click Contacts and select Segments.
  2. Click the required segment.
  3. Click the More icon at top-right and then click Delete All Contacts.

    delete all contacts

  4. Click Go Ahead.

If a contact is deleted from a segment, it will be deleted from all mailing lists and also from the All Contacts section. It can't be retrieved.

Clone segment

To clone a segment:
  1. From the Navigation Toolbar to the left, click Contacts and select Segments.
  2. Click the required segment.
  3. Click the More icon a top-right and then click Clone Segment.

    clone segment
  4. Provide a name for the segment. You can edit segment criteria if necessary.
  5. Click Clone.

    clone segment popup

Save segment as list

To save as a list:
  1. From the Navigation Toolbar to the left, click Contacts and select Segments.
  2. Click the required segment.
  3. Click the More icon at top-right and then click Save as List.

    save as list
  4. Provide a name for the list and click Save.

Mass update a segment

You can update a specific field for bulk contacts in simple and quick way. To mass update contacts of a segment:
  1. From the Navigation Toolbar to the left, click Contacts and select Segments.
  2. Click the required segment.
  3. Click the More icon at top-right and then click Mass Update.

    mass update

  4. In the pop-up that appears, choose an existing field that you wish to update.

  5. If you want to instead add a new custom field and update it in this screen, click on Add New Custom Field. Create the field by filling in the necessary details and click Add.



  6. Click Proceed after you make the required changes in specific fields.

Export contacts from a segment

You can export the contacts of a segment to create a backup data. You can choose the fields, file format that you want to export.

To export contacts from a segment:

  1. From the Navigation Toolbar to the left, click Contacts and select Segments.
  2. Click the required segment.
  3. Click the More icon at top-right and then click Export Contacts.

    export contacts

  4. A pop-up will appear where you need to fill out the following information:
    1. Filter by Date - Select date and time and choose if you want to export all contacts or based on added/updated time.
    2. Fields - Select the fields to be exported
    3. File Name - Give a suitable name and choose the file format you wish to use.



  5. Click Export.

Bulk Segments

Bulk segmentation is an advanced segmentation method where you can segregate your contacts based on a specific field to create multiple segments. For example, if you want to create segments based on country, it is a tedious task to create segments for every possible country present in your account. This is where bulk segments come into picture where you can create segments for contacts from each country in just a single step.

Feature Availability

Bulk segments is available in Professional and bundle plans.

Creating bulk segments

  1. From the Navigation Toolbar to the left, click Contacts and select Segments.
  2. Click the required segment.
  3. Click Create at the top-right and choose Bulk Segment.

    bulk segment

  4. In the segment creation page, do the following:
    1. Name - Give a name to your segment. (This is for your reference to identify and relate to relevant criteria)
    2. Segment based on field - This would be the basis to segregate the contacts based on specific field. Once you choose a criteria, you'll be able to view the number of possible segments matching the criteria.



  5. Click Save.

Reset Contact Score 

You can reset the scores of the contacts in a specific segment in a click. If you want to reset the scores of specific contacts, you can simply create a segment and reset their scores to zero. To reset contact score:
  1. From the the Navigation Toolbar to the left, click Contacts and select Segments.
  2. Click the required segment.
  3. Click the More icon corresponding to the segment for which you want to reset the scores.
  4. Click Reset Contact Score.

    reset contact score

  5. Give a reason for resetting the score, in the popup that follows.
  6. Check the "I agree" box and click Reset Now.



  7. You'll be notified once the contact scores in the segment is reset.