Effects of list segmentation

Chart of the Day: What is the comparison of segmented vs non-segmented campaigns

Segmentation is an important tactic every email marketer should be using.

Firstly, what is list segmentation? List segmentation is when you segment (or split) your subscriber list based on your chosen criteria. E.g: if you want to only target clients in London, you would build your list, and instead of choosing everyone, you would only include those clients whose city was London. This means everyone outside of London wouldn't receive the email. You can make your list very specific and more relevant to your client (making sure that the email messaging reflects this, of course) but it will also make your dispatch list smaller. Segmentation is pretty standard with all Email Service Providers (ESPs) and they will have documentation of how to set them up for your campaigns.

In the below chart, the results are unsurprising. We see that clicks are 101% higher than non-segmented and unsubscribes are 9.4% lower than non-segmented. I say these results are unsurprising because if you are targeting your clients with relevant information, then they will not unsubscribe but you will find they engage and click within your email.

However a small word of caution. Always remember to test your segmentation lists and make sure that your client's data is correct. There is nothing worse than receiving an email with incorrect segmentation or out of date data. You may end up doing more harm than good.

• Source: Effects of List Segmentation on Email Marketing Stats
• Sample Size: Sampled about 2,000 MailChimp users who sent about 11,000 segmented campaigns to almost 9 million recipients
• Recommended Resource: Email Marketing Guide

Contributer : Smart Insights