eCommerce Email List Segmentation for Beautiful Deliverability Metrics
Updated: June 21, 2021
by BROCKTON CONWELL
CEO at Kintsugi Digital
CEO at Kintsugi Digital
"There are few things in life we can be sure of: death, Tiger wearing red on Sundays, and getting good open rates when sending to your engaged subscriber list."
One of the most important (yet most overlooked) aspects of email marketing for eCommerce brands is proper list segmentation.
Blasting every email campaign to the entire list is detrimental to the health of a brand's entire retention strategy. At Kintsugi Digital, we see this to be the case in over 50% of the Klaviyo audits we complete for prospects and clients—even though segmentation is actually quite easy to implement.
Join us on a journey to 35% open rates and 5% click-through rates as we establish some best practices and navigate around the dreaded spam folder.
Note that screenshots from the examples today come from Klaviyo, our preferred ESP for eCommerce brands—but other email programs have similar functionality.
Blasting every email campaign to the entire list is detrimental to the health of a brand's entire retention strategy. At Kintsugi Digital, we see this to be the case in over 50% of the Klaviyo audits we complete for prospects and clients—even though segmentation is actually quite easy to implement.
Join us on a journey to 35% open rates and 5% click-through rates as we establish some best practices and navigate around the dreaded spam folder.
Note that screenshots from the examples today come from Klaviyo, our preferred ESP for eCommerce brands—but other email programs have similar functionality.
Segment by Engagement Recency
The holy grail of list segmentation, and most basic approach—by engagement recency.
Segmenting by engagement periods allows Klaviyo to identify specific groups of users based on how recently they interacted with an email or website. Filtering by email openers is the most crucial behavior to include here, but with the iOS15 update (which includes Mail Privacy Protection), Apple's feature preventing opening tracking) coming later in 2021, it is important to also filter by recent click activity and even site activity. Note that if you've recently migrated from another ESP, important to include those metrics too.
Here is a look at what this might look like as the Klaviyo segment built for an Engaged (30 Day) audience:
Segmenting by engagement periods allows Klaviyo to identify specific groups of users based on how recently they interacted with an email or website. Filtering by email openers is the most crucial behavior to include here, but with the iOS15 update (which includes Mail Privacy Protection), Apple's feature preventing opening tracking) coming later in 2021, it is important to also filter by recent click activity and even site activity. Note that if you've recently migrated from another ESP, important to include those metrics too.
Here is a look at what this might look like as the Klaviyo segment built for an Engaged (30 Day) audience:
Consider multiple segments: Engaged (30), Engaged (90), Engaged (6 Month), etc. and establish a send cadence of email campaign frequency where your most engaged subscribers receive the most campaigns (maybe 3 per week), with the full list perhaps only receiving the top 2-3 campaigns each month.
Chase Dimond, eCommerce email marketing expert, spells it out—plain and simple.
Chase Dimond, eCommerce email marketing expert, spells it out—plain and simple.
What Most Ecom Stores Get Wrong About Email Marketing:
— Chase Dimond | Email Marketing Nerd □ (@ecomchasedimond) May 12, 2021
They don't leverage list segmentation.
The quickest way to end up in the spam folder is by blasting everyone on your list.
Don't.
If you have 800/1000 engaged people, focus on them.
Those 200 are not gonna buy anyway.
Segment by Purchase Behavior
Identify customers v. non-customers—and keep tabs on who is buying what and how often.
Examples:
✅ All Customers
✅ All Repeat Customers
✅ Placed 5+ Orders
✅ Purchaser Segment: Bought Size: "Small"
✅ Purchaser Segment: Bought Product: "Whey Protein - Chocolate"
Restocking a flavor of protein? You'll want to send a campaign to not only your most engaged subscribers but also to include anyone who has purchased that specific SKU in the past, even if they haven't engaged recently. Segmenting by purchase behavior gives you the opportunity address specific groups within your customer list. This can be helpful in having a promotion on an over-stocked size-run, rewarding repeat customers with early access to new products, or simply to hit non-buyers with an irresistible offer.
Most importantly...
This keeps emails relevant to customers based on their history and avoids frustrating a customer with an offer N/A to them.
Examples:
✅ All Customers
✅ All Repeat Customers
✅ Placed 5+ Orders
✅ Purchaser Segment: Bought Size: "Small"
✅ Purchaser Segment: Bought Product: "Whey Protein - Chocolate"
Restocking a flavor of protein? You'll want to send a campaign to not only your most engaged subscribers but also to include anyone who has purchased that specific SKU in the past, even if they haven't engaged recently. Segmenting by purchase behavior gives you the opportunity address specific groups within your customer list. This can be helpful in having a promotion on an over-stocked size-run, rewarding repeat customers with early access to new products, or simply to hit non-buyers with an irresistible offer.
Most importantly...
This keeps emails relevant to customers based on their history and avoids frustrating a customer with an offer N/A to them.
Segment by Buying Habits
As a follow-up to Segment by Purchase Behavior, take it a step further and identify cross-sell opportunities based on buying habits.
Example: Purchased "Product ABC" but never "Product XYZ"
This can unlock cross-sell opportunities which can be incorporated into flows and automation to help boost customer LTV.
Example: Purchased "Product ABC" but never "Product XYZ"
This can unlock cross-sell opportunities which can be incorporated into flows and automation to help boost customer LTV.
Get in on the action — here’s how behavioral targeting can up your personalization game: https://t.co/rX9tP2RMSp pic.twitter.com/YAO7jZkVIc
— Klaviyo (@klaviyo) May 29, 2021
Segment by Customer Sentiment
Leverage integrations with your Product Review platform to segment based on user sentiment.
Examples:
⭐️ 1-Star Reviewers
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5-Star Reviewers
Consider the cross-sell opportunities here as well.
Below is part of an email that 2UNDR, a men's underwear brand, sends to 5-Star Reviewers who haven't yet bought a Tee Shirt:
Examples:
⭐️ 1-Star Reviewers
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5-Star Reviewers
Consider the cross-sell opportunities here as well.
Below is part of an email that 2UNDR, a men's underwear brand, sends to 5-Star Reviewers who haven't yet bought a Tee Shirt:
Segment by Inactivity
Finally, make sure to segment by lack of engagement as well.
Beautiful deliverability metrics mean letting go to folks who just aren't interested.
Establishing thresholds for setting up a Sunset Flow creates an evergreen solution for list cleaning while weeding out subscribers who need to be suppressed.
Beautiful deliverability metrics mean letting go to folks who just aren't interested.
Establishing thresholds for setting up a Sunset Flow creates an evergreen solution for list cleaning while weeding out subscribers who need to be suppressed.
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