Set up Segments to work for you

You've heard of Segments in ConvertKit before, but you might not yet be quite sure what all of the settings mean, and how to set up a Segment for your specific needs.

In Segments and Broadcast filters, there are Filter Groups used for defining what Subscribers will show up as a result. Within a Filter Group, you'll see that you can select Subscribers "Matching [ __ ] of the following:"

  • Any

  • All

  • None

[Any] means "either", while [All] looks for Subscribers who meet "both" requirements. And [None] means to EXCLUDE certain Subscribers.

Let's say, for example, that you wanted to see how many Subscribers you have that both signed up to a Form and also have a certain Tag. You would create a Segment that includes both that Form, as well as that Tag. 

Note that we are matching [All] for this example, because we want to see a list of people who match BOTH of these requirements.

As you can see, there are a lot of options for this! Feel free to get in there and test different options with your Segments. 

Excluding Subscribers within a Segment

A common use for Sequences is to pitch a book, or product, to your Subscribers. This means that you'll want to ensure that, as soon as someone purchases, they don't get any more pitch emails. (Yikes!) The best way to do this is to use the exclude feature on the Sequence Settings page. To make it easy, we've included it here: Excluding Within A Segment.

Segmenting Quick Tips

  1. Don't create a Tag called "Newsletter" (as an example). Instead, use Segments to group all the appropriate Forms, Tags, and Sequences into a single Segment for your newsletter.

  2. To run multiple sites through a single ConvertKit account, you can create a Segment for each site. More on running multiple domains here.

  3. Avoid creating a ton of Rules that subscribe and unsubscribe people from different Forms, Tags, and Sequences. If what you are trying to accomplish is to group Subscribers, it is probably better accomplished with a Segment.

Example Use Case

On your blog or website, you may write about more than one subject of interest. Sometimes, you'll send this content to everyone, but more often than not, you will want to send to people who are interested in one or the other. Now what?

An example account might look like this:

Forms

  • Newsletter

  • Mastering Product Launches

  • Designing Web Apps sample chapter

  • Book Prelaunch List

  • A Brief Guide to Selling Digital Products

  • Design

Tags

  • Purchase: Designing Web Applications

  • Purchase: The App Design Handbook

  • Purchase: Book

About half of these are design related, and about half are marketing related. Instead of choosing all the Forms and Tags each time, you can organize them into two Segments:

Segment: Design

  • Form: Designing Web Apps sample chapter

  • Form: Design

  • Tag: Purchase: Designing Web Applications

  • Tag: Purchase: The App Design Handbook

Segment: Marketing

  • Form: Newsletter

  • Form: Mastering Product Launches

  • Form: Book Prelaunch List

  • Form: A Brief Guide to Selling Digital Products

  • Tag: Purchase: Book

Out of the total Subscribers, (let's say 20,000), you might have 12,000 on the marketing Segment, and 10,000 on the design Segment. Obviously these add up to more than 20,000, which means that someone can opt-in to multiple things and appear in multiple Segments. That's what we want!

In this case, someone who buys the book, and downloads the sample chapter of Designing Web Applications, would be in both the marketing Segment, and the design Segment. This is perfect because they've expressed interest in both topics through their activity.

NOTE: Segments auto de-duplicate so you'll still never send to the same person twice. If someone had opted-in to a few things that make up a Segment, they will still only appear once in the Segment. Also, if you were to send a Broadcast to two Segments at the same time, those will de-duplicate against each other as well, and just send to the unique Subscribers. Pretty nifty, eh? 

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