Define Marketing Segments

Segmentation is the process of dividing profiles into groups based on shared characteristics or behaviors for better analysis, personalization, or targeting. A segment is a set of criteria that identifies a group of profiles that have something in common.

Some examples of marketing segments include:

• Accounts in EMEA whose subscription for Supremo Power support services will expire in the next 3 months.
• Customers with a high lifetime value who haven't viewed a product in the past 30 days.
• All contacts who attended a webinar or those from a certain industry.

A profile is a record from a unified (or master) data object that represents a person or entity you might want to target. The segment builder accesses these profiles via logical data objects. The segment builder offers default logical objects for profiles from Accounts, Contacts, and Customers, and your administrator can create custom logical tables for other profile types, subject to certain restrictions.

Because segments are defined in terms of criteria, rather than a fixed list, the profiles that qualify for the segment is dynamic. A profile is a record from a unified (or master) object that represents a person or entity you might want to target. Different profiles might be included each time the segment is executed. Segments are executed when counts or samples are requested, and upon activation.

Anatomy of a Segment

The starting point for a segment is always its profile object, for example Contacts. You can then add conditions (criteria) from Contacts or any other object that's related to it.

For example, you might want to target only those contacts who are in North America for whom you've either an email or phone number, but who aren't part of your standard exclusion list. To do this, you'd create conditions with the Region, Email and Phone attributes and arrange them into a condition group within an include collection, and then add the reference segment with your standard exclusions in an exclude collection:

Anatomy	Description
Conditions	Conditions are the basic building blocks of a segment. Each condition has three parts: An attribute. These are added to a condition group by selecting Add Attribute in the action menu. An operator. The options depend on the attribute’s data type (such as string or time stamp). Zero, 1, or 2 value positions. The number of value positions depends on the operator. For instance, the operator Has no value has zero value positions, while Matches any has one and Between has two. Note that some operators let you add multiple values (such as Matches any), even if there's only one value position. Together, the attribute, operator, and value(s) constitute the condition’s criteria.
Condition Groups	Conditions are combined into condition groups, which: Are built with attributes from data objects that are on a single path from the profile object. Allow conditions to be combined with a mix of All and Any logic. All logic means that a profile must satisfy each of the criteria to qualify for the condition group. If there are three conditions, the logic is Condition 1 AND Condition 2 AND Condition 3. Any logic means that a profile must satisfy at least one of the criteria to qualify, that is Condition 1 OR Condition 2 OR Condition 3. Return a count in terms of distinct profile IDs, even if the conditions are all from a different object. Tip: Whenever possible, place all conditions from a given object into a single condition group. This helps to improve performance and is more likely to give you the result you want.
Subgroups	Within a condition group, you can create a subgroup. Use subgroups when you need a mix of All and Any logic. For example, The region is North America AND there's some value for either the email OR phone number.
Reference Segments	When one segment is added to another segment, it's called a reference segment. Reference segments let you specify criteria once and use them over and over in other segments. If you add a reference segment to a condition group, you can't add any other conditions. Reference segments are very useful, but they can also make segment queries very complex. For this reason, there are restrictions on how reference segments can be used. For example, you can only add five reference segments to a given segment. This restriction doesn't apply to precalculated reference segments.
Collections	Condition groups are organized into collections. Within a collection, you can specify whether the condition groups should be combined with All or Any logic. Segments can have 1 or more Include Collection and zero or 1 Exclude Collection. You can specify All or Any logic for combining include collections, but if an exclude collection is present, the logic is always Not.
Data Objects and Attributes	You can create conditions at both the condition group and subgroup levels by selecting Add Attribute in the action menu. Attributes are arranged hierarchically, first by data object and then by attribute group (optional). You can search or browse the tree to find an attribute and select it to add it to the group. You add an attribute by selecting it and clicking Add. The attributes you see in the list change depending on your previous selections within a condition group. For example, if Contacts is your profile object and you add an attribute from Accounts, your next attribute can come from Contacts or Accounts, or any object that's a child of Accounts (such as Account classification), but it can’t come from an object that's a child of Contacts (such as Buying group member). And if your condition group contains an attribute from Account classification, you can only add other attributes from Contacts, Accounts, and Account classification. If you need conditions from some other object, you need to create a new condition group.
Counts	Counts are available at the segment, collection, and condition group levels. They aren't available for subgroups or individual conditions. You can request counts at the level of the segment, all include collections, individual collections, or individual condition groups. Counts are executed in real time and typically return within a few seconds, though they can take longer if the segment is complex. Counts always represent unique profiles, even if the conditions are from a different data object. For instance, a condition group in a segment of Contacts might include only attributes from Accounts. But the count will always represent the number of contact profiles that are associated with accounts that satisfy those criteria. It will not indicate the number of accounts that satisfy the criteria. Tip: Counts don't update automatically. You must select Count to refresh the count. Counts are saved when the whole segment is saved. If a segment is very complex and/or there's a large volume of data, the count might time out. First, try to optimize by combining conditions groups wherever possible. If optimization isn't possible, contact your help desk for help.
Samples	In addition to counts, you can get a sample of profiles that meet the segment criteria by selecting the Sample tab. You can use the default list of columns, or you can specify different columns. You're limited to columns from data objects that are used in your include collections.