Build Your Email & SMS Program
Chapter 9: Keep Segmentation Simple
Segmentation should improve a decision. If a new segment does not change the message, timing, offer, or customer experience, it may just create more work.
Section 1
Begin with a small set of useful distinctions
Keep campaign audiences practical. At Barbs Media, we typically start with 90-day engaged as the core audience for many brands, then adjust reach to the message and audience response.
- 30-day engaged
- A tighter audience for frequent senders, based on recent meaningful interaction.
- 90-day engaged
- Nick’s usual core starting point for many brands—not a guaranteed best setting.
- 180-day engaged
- Extend reach when the content and audience health justify it.
- Broader eligible audience
- Reserve wider reach for selected major launches, promotions, or important information, not routine sends to every historical contact.
The windows refer to engagement within the last 30, 90, or 180 days, not subscriber age. Nick describes opens and clicks; account for Apple privacy-affected opens when building those rules. Machine opens are not proof of human interest. Inspect reliable clicks and other genuine activity rather than letting automated opens keep profiles active indefinitely.
Broader reach still respects consent, suppression, complaints, and inactivity policies. Exclude bots, spam profiles, hard bounces, and inappropriate audiences such as wholesale contacts in consumer campaigns; apply your documented soft-bounce policy.
Simple campaign audiences coexist with lifecycle splits inside flows. New versus returning customers or product ownership can change automated messaging without requiring dozens of campaign groups.
Watch the walkthrough
Simple audiences within the wider strategy
Nick connects practical campaign segmentation with lifecycle flows.
Eligibility
Can this person receive this channel’s marketing?
Permission and suppression rules come first.
Customer status
Are they considering a first purchase or already a customer?
Use the distinction when the message should change.
Relevant product context
Does ownership, compatibility, or expressed interest change what is useful?
Use only the detail the message actually needs.
Recent activity
Is there a current reason to contact them?
Review signup recency, meaningful engagement, and purchase context.
Section 2
Exclusions often do the important work
Sometimes the best improvement is deciding who should not receive a message.
- People who already purchased the promoted product when the message would be redundant.
- Customers who cannot use the recommended accessory.
- People already receiving an overlapping journey.
- Unsubscribed or suppressed recipients.
Exclusions depend on the campaign’s purpose. Recent purchasers might still want care guidance or a relevant complementary product.
Section 3
Use the segment test
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If you cannot explain the change in experience, reconsider whether the segment is needed.
Section 4
Compare simple and unnecessary complexity
Illustrative example A
A distinction that changes the message
- Campaign
- Launch of a compatible brewer accessory.
- Useful distinction
- Customers who own a compatible brewer versus people who do not.
- Why
- Compatibility changes the message.
Illustrative example B
More rules, the same experience
- Campaign
- General brand update relevant to eligible subscribers.
- Questionable complexity
- Splitting into many groups while sending identical content.
- Why
- The additional rules do not change the experience.
Section 5
Maintain what you create
Segments change as people act and data updates. Someone should understand the rule and know where it is used.
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Closing takeaway
Build the smallest set of rules that makes the customer experience better. Add complexity only when it earns its place.
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