How To Spiral Your Store’s Conversion Rate By Segmenting Your Email List

Have you been sending elaborate email campaigns with fancy designs, but your Conversion Rate seems like it's in love with the number 0?

We know the struggle. Our clients have been there.

Even though there are dozens of reasons why your brand might be experiencing low conversion rates, a surefire solution to pump up your numbers is to segment your email list.

Why? Because we’re in the era of personalization. People are being bombarded with messages every single minute of their day. 

If your content is not relevant to their wants and needs, they simply won’t engage with it. In other words, they’re not going to open your emails, even more, buy one of your products.

So, how should you segment your email list for optimal results? Let’s get down to business and discover it.

Interest & Preferences

Let’s kick it off with the fundamentals: Interest & Preferences.

You might think of this segment as “totally basic”, but the truth is that it’s one with the highest impact. 

By knowing your subscribers' interests and product preferences, you can tailor your email content to hit right in the sweet spot.

When potential buyers subscribe to your email list, let them choose the type of products they’re interested in. 

Or, when people add products to their cart or wishlist, show them a popup asking if they’d like to receive campaigns with similar or complementary products. 

The more relevant your campaigns are to their wants, the higher the conversion rate.

3 proven Interest & Preferences segments to test out:

• Men / Women / Kids Products
• Product Categories (Apparel / Shoes / Accessories etc)
• New Releases or Bestsellers

Engagement

Continuing our way down the Interests BLVD, we’ll see Engagement Avenue.

Here we’re taking interest-targeting a level up. 

Essentially, this segment focuses on the actual products potential buyers are interested in.

For example, if a visitor has viewed a specific product more than 3 times in the last 5 days, then chances are he/she is highly interested in the item. 

In addition, you can create segments based on the engagement they had with previous email campaigns.

For example, if they haven’t opened any of your last 20 campaigns, they might want more occasional updates.

By identifying that connection, we can send targeted campaigns, giving a gentle push to make a purchase.

Even if they don’t complete their purchase immediately, we’re making sure that our content is totally relevant to their needs, boosting the overall trust in opening our emails. (And that’s a step towards boosting conversion rates).

3 proven Engagement segments to test out:

• Highly Engaged
• Opened AND Clicked at least 1 campaign in the last 30 days
• Almost Theres
• (Opened OR Clicked at least 3 campaigns in the last 30 days) AND (have Placed Order 0 times over all)
• Not Engaged
• Opened 0 emails over all AND have Place Order 0 times over all

Purchase History

Apart from asking about or guessing the products that live rent-free in your buyers' minds, you can leverage the info you already have about their interests.

In other words, to leverage their Purchase History.

Your buyers have already told you about the products they want (and buy!), so what’s left is you building a strategy around them.

Send email campaigns with similar or complementary products to the ones they’ve ordered before, providing new incentives to buy again from your brand.

Also, identify if they’re more prone to buy when there’s an offer floating around, so you can set the hook for them to catch.

3 proven Purchase History segments to test out:

• Holiday Shoppers 
• Placed Order at least 1 between dates 11/26/2021 - 12/31/2021
• One-Time Low Value
• Placed Order 0 times in the last 120 days AND Placed Order at least 1 over all time AND Revenue<AOV
• Past Loyal Customers
• Placed Order is at least 3 between 120 to 365 days AND Placed Order is 0 in the last 120 days AND Revenue<AOV*3

Purchase Activity 

Last but certainly not least: Purchase Activity.

In essence, this is one of the most effective ways to segment your list and soar conversion rates.

Categorizing your buyers based on their purchase activity has two dimensions: The first one is Purchase Frequency. The second one is the Average Order Value.

Both do wonders for significantly improving conversion rates, and can be used differently.

For example, when it comes to Purchase Frequency, you can send promotional campaigns around the time they’re most likely to buy again. Or to send reminders, asking if they’d need to restock the products οn their shelf.

In a similar notion, by segmenting your list based on their Average Order Value, you can send upsell campaigns to High-Spend Customers or discounts as “thank-you tokens”. 

3 proven Purchase Activity segments to test out:

• Best Customers
• Placed Order at least 3 times in the last 16 weeks AND Revenue >AOV*3 over all
• High AOV
• Average Order Value > AOV
• Past Best Customers
• Placed Order at least 3 times in the last 120 to 365 days AND have Placed Order 0 times in the last 120 days

Get your segmentation right and see your conversion rate spiraling

If you’re currently sending the same campaigns to your whole list, creating segmentations and customizing your content is gonna have an impact you won’t be able to ignore. 

Depending on your industry and product category, test tweaking these segments to find the ones that are working best for you.