Create Audience Segments to Better Target Your Contacts

Segments allow you to filter your contacts into groups based on data associated with contacts or contact behavior. Once you’ve created a segment, contacts may match the segment indefinitely unless a specific contact field is modified (for example, City changes from Nashville to Jamestown), or may only match the segment for a specific moment in time (Subscribe date is exactly 30 days in the past). If you want contacts to be tagged permanently, it may be better to add them to a List instead.

In this article:

Creating a Segment

Managing Segments

How Data Types Affect Segments 

Using the Link Clicked Segment

Using the Campaign Sent Segment

Creating a Segment

Segments consist of three things: properties, conditions, and values. You can also expand the segment by adding an OR statement, or narrow the segment by adding an AND statement. For example, if you wanted to create a segment for your employees in Jamestown and Nashville, you would set the segment to [City] [Is] [Jamestown] OR [City] [Is] [Nashville].

To create a segment follow the steps below:

1. Once you’ve logged into SlickText, click on Segments on the left navigation bar.
2. Click on Create Segment.
3. Create a Segment Name.
4. In the Select a Property dropdown, choose a property.
5. In the Select a Condition dropdown, choose a condition.
6. Select or enter the values to be included in the segment. 
7. Add an OR statement or AND statement and repeat steps 4-6 if you need to expand or narrow the segment criteria.
8. Click Save or click on the dropdown arrow and select Save and View Contacts, or Save and Send Campaign.

Managing Segments

Once you’ve created your segments you can easily manage them from the Segments page. Click on the ellipsis tab (three dots) to the right of the desired segment to view your menu options. There, you can view the contacts that match the segment, send a campaign, edit, clone, or delete your segment. 

How Data Types Affect Segments

There are four main data types: Text, Number, Date, and Yes/No. Each data type has its own unique segmenting conditions. When creating a custom field, it’s important to select the appropriate data type, since the data type you choose for a custom field will provide you with a different set of conditions when creating a segment. Click here for more about creating and managing custom fields.

Here are some examples of the conditions available for each data type:

• Text fields--Segments on text fields look for exact matches or whether or not text contains certain words, phrases or parts of words. Segment examples are Is, Is Not, Contains, Does Not Contain.
• Number--Segments look at the numerical value on number fields. Segment examples are Is, Is Between, Is Greater Than, Is Less Than.
• Date--Segments treat date fields as a complete date or can look only at the month, day or year of a date. Segment examples by complete date are Is, Is Before, Is After. Segmenting on the month of a date (Month Is, Month Is Not), will ignore the year, and vice versa.
• Yes/No--Segments on whether the value is Yes or No.

Using the Link Clicked Segment

Segments can also be created to view who did or did not click on a link, then retarget contacts based on their click behavior. To create a segment based on click behavior:

1. From the Segments page, click on Create New Segment.
2. From the properties dropdown, select Link Clicked.
3. Choose a condition (Is, Is Not).
4. Select a link or multiple links from the dropdown.
5. Select a date range or leave it set to Ever.
6. Click Save. 

Using the Campaign Sent Segment

Segments can be created based on the deliverability status of your sent campaigns. From time to time, for various reasons, your contacts may not receive the messages you send. Use this segment if you want to send follow up messages to only the contacts who received or did not receive a message you sent as part of a campaign. Or, use it to troubleshoot a possible deliverability issue. To create a segment based on campaign sent status: 

1. From the Segments page, click on Create Segment.
2. From the properties dropdown, select Campaign Sent. 
3. Choose a condition (Is/Is Not).
4. In the value field, select or search for the desired campaign. You can select multiple campaigns, which will be treated the same way as adding an OR statement.
5. Select a delivery status condition (Is/ Is not). 
6. Choose one or multiple send statuses (the statuses are defined below).
7. Click Save.