Email Marketing for Beginners: Segmentation and Lists (2)
Miguel Nicolás
11/02/2025
-
In the second post of email marketing for beginners, we are going to focus on segmentation and mailing lists.
-
-
Let´s continue with our goal of explaining, step by step, how to launch an effective email marketing strategy capable of boosting your eCommerce results beyond their current level.We have already explained the main advantages of email in marketing. Now that we understand the "why," let’s delve into another major question: "who."By the end of this post, you will know more about segmentation, or, in other words, how to choose who receives your emails and what criteria you can use to create your customer and lead (or potential customer) lists.
-
What is Segmentation in Email Marketing?
-
In the introduction you just read, we have already provided a first approach to the concept. However, if we were to give a more complete definition of segmentation in email marketing, it would be something like this:Segmentation is the process by which a single user database is divided into smaller audiences or mailing lists, made up of users who share a strategically relevant characteristic.What can these characteristics or segmentation criteria be?
- Demographics: People who share a specific age range, gender, income level, whether they live with a partner or not, how many children they have, education level, profession... everything that defines the user on a personal level and helps group them.
- Psychographics: This criterion is somewhat more ambiguous but no less interesting. It relates to the user's core values, interests, and lifestyle. Factors that define who we are and to which we are particularly sensitive from a marketing perspective.
- Geography: This criterion groups users based on where they live or make their purchases. You can "zoom in" as much as needed, from the country level to the city or even the neighborhood. It is perfect for local strategies.
- Language: It is necessary to determine the language and tone of communication, but also to define which products in our catalog are targeted at speakers of a specific language. The simplest example is literature, but there are many more cases.
- By Behavior: We segment based on how users interact with our eCommerce. Actions such as what they have previously purchased, what they have added to a wishlist or cart, customers with a recurring purchase pattern, inactive users, or those who have or have not opened our latest emails… Each of these groups has a different value for sales and is at a higher or lower level of the conversion funnel, requiring different actions to activate them.
Depending on how sophisticated we want our strategy to be, we can use one of these segmentation criteria for our emails or combine several, which would be more effective. This is the same logic behind working with buyer personas or archetypes. -
EXAMPLE: A targeted email to married men in Barcelona, interested in outdoor activities, who have purchased a mountain bike from us, will always be more effective than a generic email sent to everyone. The audience size may be smaller, but the message is highly targeted and has a much higher chance of success.
-
What Are Mailing Lists and How to Create Them
-
Essentially, mailing lists are how email marketing tools implement segmentation into user groups. Once these lists are created, they function as audiences to which a specific message is assigned.In the example above, as mentioned, we would need a list for individuals within that segmentation. This list would be saved and regularly updated to avoid having to configure it every time a campaign is launched.Updating lists is critical for segmentation to remain effective. Users can, and often do, change over time as customers. In what cases? There are many scenarios, but imagine
- A user segmented geographically moves to a new location.
- A user segmented by product category starts purchasing from a different category.
- A user segmented as a recurring buyer or by lifecycle changes their purchase frequency.
Since we are dealing with people who evolve and change, both in life and in their relationship with our eCommerce, we cannot consider lists as something static and permanent.For all these reasons, if you are thinking about sending emails manually, you will realize it is not a good idea. Keeping lists updated manually would consume too much time, while software can automate much of the work. Plus, mistakes could lead to significant consequences (even legal ones).Professional email marketing tools comply with data protection regulations and provide the necessary mechanisms for users to manage their privacy settings.Going into the technical details does not make much sense, as it will always depend on the email marketing tool you use. In practice, they all function similarly, though some offer more or fewer advanced options. -
Did you find this segment of our beginner’s guide to email marketing interesting? Then do not miss the next post!