Create and Send to a Segment

Segmentation is a powerful tool that filters contacts with similar audience field data, group preferences, e-commerce activity, and other information. Use segmentation to view contacts and send them email or ad campaigns based on their interests, purchases, and other criteria they have in common.

In this article, you'll learn how to create simple and complex segments. You’ll also learn how to send an email campaign to existing or new segments from either the contact table or the campaign builder.

Before you start

• Standard segmentation combines up to five conditions and is included with all Mailchimp plans. Upgrade to our Premium plan to create advanced segments, which support multiple, nested conditions. If you have a Premium account, check out Manage an Advanced Segment.
• To target common subscriber groups, try our selection of pre-built segments.
• Only subscribed contacts within a segment can receive marketing email campaigns. To learn more about what types of emails you can send to your contacts, read About Your Contacts.
• To learn how to send an automated email to a segment, read Edit Automation Emails.
• To exclude certain subscribers from an email send, use the pasted segment option.

Create a segment

From the contact table, you can create and view simple and complex segments, and save the segment for later use.

To create a segment from a contact table in your account, follow these steps.

Create a simple segment

In this example, we'll create a simple, one-condition segment of contacts who were added to the audience after the most recent email campaign was sent. Since simple segments only have one condition, the logic contained in the Contacts match drop-down won’t impact the results.

1. Click Audience.
   
2. Click Segments.
   
3. If you have more than one audience, click the Current audience drop-down and choose the one you want to work with.
4. Click Create Segment.
   
5. Set the drop-down menus to Date Added | is after | last campaign was sent.
   
6. Click Preview Segment.
7. Click Edit to make any changes. When you're satisfied, click Save as segment.
8. In the Save Segment pop-up modal, input a descriptive name for the segment and click Save.

Create a complex segment

Complex segments allow you to combine up to five conditions to identify specific contact sets in your audience. When you combine segmentation criteria, pay special attention to the logic within the Contacts match drop-down menu.

You can create a segment of contacts who meet any of your individual conditions, or all of them together.

In this example, we'll create a complex segment of contacts who are both members of a specific group and who joined the audience after a certain date.

1. Click Audience.
   
2. Click Segments.
   
3. If you have more than one audience, click the Current audience drop-down and choose the one you want to work with.
4. Click Create Segment.
   
5. To make sure Mailchimp pulls contacts who fit both conditions you enter, click the Contacts match drop-down menu and choose all.
   
6. For the first condition, set the drop-down menus to group category | one of | group name.
   
   If you want to send to more than one group, hold CMD or CTRL and click to choose more than one group name.
7. Click Add to select your second condition.
8. For the second condition, set the drop-down menus to Date Added | is after | a specific date. Enter your desired date into the date field.
9. Click Preview Segment.
10. Click Edit to make any changes. When you're satisfied, click Save Segment.
11. In the Save Segment pop-up modal, input a descriptive name for the segment and click Save.
    

Send to an existing or new segment

When you're ready to send a campaign to the segment you created, start from the Segments page in your audience, or from the campaign builder.

Send from the Segments page

To send to a segment from the contact table, follow these steps.

1. Click Audience.
   
2. Click Segments.
   
3. If you have more than one audience, click the Current audience drop-down and choose the one you want to work with.
4. Click the drop-down menu next to the segment you want to work with.
   
5. Click Send to choose the type of email campaign you want to send to your segment: Regular, A/B testing, Plain-text, or RSS.
   
   To learn how to send an automated email to a segment, check out Edit Automation Emails.
6. Continue through the campaign builder.

Send from the campaign builder

You can create and send to a segment with any type of email campaign. For Regular, A/B testing, Plain-text, or RSS campaigns, you'll find segmentation options on the Recipients step.

To send a regular email campaign to a segment from the campaign builder, follow these steps.

1. In the To section, click Add Recipients.
   
2. In the Audience drop-down menu, choose the audience that contains the segment you want to send to.
   
3. In the Segment or Tag drop-down menu, choose a saved or pre-built segment. If you want to create a new segment, click Group or new segment.
4. Click Save and continue building your campaign.

Send to a pasted segment

Use the pasted segment feature within the campaign builder to include or exclude a selection of subscribers from your email send.

To utilize the pasted segment feature, follow these steps.

1. In the To section, select Add Recipients.
   
2. In the Audience drop-down, choose the audience that contains the subscribers you want to send to.
   
3. In the Segment or Tag drop-down, choose Group or new segment.
4. Click the Paste Emails tab.
   
5. Type or paste the email addresses of the subscribers you want to include in the Email addresses box.
6. To send an email campaign to the pasted email addresses, choose Include these emails in my segment. If you want to exclude the pasted email addresses from your email campaign, choose Exclude these emails from my segment.
7. Click Build Segment.
   
8. Continue creating your campaign in the campaign builder.