Customer Segmentation – Ascend Fundraising Solutions

This feature enables you to group together customers who have similar characteristics into a customer segment
By using the filter names, operators, and values, you can build customer segments that are as broad or as narrow as you need
Your customer segments help you to communicate effectively by sending the right message to the right customers at the right time.
Allows for much more sophisticated email deployment plans
To access the customer segments, click on Customers on the main left side navigation

Customer segments are composed of one or more filter
A filter is built using a filter name, an operator, and a value as its components
- 1: filter name
- 2: operator
- 3: value
You can use more than one filter in a customer segment by using connectors between each filter
A customer segment that uses multiple filters is built in the following way:

A filter name is criteria that is used to select customers for a customer segment
- ex: if you want to select all your customers who subscribe to your marketing emails, then you use the email_subscription_status filter name

An operator is used to define the relationship between the filter name and the value.
- ex: if you want to create a segment of customers who have placed five or more orders, then you use the operator >= to indicate greater than or equal to
- In this case, you would add the value 5, that is, >=5
The following are examples of other operators:
- Between: BETWEEN <value1> AND <value2>
- Is equal to: =
- Is not equal to: !=
- Greater than: >
- Smaller than: <
- Smaller or equal to: <=
- Contains this exact value: CONTAINS
- Doesn't contain this exact value: NOT CONTAINS
The operators that are available for a filter name depend on which filter name you use

A value is the characteristic of a customer that is used to include or exclude the customer from a customer segment.
The value is used in combination with the filter name and operator
- ex: if you want to select your customers who subscribe to your marketing emails, then you use the value 'SUBSCRIBED'
- Customers who don't subscribe to your marketing emails are excluded from the customer segment

If you use multiple filters, then you combine them by using the AND and OR connectors
Connectors help you to make the focus of your customer segment as broad or as narrow as you need it to be
The AND connector narrows the focus of your customer segment because a customer must meet all the criteria to be included
The OR connector broadens the focus of your customer segment because a customer can meet any of the criteria to be included, but doesn't need to meet all the criteria

To create a customer segment that includes only your email subscribers who have placed five or more orders, use the AND connector to combine the two filters
email_subscription_status = 'SUBSCRIBED' AND number_of_orders >= 5
- This segment only includes your email subscribers who have placed five or more orders
- It does not include customers who don't subscribe to your marketing emails
- It does not include customers who do subscribe to your marketing emails, but who have placed fewer than five orders

To create a customer segment that includes your email subscribers or customers who have placed five or more orders, use the OR connector to combine the two filters
email_subscription_status = 'SUBSCRIBED' OR number_of_orders >= 5
This segment will include:
- all your email subscribers, whether or not they've placed five or more orders
- all your customers who have placed five or more orders, whether or not they subscribe to your emails

You can combine several filters using both AND and OR connectors. The best practice is to group your filters using brackets
If you don't use brackets, then the filters that are combined using AND are applied before the filters that are combined using OR

If you want to limit your customer segment to your email subscribers who have either spent more than 100 USD or who have placed five or more orders, then use brackets to build the following customer segment:
(amount_spent > 100 OR number_of_orders >= 5) AND email_subscription_status = 'SUBSCRIBED’
In this case, the OR connector is applied before the AND connector
The segment will include:
- your email subscribers who have spent more than 100 USD
- your email subscribers who have placed five or more orders

amount_spent > 100 OR number_of_orders >= 5 AND email_subscription_status = 'SUBSCRIBED’
In this case, the AND connector is applied before the OR connector
The segment will include:
- your email subscribers
- the customers who have spent more than 100 USD
- the customers who have placed five or more orders

One of the ways that you can get started creating customer segments is by clicking on the Explore Templates button

This will open a menu containing several available segment templates, broken up into different categories, with each template including an explanation of what it targets

You can save these templates as segments directly, or modify them to serve your specific segmentation needs before saving them

You can also start creating your own segments by clicking on the Filter button

This will open a menu containing the available filters, which can be combined assigned with each template including an explanation of what it targets

After you create a customer segment, new customers who match the criteria are automatically included in that customer segment.
- ex: if you create a customer segment that includes all customers who subscribe to marketing emails, then any new customers who subscribe to your marketing emails are automatically included in that customer segment
If a single customer matches the criteria for more than one customer segment, then that customer can be included in multiple customer segments
When an existing customer no longer matches the criteria for a customer segment, they're automatically removed from that customer segment
- ex: if you have a segment that targets people who live in Toronto, and then a customer moves and updates their profile to have an Alberta address, they will no longer show up in the Toronto segment