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Introducing Pre-Built Engagement Segments in Campaign Monitor

Campaign Monitor - Jan 15, 2019

This post was originally published in January 2019, updated in August 2023.

No matter which industry you work in or how large your subscriber list is, there’s one common question among all email marketers: how do I effectively measure subscriber engagement? Identifying the most engaged subscribers is easy because they are more likely to open and click emails often. But what about the subscribers who don’t interact as much with your emails?

Those unengaged subscribers can cost you more money and affect the success of your email programs. That’s why we created “Engagement Segments” a while ago to make it easy for marketers to identify the various levels of engagement of their subscribers and deliver relevant content that reflects where they are on the customer journey. 

Get the most out of your subscribers with pre-built engagement segments.

Engagement segments help you identify and re-engage those subscribers that may have fallen off the radar.

Engagement segments were created to make it easier for you to create campaigns that are unique to each different group, based on where they are (actively engaged vs. unengaged). So instead of mass emailing the same content to everyone on your list, you can create more targeted campaigns for these independent groups that you’ve built.

With engagement segments, you have access to six pre-built segments which are based on your subscribers’ level of engagement with your emails. Now, you have a scalable and reliable way to calculate engagement, and more importantly, automatically trigger relevant and timely content right to your subscribers.

How engagement segments work

We’ve built a brand new system to help you identify your subscribers based on their levels of engagement, from active to completely inactive.

Engagement segments calculate six levels of engagement and organize these levels automatically into their own pre-built segments right within your account. For customers on the Essentials (if you’ve purchased them as an add-on) or Premier plan, you’ll see the six segments in your lists based on open and click frequency. These segments include:

All of the engagement segments’ details and criteria are predefined, and you can use them just like other segments to automatically trigger content and emails.

The Active segment updates in real-time, while the other segments refresh every 24 hours. Engagement segments do not calculate subscribers who have recently signed up but have yet to engage.

You can also use this engagement data when building your own custom segments. This allows you to get even more targeted in who you send to. For example, create a segment of your Dormant subscribers in a specific location to make your re-engagement campaign as meaningful and targeted as possible.

Learn more about building your own segments here.

Offering engagement segments as an add-on (to Essential customers) will help more marketers better measure the success of their campaigns and ensure that they are monitoring the health of their existing lists.

Easily identify their most engaged subscribers.

With engagement segments, it’s easier to identify your most active subscribers and thank them for being such valuable customers.

Let’s say you have a special or limited promotion that you want to garner success on. Instead of sending to a full list, you can use engagement segments to identify the most loyal fans and send them timely offers that are likely of more interest to them. This can range from a product/service giveaway to a restock on product inventory.

Manage and keep a healthy list.

According to Hubspot, 63% of businesses reduce the frequency of emails sent to subscribers based on their levels of engagement. This can feel disappointing, especially when you’ve worked so hard to grow your subscriber list. But the good news is that these relationships aren’t always gone, they just may need a different strategy.

Engagement segments make it easier for you to see who hasn’t engaged with your emails in a while. You can see who’s at risk, pause sending (or decrease the frequency of sends to them), and then decide whether or not a re-engagement approach is the best next step.

Win them back with re-engagement campaigns.

With this new access to engagement-level data, you will be able to create even better-segmented campaigns that speak to the unengaged and dormant customers on your list. They will likely need something enticing enough to get them back engaged and we can help you with that. 

A few examples of re-engagement campaigns include a win-back discount, reminding customers what they love about you, or just an honest “we miss you,”, will often suffice. Check out our re-engagement templates in the email builder for more ideas on how to get started.

Refine your list and focus your efforts on the most engaged customers.

If customers reach the “zombie” or “ghost” level of engagement, it’s highly unlikely that they will become re-engaged. In fact, they may eventually unsubscribe if the content is no longer relevant to their journey. With engagement segments, you can get ahead of this upcoming shift and take the necessary steps to clean up your list — which will help you keep engagement high and overall costs low.

Wrap up

Engagement segments are available for customers on the Premier plan and are also available for purchase as an add-on to the Essential plan. The re-engagement templates are available for all customers. If you’d like to upgrade to Premier or purchase engagement segments as an add-on, click the Billing button in the Settings dropdown in the top-right of your account.

We’re dedicated to building smart solutions to help you drive engagement and loyalty through email marketing. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our support team!