Segmentation is simple: it’s the creating of groups of customers who are the same in ways that matter to your business, like everyone who bought your top-selling sweatshirt. Once you know that group, it’s easier to personalize marketing for them, like an email promoting matching sweatpants. And personalization matters—91% of customers are more likely to shop with brands that recognize them, remember them, and provide personalized offers.
You can already create segments in Shopify. You can find everyone who bought a specific sweater, everyone who has filled out a Shopify Form telling you they’re interested in sweatsuits, or even every customer who has viewed the “Sweatsuits” collection on your store. You have a lot of customer data in Shopify, and segmentation gives you the power to use it for more effective marketing campaigns.
Today, we’re excited to launch a whole new way of using the customer segments you already have in Shopify to personalize even more of your marketing: segment triggers. Now, in addition to being able to send a one-time email campaign to a segment, you can trigger automated marketing emails when someone joins or leaves a segment.
What are segment triggers?
Shopify Flow lets you automate marketing moments and internal business processes too, like tagging customers, pinging your team in Slack, and much more. It’s a trigger, condition, action system: once something triggers the automation, you can filter those triggers based on conditions, and then automate the action you want to take every time it gets triggered.
Now, segments can be used as triggers in Flow. You can use any segment to kick off an automation, and the best part is, you don’t need to start from scratch.
Start automating with two new templates
We’ve built two new marketing automations that you can turn on in just a few minutes to unlock the power of segmentation in marketing automations for your business.
Up your personalization with birthday greetings
Everyone loves a birthday deal, and past studies have shown that birthday emails outperform other email marketing, generating almost seven times more revenue. Get in front of your customers when they’re ready to treat themselves with an email that goes out the morning of their birthday.
Pro tip: If you turn on this automation, it will add a birth date field to your customer records, but it can’t magically figure out when each customers’ birthday is. However, there’s a way to get customers to start giving you their birthday details, and it’s called Shopify Forms:
- Create an in-line form specifically asking for customers’ names, emails, and birthdays, and set it up on a landing page.
- Then in your next email (or a dedicated email) ask customers to share their birthday by filling out the form, so you can treat them to a special offer on the day.
- Make sure to update your main lead capture forms to add a birthday field to them as well, so all new customers will come in with a birthday on their profile.
And if you have regulars you know well, and you happen to know their birthdays, you can fill them in manually in their customer record.
Recognize your best customers with VIP emails
Reach out to your best customers and make them feel valued when they support your business with automated VIP emails. When you turn on this automation template, it will create a VIP segment for you, so all you have to do is edit the email to personalize how you want to recognize your VIPs. Maybe that’s a special discount to thank them for their loyalty, letting them know they’ll get first dibs on your next sale, or a heartfelt thank you for their support. Maybe it’s all of the above!
Note: We do recommend reviewing the VIP segment and tweaking the filters so they make sense for your business. If your average order value is only $30, your VIPs might be anyone who spent more than $300, not $1,000.
Segment your email campaigns, not just your automations
Now that you’re thinking about how segments can be used in your automations, it’s a good time to also think about how you can reach everyone in a segment—not just the people who are joining and leaving them.
Let’s say you turned on the VIP automation, and started sending out welcome emails when someone becomes a VIP. Take it to the next level by giving existing VIPs early access to your next sale, too:
- Create a Shopify Email highlighting your next sale.
- In the “To” field, search for your VIP segment, and select it.
- Customize the content, including adding any discounts you want to offer them (you can limit the discount to people in the segment, too).
- Schedule the email to send a few hours or a few days before the general sale gets announced, so your VIPs get first dibs on your best deals.
Whether you’re using the preset segments, or new ones you create specific for your business, segmenting your email campaigns is another great way to personalize your marketing and boost your results.
Create custom automations
If you’re ready to take it a step further, segment triggers can power just about any workflow you can think of with custom automations in Shopify Flow. Here’s how it works:
- Create the segment you want to use in Customers > Segments. You can start with a template or use specific filters to find exactly the right group of customers for your automation. Name and save your segment.
- Create a new Shopify Flow and choose the Customer joined segment or the Customer left segment trigger. Select the segment you created for the automation.
- Add the right conditions or actions to build the automation you need, like tagging customers, sending marketing emails, and much more.
Your custom automation will run every time someone joins or leaves your chosen segment, so your business becomes more responsive to the steps in the customer journey that matter most to you. Here are just a few ideas of what’s possible:
- Emailing customers who make a one-time purchase and don’t subscribe for regular orders. If you have a product that gets purchased frequently, like pet food, shampoo, snacks, or other consumables, this could be a great upsell opportunity to get more subscribing customers. Not offering subscriptions? You can start with Shopify Subscriptions.
- Sending an internal email whenever a customer has spent a significant lifetime amount. Maybe you want to go above and beyond for your super VIPs, so you create an exclusive segment that gets a special gift when they join that segment. You can automate letting your team know it’s time to ship that gift when the customer joins that segment.
- Restock reminders. Whether your products need to be replaced within a few months or a few years, you can set up repurchase reminders using segment triggers. Segment based on someone who ordered a specific product at least a certain number of days ago, and when they join that segment, you can send them a reminder email that they should think about buying a new one—at the exact right time for them.
Take personalized action with segment triggers
Whether you’re new to marketing automations in Shopify, or you’ve been using our marketing automation tools for years, this is a big step to unlock more advanced marketing options for your business. Get started with templates like VIP emails or birthday emails today, or dig into more information about custom automations using segment triggers.
