Use Contact Data in Smart Segments

You can have a large audience, and you can segment them based on what you know about them. We already covered that part in our Smart Segments, and the articles about Contact data and Campaign events. Today, we'll focus more on the smart segment logic with Contact data, and how you can specify one segment to be as smart as you want.  

The key point in Smart Segments is how everything is connected within. The smart segment conjunctions are the connections between criteria and groups within the smart segment. We'll explain these within and between groups: 

• Some - means that it isn't necessary for the contact to match all the criteria that you have added. As long as the contacts match some (at least one) criteria - they will be added to this segment.
  Example: You have 3 criteria in one group [Address - is empty; City - is empty; Zip - is empty]. If a contact matches at least one of these three (have at least one empty field of these three) - they will be a part of the smart segment.
• All - means that the contact has to match all criteria and fulfill every condition you have set. Otherwise, it won't be added to this segment. A contact has to match not only one, but all 3 criteria within the group, to become a part of the smart segments.
  
  
• And - is the connector between your existing and newly added Contact Data groups within the smart segment.
  Example: You have one Contact Data group with 3 criteria and another group with 2 criteria. Putting an "and" between these two groups means that the contact must match the 3 criteria from the first group AND the 2 criteria from the second group (all 5 in this case). Only then will they be a part of the Smart Segment.
• Or - is the other connector between your existing and newly added Contact Data groups within the smart segment. Unlike and, a contact can match only one Contact Data group.
  Example: You have one group with 3 criteria and another group with 2 criteria. Putting an "or" between these two groups means that the contact must match the 3 criteria from the first group OR the 2 criteria from the second group (so either the first 3 criteria or the second 2 criteria).

📌 Now, a REAL example:

• Go to the Contacts app to create a smart segment
• In this example, we'll name it Swimsuit promotion!

• Our first group with Contact data [1] starts with "all of the following". This means that all the criteria below must be met. The contact must be a part of customers, must have an email and their email consent must be accepted (true). If we had some here, any contact fulfilling any of these criteria would become a part of this segment, and we don't want that because these three criteria are very important to be met.
• In the second group with Contact data [2], we have "and contacts matching some of the following". With and, we say that the second group is also "relevant" and that criteria from here also must be met. Which criteria from this group? Well some of them. With some - we say that in this group, at least one criterion should be met, for a contact to be a part of the segment.

What this segment will do is list all the contacts that are part of your customers, have an email, have given consent, and have at least some of the following interests: surfing, swimming or diving. We have our target audience, and now the swimsuit promotion email can be sent to them only!

Tip: It is safe to test with smart segments as long as you want! You can edit them as much as you want, so make sure you have the precise criteria before deciding to send communication to these contacts.