Email segmentation: types, strategies and 15 segment recipes for ecommerce and SaaS

Sending the same email to everyone is the fastest way to teach your subscribers to ignore you. A first-time visitor, a customer who has ordered ten times and someone who hasn't opened anything in six months want different things. Email segmentation is how you send each of them something that fits.

This guide covers the main types of segmentation, 15 concrete segment recipes you can build today for an online store or a SaaS product, and how Shopify's customer data maps to those segments. Each recipe includes the conditions to use and what to send.

What is email segmentation?

Email segmentation means splitting your list into groups of people who share something, such as what they bought, how recently they engaged or where they are in their customer journey, and sending each group email that is relevant to it.

A segment is usually a saved set of conditions, not a fixed list. "Customers whose last order was more than 90 days ago" updates itself every day: people join when they cross the 90-day line and leave when they order again. That's what makes segments useful for both one-off campaigns and automated flows.

Segmentation helps in three ways:

• Relevance. People get emails about things they care about, so they open, click and buy more often.
• Deliverability. Gmail and Yahoo watch how people react to your mail. Fewer ignored emails and fewer spam complaints protect your sender reputation. Gmail's sender guidelines require every sender to keep the spam rate reported in Postmaster Tools below 0.3% (and recommend staying under 0.1%); see the Gmail and Yahoo sender requirements.
• Frequency control. You can email your most engaged customers more often and give everyone else a break.

The main types of email segmentation

Most segments are built from five kinds of data. The strongest segments usually combine two or three.

Behavioural segmentation

Based on what people do: products they viewed, pages they visited, features they used in your app, links they clicked. Behaviour is the clearest signal of current intent. Someone who viewed a product three times this week is far more likely to care about it than someone who signed up a year ago.

Purchase segmentation

Based on order history: number of orders, total spend, average order value, what they bought and when. For ecommerce, this is usually the most valuable data you have. A widely used model here is RFM: recency (how recently they bought), frequency (how often) and monetary value (how much they spent).

Lifecycle segmentation

Based on where someone is in their relationship with you: new subscriber, first-time buyer, repeat customer, VIP, lapsing, lapsed. For SaaS, the stages are typically sign-up, trial, activated, paying, and at risk of churning. Lifecycle segments map naturally onto automated flows.

Engagement segmentation

Based on how people interact with your emails: recent clicks, recent opens, time since last engagement. Since Apple's Mail Privacy Protection can make opens look higher than they are, clicks and site activity are more reliable signals than opens alone. Engagement segments are central to deliverability, because they decide who gets your heavy-volume campaigns.

Demographic and location segmentation

Based on who and where people are: country, language, time zone, and for B2B, company size or role. Location matters for shipping offers, holidays, seasons and send times. Language decides which version of an email someone gets.

15 segment recipes for ecommerce and SaaS

Each recipe below lists conditions you can build in most email platforms. The thresholds are examples; adjust them to your own buying cycle. A store that sells coffee beans has a much shorter cycle than one that sells sofas.

Ecommerce segments

1. Subscribed, never purchased

• Conditions: subscribed to email AND number of orders = 0
• Send: a welcome series that explains why your products are worth it, best-sellers, reviews, and a reason to make the first order.
• Example subject line: "Why our regulars never go back to supermarket coffee".

2. First-time buyers

• Conditions: number of orders = 1 AND last order in the last 30 days
• Send: a post-purchase series with how-to-use content, then a gentle recommendation for a second product. Turning a first order into a second is one of the most valuable things email can do.

3. Repeat customers

• Conditions: number of orders ≥ 2
• Send: new arrivals, early access and loyalty perks. These people already trust you, so you don't need to lead with discounts.

4. High-value customers (VIPs)

• Conditions: total spent ≥ a threshold, such as your top 10% of customers by spend
• Send: early access, limited editions, a personal note from the founder. Exclude them from deep-discount campaigns where you can; they would have paid full price.

5. Recent purchasers (exclude from promos)

• Conditions: last order in the last 7 days
• Use: as an exclusion from sales campaigns, so someone who just paid full price doesn't immediately get "30% off everything".

6. Lapsing customers

• Conditions: number of orders ≥ 1 AND last order between 60 and 120 days ago
• Send: a reminder of what they bought, what's new, or a replenishment nudge. Catching people here is easier than winning them back later.

7. Lapsed customers (win-back)

• Conditions: number of orders ≥ 1 AND last order more than 180 days ago
• Send: a win-back series, with your best offer in the last email. If they don't respond, move them into your sunset process.

8. Browsed, didn't buy

• Conditions: viewed a product in the last 3 days AND did not place an order in the last 3 days
• Send: a browse abandonment email featuring the product they looked at. This needs storefront events, such as a "Viewed Product" event.

9. Abandoned checkout

• Conditions: started a checkout AND did not complete an order
• Send: an abandoned checkout flow, typically one reminder within a few hours and another a day later, which stops as soon as they order. See Shopify abandoned checkout emails.

10. Engaged non-buyers

• Conditions: clicked an email in the last 30 days AND number of orders = 0
• Send: social proof, comparison guides and a first-order incentive. They're interested but not yet convinced.

11. Unengaged subscribers (sunset)

• Conditions: no clicks in the last 120 days AND no order in the last 120 days AND subscribed more than 120 days ago
• Send: one or two "do you still want to hear from us?" emails, then stop emailing those who don't respond. This is one of the most effective things you can do for deliverability; see email list cleaning.

12. Local or regional customers

• Conditions: country = a specific country, or time zone in a region
• Send: region-specific shipping offers, holidays and seasonal ranges. Send at a sensible local time.

SaaS and app segments

13. Signed up, not activated

• Conditions: performed Signed Up in the last 14 days AND did not perform your key activation event (for example Project Created)
• Send: one focused onboarding email per day or two, each pointing to the single next step. Example subject line: "Create your first project in 2 minutes".

14. On trial, not paid

• Conditions: performed Trial Started AND did not perform Plan Upgraded
• Send: value reminders during the trial, then factual "your trial ends on…" notices. Our guide to SaaS lifecycle email covers the full sequence.

15. Power users and at-risk users

• Power users: performed Feature Used at least 10 times in the last 30 days. Send: beta invitations, referral asks, upgrade offers for higher limits.
• At risk: plan is a paid plan AND last seen more than 14 days ago. Send: a short "here's what's new" or "need a hand?" email from a real person.

Combining and excluding segments

A few practical rules:

• Always exclude unsubscribed and suppressed people. Your email platform should do this automatically.
• Use exclusions as much as inclusions. Excluding recent buyers from a sale or excluding VIPs from discounts is often worth as much as targeting.
• Don't over-slice. A segment of 40 people is rarely worth a separate campaign. Start with five or six segments that cover most of your list and refine from there.
• Pair segments with flows. Many of the recipes above, such as first-time buyers, lapsing customers and trial not paid, work best as automated flows that run continuously, not one-off campaigns. See ecommerce email flows.

Shopify customer segments: how Shopify data maps to segments

If you run a Shopify store, most of the data you need for segmentation already lives in your Shopify admin. Shopify has its own customer segmentation feature, which builds dynamic, rule-based customer lists using filters written in its query language. You can send to these segments with Shopify Messaging (formerly Shopify Email), Shopify's own email app, or use the same data in a dedicated email platform.

Shopify's segment query language reference lists the available filters. Here is how the main ones map to the recipes above:

Shopify also offers rfm_group, which places customers in groups such as CHAMPIONS, LOYAL, AT_RISK and DORMANT based on recency, frequency and spend, and predicted_spend_tier, which groups them by predicted spend.

A Shopify example combining filters, from the format Shopify documents:

number_of_orders >= 2 AND last_order_date < -90d AND email_subscription_status = 'SUBSCRIBED'

This finds repeat customers who are subscribed to email and haven't ordered in about 90 days, a good win-back audience. Shopify's reference uses < for "before" and > for "after", with offsets such as -90d or -8m.

One rule matters more than any filter: only email people whose email subscription status shows they accepted marketing. A customer who bought from you without opting in can still receive their order confirmations, but not your campaigns.

Building these segments in EterMail

EterMail is our product. If you use it with Shopify, you connect your store through a read-only custom app, and customers with their marketing consent, orders and lifetime spend, products, and open checkouts sync every 15 minutes. SaaS products and apps send users and events through the identify and track API instead.

Segments can combine conditions on contact fields such as number of orders, total spent, last order date, last click, locale and time zone; custom attributes you sync; tags; subscription status; and events performed or not performed, optionally within a number of days. You see roughly how many contacts match before you save. Templates cover several of the recipes above, such as purchased in the last 90 days, subscribed but never purchased, inactive for 60+ days, on trial but not paid, and high value. You can also ask Etta, the in-app assistant, for something like "subscribers who haven't ordered in 90 days", and it builds the segment for you to review. See Shopify email marketing for how the pieces fit together.

FAQ

What is email segmentation?

Email segmentation is dividing your subscriber list into groups based on shared traits, such as purchase history, behaviour, engagement or location, and sending each group content relevant to it. Segments are usually saved rules that update automatically as people's data changes. They make emails more relevant and help protect your deliverability.

What are the main types of email segmentation?

The five common types are behavioural (what people do on your site or app), purchase (order history and spend), lifecycle (new, active, lapsing, lapsed), engagement (how recently they clicked or opened) and demographic or location. The most useful segments usually combine two or more, such as "repeat customers who haven't ordered in 90 days".

How many segments should I have?

Start with five or six segments that cover most of your list, such as never purchased, first-time buyers, repeat customers, VIPs, lapsing customers and unengaged subscribers. Add more only when a segment is large enough and different enough to deserve its own message. Too many tiny segments create work without improving results.

How do I create customer segments in Shopify?

In your Shopify admin, go to Customers, then Segments, and click Create segment. Build the query by combining filters, operators and values, such as amount_spent > 100 or number_of_orders >= 2. Shopify updates segment membership automatically as customers meet or stop meeting the conditions. You can email segments with Shopify Messaging (formerly Shopify Email) or use the same customer data in another email platform.

What is RFM segmentation?

RFM stands for recency, frequency and monetary value: how recently a customer bought, how often they buy and how much they spend. Scoring customers on all three separates your best customers from one-time buyers and from people who are drifting away. Shopify offers an rfm_group filter that groups customers this way.

Should I segment by opens or by clicks?

Prefer clicks and site or purchase activity. Apple's Mail Privacy Protection can register opens that never happened, so open-based segments may include people who aren't really engaged. Opens can still be a useful extra signal, but don't rely on them alone for sunset or VIP segments.