What is up everyone.

After more than four years me and the family went back to the beach for a mini-vacation.

We loaded up into the car and made the 6ish hour journey (with a stop at Buc-ee's) down to Destin, Florida.

Honestly, I wasn't sure what to expect. I've never been to the Gulf or the Florida Panhandle.

But I really loved it.

I mean waking up to this view every morning isn't too shabby.

The water temperature was perfect. Waves were awesome for little kids.

But now it's time to lock in for Q3.

In this issue we're going to cover email segmentation strategy for campaigns and what's working for eCommerce brands.

When it comes to segmentation it is way too easy to overcomplicate things.

If you spend time online you'll see segmentation nerds claiming that you need dozens of segments.

The argument for advanced segmentation is that you'll make more money by boosting your conversion rate with hyper targeted copy and messaging.

Does it actually work?

Well, pull up a seat for a little story time my friend…

Years ago I tested this out for a sports apparel brand.

The owner DEMANDED that we segment campaigns by which sports team a person purchased.

So if they bought a North Carolina shirt, their email would ONLY show apparel with Tar Heels branding.

So instead of taking one day to create one campaign, we spent almost three days creating 20 campaigns for 20 different sports teams.

It was literally the same email with the same apparel images, just different logos on the shirts.

We hit send and what happened next will SHOCK YOU.

We instantly made $1 billion dollars!

LOL. JK bro.

The click rates were higher.

But when you added up all the revenue from the 20 campaigns it was actually less than when we sent one campaign with a bunch of different teams to their entire engaged segment.

Worst of all we spent almost 3x the time to set it all up.

"BUT BEN THAT WAS FOR AN APPAREL BRAND. APPAREL BRANDS AREN'T SOLD ON PAIN AND DESIRED OUTCOMES SO THIS WASN'T A GOOD TEST."

Maybe. But the problem isn't the segmentation / personalization.

The problem is the execution.

Most brands simply can't handle the extra work it takes to truly implement an advanced segmentation strategy and send 10-15 extra emails per month.

The juice is not worth the squeeze.

Let me show you an easier and more profitable way to segment your campaigns.

97.5% of all eCom brands can use this segmentation strategy and make millions of dollars a year from email campaigns.

I've been using this basic strategy for the past five years and it works for 7, 8, 9 and even 10 figure brands.

All you need are two segments.

Segment 1 - The Everyday Campaign Segment (Engaged 90 Days)

Opened or clicked an email at least once in the last 90 days.

Segment 2 - The Big Announcement Segment (Engaged 180 Days)

Opened or clicked an email at least once in the last 180 days.

Here's how you use them.

For your regular weekly campaign sends, you email the smaller Engaged 90 segment. That's your bread and butter.

When you have a big sale or a launch, you bring out the Engaged 180 segment. But only on the first email and the last email.

For example you send to that segment at the start of the sale and end of the sale. The start of the launch and end of the launch.

That's it.

So what is the strategy behind this?

Email marketing works so well because it is the cheapest way to consistently send traffic to your website and convert it.

BUT... email marketing is also a balancing act.

You need to walk that fine line of emailing as many people as possible without tanking your deliverability.

This is why you can't just blast your entire email list every time.

If you keep hammering people who don't open and click, Gmail and Yahoo notice.

They punish you. They send you to spam. Then your revenue gets suffocated.

One insanely important caveat to this strategy that I need to call out:

You must keep an eye on your open rates.

For your Everyday Send Segment you want to see open rates in the 35% to 50%+ range. That's your most engaged group, so those numbers should stay strong.

For your Big Announcement Segment the open rates will naturally run lower since it's a wider net. If they dip a little that's fine, but never let them fall below 25%.

If you notice your open rates fall below this range for either segment, then tighten them up by 30 days.

Start tight, then expand slowly. Never the other way around.

I wrote about this at length in a previous issue, but my prediction is that in the next 1-2 years AI will completely change how we operate email marketing.

Eventually AI will make hyper-segmentation and personalization at scale so easy.

Click a button and it will create and send thousands of email variations perfectly tailored to whoever receives them.

I'm all for that.

But for now, just keep it simple.

Two segments. 3-7 email campaigns per week.

You got this.

Catch you next week,

Ben

💸 If you’re running a 7–8 figure eCom brand but it still feels like nothing’s working book a free strategy call​ with me Here.

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