Explore New Contact Segmentation Tools

Explore New Contact Segmentation Tools
Nina De la Cruz Nina De la Cruz Apr 13, 2023 —  4 min read

Recently, we announced our plan to turn Getsitecontrol into a full-featured email marketing platform.

And as you probably know, a big part of email marketing is segmentation.

The good news is that you can already segment and tag your contacts in Getsitecontrol.

In this post, I’ll introduce the updated Contacts section, explain how segments work, and walk you through automated contact tagging.

Let’s get started!


Contacts

You may have already noticed that the navigation bar on the left has a new section named Contacts. It contains all email contacts you’ve acquired via website forms created in Getsitecontrol:

Contacts section overview

Consider this section to be your email list or your database. You can use filters to view contacts from specific countries, and contacts who’ve joined your list via a particular widget or during a specific period.

You can also add tags to selected contacts, manually subscribe or unsubscribe them from your emails, download their information, or remove them from the list:

Actions menu in the Contacts section

Finally, you can click any contact’s email to view their profile card and interaction history. For example, you’ll be able to see how they joined your list, what emails they’ve received so far, and whether they clicked through any of those emails.

Contact card: interaction history

💡 If you’re a Shopify user, contact cards also feature purchase history.

A list of contacts can be helpful on its own, but as it grows in size, you’ll be more interested in working with its segments.

Segments

Segmentation helps you group your contacts based on characteristics that are crucial for your marketing campaigns.

Segments section in Getsitecontrol

Depending on your objectives, you can use the following conditions to create an audience segment:

  • Tag
  • Segment
  • Marketing status
  • Email
  • Phone number
  • First name
  • Last name
  • Country

Default values for contact segmentation

For example, if you have subscribers from different countries, and you want to send a Mother’s Day promo, you need to group them by countries where this holiday falls on the same date:

Contact segmentation by countries

You can also use tags and additional conditions to narrow the audience. For example, you may want to create a segment of contacts from a certain country who have agreed to receive your weekly promo emails.

As a result, you’ll have an audience that meets your requirements for the promo:

What a segment card looks like in Getsitecontrol

You can create segments for one-time email broadcasts (email broadcasts in Getsitecontrol are coming soon 😊 ) or reuse them as many times as you need in your automations.

Segmentation is crucial for sending personalized campaigns. However, if you want to make the most out of it, default conditions, such as counties, are usually insufficient.

Audience segmentation is times more efficient if it’s based on interests or preferences.

But how do you identify and save your contacts’ preferences?

One way to do that is by asking them questions and assigning tags based on responses.

Let’s talk about it in more detail.

Contact tagging

Right under Segments, there’s a Tags section in the navigation bar. In this section, you can create new tags, edit them, or delete them.

Tags section in Getsitecontrol

To assign tags to contacts, you have three options. First, you can add tags manually:

How to add tags to contacts manually

Second, you can add tags to your existing contacts using automations. Besides the default set of segmentation parameters, automations allow you to tag those who have clicked certain links in your emails.

How to add tags to contacts via automations

Finally, you can add tags to new contacts via field mapping, based on the information they provide when submitting the form.

Here is how it works 👇

Field mapping

Suppose you own a jewelry brand with two product lines: rose gold jewelry and silver jewelry. You may assume that most customers prefer either rose gold or silver, so sending them emails featuring both lines would be inefficient.

In that case, when inviting them to join your list, you can ask them to identify their preference via mandatory checkboxes:

Email signup form designed for preference-based segmentation

Since you already know how to create email opt-in forms in Getsitecontrol, we won’t go into detail here, however, there’s one important nuance to keep in mind.

When designing your form, make sure to switch the default option_1 and option_2 to the corresponding names for each checkbox ID. You’ll be using these IDs for field mapping:

Editing field IDs for contact tagging

In our case option_1 is rose_gold; option_2 is silver.

Next, go to the Integration tab and select Map fields:

Field mapping button in the Integrations tab

Create rules to assign tags automatically based on the checkbox(es) your contacts have ticked:

Using field mapping for tagging new contacts

This way, new customers will pop up in your contact list with tags already assigned to them:

Assigned tags in the Contacts section

In turn, you’ll be able to use these tags to send emails that align with your subscribers’ preferences or interests.

Recap

Although it may seem like a lot of new information, in practice, segmentation is rather intuitive. Let’s do a quick recap of what we’ve just learned.

  1. Contacts are your ultimate list of emails acquired via website forms — likely your subscribers.
  2. Segmentation allows you to group contacts based on common characteristics, such as country, marketing status, tag, etc.
  3. You can assign tags to contacts manually or automatically: via automations and field mapping.
  4. To set up field mapping, you first need to adjust your email signup form: for example, by adding preference checkboxes, radio buttons, or dropdown menus.

Are you ready to get started with segmentation?

With automations that have become available in Getsitecontrol, there’s already a lot of room to practice. So log into your dashboard and try it for yourself!

Got any questions or need help setting things up? Email us at help@getsitecontrol.com or use our 24/5 Live chat.

Nina De la Cruz is a content strategist at Getsitecontrol. She is passionate about helping small and medium ecommerce brands achieve sustainable growth through email marketing.

You're reading Getsitecontrol blog where marketing experts share proven tactics to grow your online business. This article is a part of Getsitecontrol updates section.

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