Customer Segmentation Approaches

Personalisation is talked a lot about in commerce, yet I am seeing very few SMB's walk the talk. Personalisation with purpose is key to investing time and resources which are finite in any SMB retailer and I suspect why it is rarely implemented. Segmeting your customers into four key groups is a crucial first step: Loyal customers - repeat, full price shoppers Discount customers - repeat, discount shoppers First time customers - single purchase shoppers At risk customers - haven't purchased in 6 months (adjust time frame to your average repurchase rate time period) Now build a strategy accordingly: Loyal customers - exclusive first to know when new product drops (don't scream sale to them) Discount customers - first to know when you go on sale First time customers - serve them the products second time customers purchase At risk customers - send them a really hot offer to see if you can entice them back, maybe even ask them why they haven't shopped again with you? How does a retailer "one up this", look at patterns in what your customer groups buy. A great example of this is a strategy we rolled out with a footwear brand which I shared with the Klaviyo team in Sydney this week... Before going on sale, segment your slow moving or end of season products into sizes. Build custom landing pages (this can be down using search filters as well) showing the styles and products in that customer groups size. You may just be blown away too that you end up selling through all your slow moving or end of season products at full price. A simple strategy targeting niche customer size groups with styles in their size will not just drive revenue and profit, but loyalty too. These customers likely struggle to find their size more often than not! How often have you gone to a store and found what you wanted was not available in your size... 🙄 What's your top tip for tackling personalisation?

The hardest lesson in Customer Success? Not every account needs the same attention. I've seen too many CS teams burn out trying to give white-glove service to every single customer. Meanwhile, their highest-value accounts aren't getting the strategic partnership they need to expand. Here's the framework that works for me: 📍MAINTAIN (Low Risk, Low Value) Your efficiency plays. Automated onboarding, self-service resources, and health-check emails. Keep them healthy without burning CSM hours. 📍RETAIN (High Risk, Low Value) Your fire drills. Rapid risk diagnosis, short-term recovery plans, executive escalation. Get them stable or let them go gracefully. 📍EXPAND → 𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡 𝐕𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞, 𝐋𝐨𝐰 𝐑𝐢𝐬𝐤 Your growth engine. This is where the magic happens -QBRs, strategic roadmap discussions, champion programs, and co-marketing opportunities. → 𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡 𝐕𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞, 𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡 𝐑𝐢𝐬𝐤 Your rescue missions have a massive upside. Jump in fast, diagnose issues, build recovery plans, then shift to expansion mode. 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐂𝐒 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭'𝐬 𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐤 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐞. Your CS team shouldn't be stretched thin - they should be strategically deployed. What's your approach to CS segmentation? Drop a comment - I'd love to hear what's working (or not working) for your team

Half our marketing budget targeted women 25-34. Our highest converting audience? Men 45-65 buying gifts. Discovered this by accident when analyzing order patterns from last Diwali season. These gift-buying men were completely invisible in our targeting strategy. Weird pattern we noticed: ⤵︎ They never used discount codes ⤵︎ Always chose express shipping ⤵︎ Bought our highest-priced items ⤵︎ Had near-zero return rates Our acquisition cost for this segment was 4X lower while average order value was 3.2X higher. Instead of ignoring this insight, we rebuilt our entire holiday strategy around it: ↗︎ Created "gift concierge" landing pages with curated selections ↗︎ Added gift wrapping and personalized message options ↗︎ Developed email sequences specifically for gift occasions ↗︎ Built lookalike audiences based on this high-value segment These changes increased our holiday revenue by 142% year-over-year while reducing marketing spend by 17%. The most profitable audience segments rarely match your brand's imagined customer avatar. Data reveals who's actually buying, not who you think should be buying. What hidden audience segments are you overlooking?

I'm restructuring our entire CS book this year in a way I’ve never done. Not by customer size. By product potential. For years, I segmented like everyone else: enterprise customers get white-glove service, mid-market gets a CSM with a bigger book, small customers get tech-touch. But I’m realizing that a customer’s size doesn't actually tell you what they need from you. What matters more: -Where are they in their product adoption journey? -What's their expansion potential with our platform? -What kind of relationship and support do they need from us? So I'm splitting my book differently this year. Size is still a factor, but potential is more important: Bucket 1: Enterprise relationship accounts.  These are massive customers. They move slowly. I don't expect them to buy a ton of new stuff, but if they leave, we're in trouble. So I'm assigning them to my most relationship-driven CSM—someone who can have strategic conversations about where things are headed 5 years from now. Bucket 2: High-potential ICP accounts ($20-50K).  These are our sweet spot customers. They're the most likely to love us if they actually use everything we've built…and most likely to leave if they don't know the value we provide. I'm putting my two most curious CSMs on this segment. Their job isn't to manage accounts. It's to ask questions, learn, educate, activate, and grow these customers. If a customer in this segment isn't expanding this year, I'm treating them as a churn risk. Bucket 3: Smart-touch accounts. These are smaller customers who don’t fall in our ICP and thus have lower potential to grow. They get automated workflows, AI-powered support, and self-service resources. My one CSM managing this segment focuses on one-to-many campaigns and proactive outreach based on product usage signals.  Here’s the big emphasis: I'm staffing based on what customers need to be successful, not just how much they're currently paying us. 💡 If you’re exploring this shift too, I shared a webinar last year breaking down how signals from support data can drive growth — dropping it here for anyone who wants to go deeper: https://bit.ly/4aD7Nxg It’s only January, but I feel like it’s helping my CSMs be more focused. They know exactly what they're optimizing for in each segment. How do you segment your CS book?

“Fire your customers!” I told the MD. He was shocked. “What are you saying? Customer is God. We already struggle to get customers… and you want me to fire them? Are you crazy?” I smiled and explained: There are 4 categories of customers every factory deals with: 🔹 A = Awesome Good volume, healthy margins, timely payments, respectful relationship. 🔹 B = Basic Reasonable business, margins okay, payments delayed but secure, manageable relationship. 🔹 C = Can’t-do-business-with Low volume, poor margins, erratic payments, difficult to deal with. 🔹 D = Dead Tiny orders, negligible margins, daily stress, constant fights. Here’s the hidden trap 👇 C & D customers consume the majority of your bandwidth — leaving you less time to serve A & B. And guess what? A & B customers are also the top priority for your competitors. If you neglect them, you open the door for others to replace you. That’s why you must learn to say NO to C & D customers. Treat A & B like God — they will grow your business and profits. In fact, many factories discover this paradox: 👉 When you “fire” C & D customers, your sales and profits actually increase. Sometimes, growth is not about adding more… it’s about subtraction. ❓As a factory owner, which type of customers take up most of your bandwidth today?

Amazon sent 5,743 holiday email campaigns last season. Walmart sent 1,288. Guess which strategy performed better? Research analyzing holiday email performance from major ecommerce brands revealed something most marketers get backwards: More emails doesn't mean more opens or conversions. Amazon's deliverability sat at 85%. Walmart's hit 95%. That difference matters more than you'd think. For Amazon, emails with below-90% deliverability got 13% open rates. Above 90%? The rate jumped to 19-22%. But here's the real insight buried in the data: Smaller, segmented email lists consistently outperformed larger blast campaigns across every brand studied. Yet most ecommerce teams are still playing the volume game. They're scheduling dozens of holiday sends to their entire list, watching deliverability drop, and wondering why open rates tank. The brands winning aren't sending more. They're sending smarter. Clean your list constantly. A deliverability rate below 90% signals quality issues that kill your open rates before anyone sees your offer. Segment ruthlessly. Your loyal customers, potential converters, and inactive subscribers all need different messages. Treating them the same leaves money on the table. Focus on the season, not just the days. Site visits don't drop after Cyber Monday like everyone assumes. The brands that keep relevant emails flowing through December capture sales competitors miss. The irony? Most email marketers know segmentation works, but only 58% actually use it. That's not a knowledge problem—it's an execution problem. Holiday email success isn't about flooding inboxes. It's about reaching the right people with clean lists and relevant messages. Full research breakdown and holiday email tactics that work year-round in the article below.

Marketers, throw out your one-size-fits-all holiday plan. Intuit Mailchimp’s latest research, Holiday Shopping Unwrapped, shows that the holiday shopping season is a multi-month journey with distinct phases, each defined by a different shopper mindset. Think of this as a teaser for all the valuable insights in the report. The key to winning is understanding this "ebb and flow" and aligning your marketing to meet customers where they are. Let’s break down the 7 different phases and archetypal shopping behaviors within each: 1. Early Lead-Up (Oct 1 - 31): The season kicks off with Gift-Giving Lifers, the early birds motivated by preparedness. They want to get their shopping done before the frenzy. Cater to them by reframing messaging around smart, joyful planning. 2. Pre-Peak Sales (Nov 1 - mid-Nov): This phase is for Joyful Shoppers, who are more deliberate in their purchases. They are motivated by joy and nostalgia, not just savings. Win them over by highlighting emotionally resonant products that offer meaning and connection. 3. Peak Sales (Mid-Nov - Nov 30): This is for the Discount Devotees. They are driven by the pursuit of a great deal and the fear of missing out (FOMO). Appeal to their sense of reward and make them feel like they've "outsmarted the system." 4. Festive Phase (Dec 1 - mid-Dec): Meet the Curators. They're not just looking for deals; they're searching for something special with a story behind it. To capture them, shift from transactional marketing to emotional storytelling. 5. Last-Minute Sprint (Mid-Dec - Observational Days): The pressure is on for the Last-Minute Listers. They're anxious about gifts arriving on time. Brands can become problem-solvers by offering practical, low-friction solutions like express delivery or in-store pickup options. 6. Betwixtmas (Observational Days - Dec 30): This is the indulgent phase for the Self-Gifters. After weeks of giving, they're focused on rewarding themselves with the things they really wanted. Leverage this "me-first" mentality with messaging that shifts from "giving" to "gratifying.” 7. New Year (New Year's Eve - Early Jan): The focus shifts to renewal and self-improvement for the Self-Improvers. They are motivated by resolutions and a desire for a fresh start. Campaigns should emphasize savings and progress-oriented purchases to help them start fresh. My key takeaway for marketers: It’s not just a singular opportunity ahead of you. So be agile. Use data to understand your audience's emotional state. Then, tailor your email and SMS strategy to each phase. Your marketing should match the ebb and flow of the season—not just be a list of promotions. ↑ That’s your strategic roadmap. Get your free copy of the report: https://lnkd.in/eupdY9VP

👉 Pseudo Segmentations are Hazardous Waste Time for some marketing detox. If you’re still using personas, milieus, and archetypes in 2025, it’s time for a marketing detox and get rid of everything that doesn’t serve you. Pseudo segmentations should be at the very top of your “let go of what doesn’t serve me” list. Why? All these "segmentations" look pretty on slides, but don’t meet the most basic criteria for business relevance: (1) Value-based: They don’t tell you who drives revenue/profit. (2) Actionable: They can’t shape pricing, product, or distribution. (3) Strategic: They don’t unlock a competitive advantage. And worse: They give you a false sense of knowing your consumers when you’re relying on something as useful as toe juice AND block you from doing something truly impactful: real, value-based segmentation, which is the lever for profitable growth. That’s too much bogus, and five strong reasons to ditch them forever. 👉 What to do instead: Value-Based Segmentation Ditch the pseudo and start with value-based segmentation the foundation of your marketing strategy. This is exactly what we use in "How Small Brands Grow - A replicable framework for brand growth" designed for start-ups, scale-ups, and mature businesses. Here’s how it works in a nutshell: [1] Understand Profit Pools / Value / Cost - Size of segments - Value of segments - Growth rates - Repeat behaviour / loyalty - Acquisition cost / customer value [2] Build segments based on business value - Who are the segments with real upside potential? - What do they need? - Where are your right-to-win opportunities? - How can you address them? [3] Align 4Ps to segment needs Design pricing, product, promotion, and channels to win the most valuable and addressable segments. Bottom line: Want real growth? Dump pseudo segmentations Start with value-based segmentation Build your strategy on it Now, let’s all take a deep breath, hold hands, and say it together: “Oooohm… let’s make marketing a better place.” --- PS: If you’ve warmed up with segmentation and want to continue your marketing detox (grab a matcha first), tackle these next: Short-term performance > long-term brand Forgotten 4Ps KPI mess --- ♻️ Your network appreciates a repost. 👉 If you’d like the PDF of the "How Small Brands Grow" deck, just comment “oh yes” below. --- Frederic Fernandez

Think your BFCM analysis stops at ‘we’re up 40%’!  Let me show you what you’re missing. You might think a 30-40% spike in conversion rate means you crushed it. And maybe you did. But if you’re not digging deeper  into where that growth came from and  what really drove it, you’re missing the real story. Here’s what matters most: 1. New Customer Acquisition Where did your new customers come from? You’re spending heavily on paid platforms during BFCM… Was this profitable or will it be profitable? Or were they just one-and-done discount seekers? For smaller brands, this is the metric to focus on. New customers will produce the majority of your revenue. And Paid traffic is likely your biggest lever for new customers. So make sure you’re analyzing new customer acquisition performance carefully. 2. Segmenting Your Customers Larger brands, this one’s for you: go deeper. Look at three key groups: 1️⃣ New customers:  → How many did they acquire? Will they stick around? 2️⃣ Recent buyers (last 90 days):  → Did they come back for more? 3️⃣ Win-back customers (haven’t purchased recently):  → Did your campaigns successfully re-engage them? A simple RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary) analysis can reveal what worked and what didn’t work across the customer journey. Especially if you pair it with on-site data. 3. On-Site Performance by Channel Different traffic sources perform differently. It’s a fact. Returning customers will almost always convert well during BFCM. But your new customers? They’re a tougher crowd. 👉 Did your paid campaigns drive them to the right landing pages? 👉 Did those landing pages convert, or did users drop off? It’s not just about global metrics. It’s about understanding how each channel contributed to your success or didn’t. Why this matters: If you’re not segmenting your performance and asking these questions… You’re leaving money on the table. This is the super bowl for ecomm brands,  so if you’re not watching film on your performance… How could you expect to get better? BFCM analysis isn’t just about celebrating wins. It’s about finding the cracks and fixing them before your next promotional push. How deep are you going in your analysis this year? 👇

The rest of Q1 is when the customers you just acquired during the holidays start disappearing. You spent all that money on BFCM/Q5 acquisition and now you're watching people churn. The retention window is closing, and if you're not treating these buyers differently.. It’s over. Q4/Q5 buyers have completely different behavior patterns than your regular customers. - They bought because of a discount - They might have bought for someone else - They're dealing with post-holiday spending guilt They don't know your brand the way someone who found you organically in March does, and your January retention flows need to acknowledge this. STEP 1: SEGMENT IMMEDIATELY Holiday customers should have their own bucket from day one because everything you send them should be different. STEP 2: ADJUST YOUR Q1 ONBOARDING SEQUENCE Your normal welcome flow assumes the customer chose you. Holiday buyers chose your discount. - Lead with product education, not upsells - Remind them WHY the product matters (they forgot the second they closed the tab) - Delay any subscription push until they've actually experienced the product STEP 3: ADDRESS THE GUILT Post-holiday spending guilt is real. Your first few emails should be reinforcing that their purchase was a good decision. - Share customer success stories - Highlight the value they're getting - Make them feel smart for buying, not pressured to buy again STEP 4: EXTEND THE TIMELINE These customers aren't warmed up yet (even though we’re 3 weeks into the year). Give them 45-60 days before you start pushing hard on repeat purchases or subscriptions. Yes it’s almost February. Yes, I’m still getting questions in my DMs about this. Don’t neglect your holiday customers for the rest of Q1. Follow the steps above and you’ll be in a MUCH better spot in April. Or don’t. Up to you