Groups vs segments: which should you use? (And why it matters)

You’ve got your contacts imported, you’ve got your new email marketing campaign all planned out, but then you hit a wall: the platform asks you which groups and/or segments you want to send your campaign to. 

Groups vs segments: What’s the difference?

In short, groups are subscription lists, while segments are filters applied to your contact list. 

While they might sound similar, they are different, and choosing the right one can have a big impact on how your email campaign performs. Using the wrong option leads to messy lists, irrelevant emails, higher unsubscribe rates and, eventually, deliverability issues.

In this article, you’ll find out exactly what groups and segments mean in email marketing, when to use each one, and how to use them together for the best results. 

Groups vs segments: why you need to know the difference

One of the main differences between a successful email and one that falls flat is personalization.

When most people think of personalization, they think of “Hello {{First.Name}}” and other merge tags, but they’re just one part of creating relevant emails. 

Whilst this is part of personalized marketing, it also means sending the right message to the right people at the right time.

For example, a welcome email makes perfect sense for a brand-new subscriber, but it’s completely irrelevant for someone who’s been a customer for the last three years.

Likewise, sending a “loyal customer” offer is great for people who actually are loyal customers, but it can come across as a bit insincere to someone who’s never bought a thing from you.

These mismatched messages are bad enough, but the real problem is when those emails become so common that your readers start assuming that your emails won’t apply to them. People learn to ignore your emails or simply unsubscribe. In turn, these signals mean your messages end up more likely to hit the spam folder than the inbox.

When you send every email to every person in your contact list, that becomes much more likely. 

The good news is that groups and segments solve this issue, helping you organize your contacts so you can send highly targeted, relevant emails.

What is a group in email marketing?

A group is a subscription list that contacts choose to join and can choose to leave.

With a group, people have opted in to receive a particular type of communication from you. They can also choose to stop receiving that communication whenever they want. 

For example, you might have separate groups for:

• Your monthly newsletter
• Product or service updates
• Promotional emails

The important thing to remember is that the contact is the one in control. So, someone might want to get your product updates but decide they don’t want any promotional emails. They can unsubscribe from that group without being completely removed from your contact list or leaving other groups they still want to be a part of. 

This level of control makes groups particularly useful for managing email preferences. In most countries, marketing emails are legally required to give people a way to unsubscribe, and groups mean your contacts have greater control over exactly what emails they get.

What is a segment in email marketing?

A segment is a filtered view of your contact list based on your set criteria.

Rather than using separate lists or moving contacts between lists, you choose the type of recipients you want to reach out to from your contact list. Think of segments as a lens that you apply to your existing list, not a place where contacts are stored.

You can create segments based on the contact information you have, such as a contact’s attributes or behaviors. For example, you could create a segment for:

• Lapsed customers based in Chicago
• Contacts who haven’t purchased anything
• Customers who upgraded their service plan in the last year

The big advantage is that you don’t have to keep these lists updated manually. Contacts automatically move in and out of a segment depending on whether or not they meet the conditions you’ve set.

So, if you’ve got that segment for lapsed customers in Chicago, customers will automatically be added when they haven’t made a purchase in a specified amount of time and are based in the Windy City. However, as soon as they make a purchase or move to a different location, they’ll automatically stop showing up in that segment. 

Groups vs segments: which should you use?

The easiest way to decide between groups and segments is to ask: is the customer choosing to receive it, or are you choosing who receives it?

If it’s a subscription-style communication that people can opt in and out of, then use a group. If you’re targeting a particular set of contacts based on who they are or what they’ve done, then use a segment.

Here’s how that looks in practice:

See how it works for yourself with a free Transpond account today.

How groups and segments work together

While we’ve been talking about groups vs segments, it’s important to note that it’s not about one being “better” than the other. They’re simply different ways of organizing your contacts.

A healthy setup might have a few groups for the different types of messages, alongside a growing collection of segments to help you target those messages more effectively. 

If you manage your contacts in a CRM (such as Capsule CRM), Transpond makes reaching out to those people with Groups and Segments even easier. Lists created in your CRM sync across as segments, while new CRM contacts automatically appear in Transpond as your database grows.

What about when you want to reach out to only a subsection of a group? As you may have noticed in the previous table, there can also be some overlap across different scenarios, such as ongoing promotions and one-off promotions. In these situations, Transpond lets you use both Groups and Segments at the same time.

For example, you might have a Group of people who’ve signed up to receive promotions. For a particular campaign, you could then select a Segment within that group, such as those who purchased a similar product in the past, or who live in a specific location.

The Group tells you who’s chosen to receive that type of message, then the Segment helps narrow down that audience to the most relevant recipients. 

This also matters when someone unsubscribes, as leaving a group doesn’t remove the person from the overall contact list. They can still belong to other groups they’ve subscribed to and can still appear in relevant segments.

When you’ve got your groups and segments in place, they can work together to create truly personalized email campaigns that get meaningful results for your business.

Groups vs segments: The simple rule to remember

If you’re sending subscription-style communication that people can opt in and out of, use Groups. If you’re targeting a slice of your list based on who someone is or what they’ve done, use Segments.

Groups help you respect what people have chosen to receive, while Segments help you make messages more relevant by targeting the right contacts.

Get that distinction right, and you’ll be in a much better position to send emails people actually want to open and read.

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Organizing your contacts is step one of a working marketing system.

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