Best Ways to Segment Audiences for Targeted Campaigns

If you’re segmenting based on engagement, you’re already behind. Everyone does 30/60/90 day engagement windows. It’s not advanced. It’s basic hygiene. Here’s the real segmentation play most marketers miss: Segment by intent signals, not just opens/clicks. Examples: • Viewed shipping/returns policy? ➝ Hit with reassurance focused CTA • Time on product page > 30 seconds? ➝ Trigger a cart based reminder • Opened 5+ product emails but never clicked? ➝ Try plain text emails with a customer story • AOV based segments - low priced vs high priced ➝ show them the right products • FAQ viewers ➝ Give them more trust • Recent abandon carts/checkouts ➝ Leverage their interests • Time since they opted in for a coupon ➝ Remind them about it • Time since last purchase ➝ Show them complimentary products The list goes on and on... THEN add your engagement for best deliverability Engagement ≠ intent. Intent = actual buying behavior. Stop treating every click the same. Treat the reason behind the click differently.

The most underrated element in your B2B paid campaigns is your audience targeting. It's the foundation of every successful campaign — and it's the cheat code to driving higher quality leads. Instead of wasting hours creating more & more ad creative and ad copy, first ask yourself if you've maximized every possible audience available. My R.I.T.E Audience Framework helps break this down: 1️⃣ (R) Retargeting Audiences This is your warmest audience set. Max out this audience as much as possible by leveraging all available audiences based on a 30, 60, or 90-day timeframe including: All website visitors All pricing, demo, trial & case study visits All single-image ad interactions All 25-97% video viewers All company page visitors All document ad interactions All conversation ad opens All past event attendees All lead gen form opens (exclude lead gen form submissions though) All meeting no-shows & qualified leads that went dark without taking a meeting All closed lost contacts 2️⃣ (I) ICP Audiences These are your cold audiences filtered by industry, geography, and job titles to find your ideal customer profile. Spend some good time here. To help zero-in on the best ICP criteria, export a list of contacts from your CRM from your best-fit customers. Make a list of decision makers, champions, and influencers to define which job titles should see which specific ads. I encourage you to work with your sales team to refine this to avoid wasting ad spend on bad titles that will be disqualified later. Review this ~1x a month. There's tons of other data sources you can upload & layer on native criteria to. Here's just a few examples: Cold audiences from your current tech stack (CRM, MAP, Zoominfo, Apollo) Intent Audiences (G2, Bombora, CommonRoom, 6Sense) Website visitor contacts (RB2B, Warmly, Qualified) Technographic Audiences (Metamatch, Aberdeen, BuiltWith) Job Change Audiences (UserGems, LinkedIn Sales Nav) Funding Change Audiences (CrunchBase, KeyPlay) 3️⃣ (T) Target Account Audiences These are specific accounts you want to target. Don't sleep on this audience. Put your sales team on speed dial for this one so you can all align on the right-to-win accounts to target with ads. Layer on as much relevant filter criteria to target the right personas at these accounts. Review this ~1-2 months with your sales team. 4️⃣ (E) Exclusion Audiences Think of this as your "anti-buyer" persona. Exclude anyone you don’t want to waste ad spend on. Make it a habit to review your campaign's demographic reports to make sure you're not burning money on irrelevant audiences. Here's a few audiences I highly recommend excluding: Thank you & career website page visits All lead gen form submits Your company All existing customers All competitors & partners Poor fit job titles or functions (proactively add here based on disqualified lead feedback from your sales team) Poor fit industries Irrelevant company sizes Disqualified leads Target smarter, not harder. 🚀

Should you retarget by intent? We ran the test... Most B2B retargeting looks something like this: Someone visits your site, any page at all…and immediately: they’re getting hit with “Book a demo” or “Start your free trial” ads. No nuance. No context. Just one-size-fits-all messaging chasing every visitor around the internet. It’s simple. It’s easy. But also pretty broken. Here’s why: > Not everyone on your site is in the same headspace. > Blog readers aren’t ready to talk to sales. > Product page visitors are curious but not convinced. And people on the demo page? They’re this close but something’s holding them back. Treating all three the same? That’s how you burn ad dollars without actually building pipeline. So we ran a test. One of our clients had a basic retargeting setup. One campaign. One CTA. One generic message. We broke it apart and rebuilt it based on intent. ___________________________ Here’s how we segmented it: Blog readers Top-of-funnel folks in research mode. → We showed them value-first content: guides, checklists, downloads. Product & feature page visitors Mid-funnel visitors sniffing around the solution. → We served ROI calculators, interactive tools, and “how do you stack up” style CTAs. Pricing/demo page visitors Bottom-of-funnel leads with real buying signals. → They saw direct “Book a demo” and “Start your trial” ads with tons of social proof. ___________________________ Here’s what happened over 60 days: Old campaign (one-size-fits-all): > Low click-through rates (~0.4%) > Modest form fill volume > Demo-to-close rates hovering around 17% New segmented retargeting: > 3.1x higher CTR > 2.4x more total form fills > 29% increase in demo-to-close conversion from high-intent segments ___________________________ Better message-match. Cleaner funnel transitions. Better results.

Day 4 - CRO series Strategy development ➡Audience Segmentation Most marketing campaigns fail because they try to reach everyone. Smart businesses know that not all customers are the same. Here’s how to segment your audience for better targeting: 1. Define Your Segmentation Criteria Break your audience into meaningful groups based on: ◾ Demographics → Age, gender, income, education ◾ Geographic Location → Country, city, region ◾ Behavioural Data → Purchase history, engagement levels ◾ Psychographics → Values, interests, lifestyle choices The more precise the segmentation, the more effective the targeting. 2. Collect Audience Data Use multiple sources to understand your customers: ◾ Surveys & Interviews → Direct feedback from customers ◾ Website Analytics → Google Analytics, heatmaps, session recordings ◾ CRM Systems → Customer history, interactions, and purchase patterns Data removes guesswork. 3. Analyze the Data & Identify Patterns Look for trends: ◾ Are certain groups more likely to convert? ◾ Who engages most with your brand? ◾ What common traits do your best customers share? These insights form the foundation of strong segmentation. 4. Create Customer Segments Group people based on similar characteristics. Examples: ◾ High-value customers → Frequent buyers with high purchase amounts ◾ Engaged followers → Customers who interact on social media ◾ New leads → First-time website visitors Each segment requires a different marketing approach. 5. Develop Targeted Strategies Personalization is key. ◾ Young professionals? Use social media ads & video content. ◾ Older customers? Email campaigns may work better. ◾ High spenders? Loyalty programs & VIP offers. Speak to each segment in their language, on their preferred platform. 6. Test, Measure, and Optimize Not all strategies work equally. ◾ A/B test different messages within segments ◾ Track conversion rates, engagement, and retention ◾ Refine based on what performs best Optimization is an ongoing process. Why Segmentation Matters ✔ More Relevant Marketing → Customers receive messages tailored to them ✔ Higher Engagement & Conversions → People respond to what feels personalized ✔ Optimized Marketing Spend → Invest in what works for each segment ✔ Better Customer Experience → Customers feel understood and valued Businesses that segment their audience don’t just market better— They sell smarter. Are you using segmentation in your marketing? Share your thoughts below. See you tomorrow! P.S: If you have any questions related to CRO and want to discuss your CRO growth or strategy, Book a consultation call (Absolutely free) with me (Link in bio)

You’ll almost always improve outbound campaign performance by segmenting one layer further More specific subsets of data = more specific messaging If you reach out to “Saas marketing leaders”, the messaging will be written to that population of people (very broad) If you segment by: - sales-led growth companies (use outreach as tip of the spear to engage buyers) - marketing-led growth (use seo, paid ads, 1:many advertising to bring inbound buyers to them) - product-led growth (free product signups drive conversion to paid users inside product experience itself) You will be able to speak much more specifically to how you impact each of these environments Thus actually helps you make messaging better in two ways 1) it is more specific, so it is more compelling / believable. It catches positive attention and people believe that it was written for them 2) you remove the disagreeability of sounding like everyone else. Via negativa. The pattern interrupt of being different than the average message sent to a marketer (since so few do the work to be specific) further elevates the impact of your message In SOME instances, results don’t change a ton based on segmentation - but that’s a topic for another post…