The basics of building segments

Please click here if you are using the legacy version of Cortex. 

Segmentation is an essential component of any email marketing campaign strategy, and ReSci offers a simple yet robust tool in order to accomplish all of your goals. In addition to automatically generating segments unique to our platform, Cortex also allows you to create your own segments to meet your brand's unique marketing needs. 

Understanding "And" and "Or" groupings

Adding groupings to your segment

Already understand the basics of Smart Segments? For more information on building more advanced segments, click here.

Understanding "And" and "Or" groupings

All Smart Segments inevitably come back to combinations of "And" and "Or" statements.  Another way to think of them is as "All" and "Any" statements.  With "And" statements a user must meet all conditions described to receive an email.  With "Or" statements a user can meet any (just one is enough) of the described conditions.

You can switch between "And" and "Or" statements by clicking and selecting the desired value from the dropdown. 

Putting things a different way: "And" statements are exclusive, while "Or" statements are inclusive. As more conditions are added to an "And" grouping, it is more difficult for users to meet all conditions. Therefore, fewer users will be able to apply for the segment. On the other hand, as more conditions are added to an "Or" grouping, it is easier for a user to meet a single condition. Therefore, more users will be able to apply for the segment.

This can be seen in the example below. Two segments with identical conditions are constructed. One is made with an "And" grouping while the other is made with an "Or" grouping. The segment using the "And" grouping is returning 2.3K users, while the segment using the "Or" grouping is returning 24.0K users. 

Avoid using "Or" groupings with conditions that are too inclusive. For example, the "Is Subscribed to Email" condition should never be used in an "Or" grouping, because doing so will retrieve all users who are subscribed regardless of any of the other filter conditions!

Adding groupings to your segment

A grouping is a group of segment conditions. Groupings can help focus your segmentation even further by containing a set of conditions into one place and allowing you to use either "And" or "Or". 

Example 1

In the following example, this segment would pull all users that are subscribed to your email, have made one purchase, and either have a state value of CA or a country value of Canada (by using an "Or" grouping). 

Example 2

In the following example, this segment would pull all users that are subscribed to your email, and that have either opened an email or visited your site within the past thirty days (by using an "Or" grouping) .