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• What is Audience Segmentation ? The 5 Main Types & Examples

  16 novembre 2023, par Erin — Analytics Tips

  The days of mass marketing with the same message for millions are long gone. Today, savvy marketers instead focus on delivering the most relevant message to the right person at the right time.

  They do this at scale by segmenting their audiences based on various data points. This isn’t an easy process because there are many types of audience segmentation. If you take the wrong approach, you risk delivering irrelevant messages to your audience — or breaking their trust with poor data management.

  In this article, we’ll break down the most common types of audience segmentation, share examples highlighting their usefulness and cover how you can segment campaigns without breaking data regulations.

  What is audience segmentation ?

  Audience segmentation is when you divide your audience into multiple smaller specific audiences based on various factors. The goal is to deliver a more targeted marketing message or to glean unique insights from analytics.

  It can be as broad as dividing a marketing campaign by location or as specific as separating audiences by their interests, hobbies and behaviour.

  

  Audience segmentation inherently makes a lot of sense. Consider this : an urban office worker and a rural farmer have vastly different needs. By targeting your marketing efforts towards agriculture workers in rural areas, you’re honing in on a group more likely to be interested in farm equipment. 

  Audience segmentation has existed since the beginning of marketing. Advertisers used to select magazines and placements based on who typically read them. They would run a golf club ad in a golf magazine, not in the national newspaper.

  How narrow you can make your audience segments by leveraging multiple data points has changed.

  Why audience segmentation matters

  In a survey by McKinsey, 71% of consumers said they expected personalisation, and 76% get frustrated when a vendor doesn’t deliver.

  

  These numbers reflect expectations from consumers who have actively engaged with a brand — created an account, signed up for an email list or purchased a product.

  They expect you to take that data and give them relevant product recommendations — like a shoe polishing kit if you bought nice leather loafers.

  If you don’t do any sort of audience segmentation, you’re likely to frustrate your customers with post-sale campaigns. If, for example, you just send the same follow-up email to all customers, you’d damage many relationships. Some might ask : “What ? Why would you think I need that ?” Then they’d promptly opt out of your email marketing campaigns.

  To avoid that, you need to segment your audience so you can deliver relevant content at all stages of the customer journey.

  5 key types of audience segmentation

  To help you deliver the right content to the right person or identify crucial insights in analytics, you can use five types of audience segmentation : demographic, behavioural, psychographic, technographic and transactional.

  

  Demographic segmentation 

  Demographic segmentation is when you segment a larger audience based on demographic data points like location, age or other factors.

  The most basic demographic segmentation factor is location, which is easy to leverage in marketing efforts. For example, geographic segmentation can use IP addresses and separate marketing efforts by country. 

  But more advanced demographic data points are becoming increasingly sensitive to handle. Especially in Europe, GDPR makes advanced demographics a more tentative subject. Using age, education level and employment to target marketing campaigns is possible. But you need to navigate this terrain thoughtfully and responsibly, ensuring meticulous adherence to privacy regulations.

  Potential data points :

  • Location
  • Age
  • Marital status
  • Income
  • Employment 
  • Education

  Example of effective demographic segmentation :

  A clothing brand targeting diverse locations needs to account for the varying weather conditions. In colder regions, showcasing winter collections or insulated clothing might resonate more with the audience. Conversely, in warmer climates, promoting lightweight or summer attire could be more effective. 

  Here are two ads run by North Face on Facebook and Instagram to different audiences to highlight different collections :

  

  Each collection is featured differently and uses a different approach with its copy and even the media. With social media ads, targeting people based on advanced demographics is simple enough — you can just single out the factors when making your campaign. But if you don’t want to rely on these data-mining companies, that doesn’t mean you have no options for segmentation.

  Consider allowing people to self-select their interests or preferences by incorporating a short survey within your email sign-up form. This simple addition can enhance engagement, decrease bounce rates, and ultimately improve conversion rates, offering valuable insights into audience preferences.

  This is a great way to segment ethically and without the need of data-mining companies.

  Behavioural segmentation

  Behavioural segmentation segments audiences based on their interaction with your website or app.

  You use various data points to segment your target audience based on their actions.

  Potential data points :

  • Page visits
  • Referral source
  • Clicks
  • Downloads
  • Video plays
  • Goal completion (e.g., signing up for a newsletter or purchasing a product)

  Example of using behavioural segmentation to improve campaign efficiency :

  One effective method involves using a web analytics tool such as Matomo to uncover patterns. By segmenting actions like specific clicks and downloads, pinpoint valuable trends—identifying actions that significantly enhance visitor conversions. 

  

  For instance, if a case study video substantially boosts conversion rates, elevate its prominence to capitalise on this success.

  Then, you can set up a conditional CTA within the video player. Make it pop up after the user has watched the entire video. Use a specific form and sign them up to a specific segment for each case study. This way, you know the prospect’s ideal use case without surveying them.

  This is an example of behavioural segmentation that doesn’t rely on third-party cookies.

  Psychographic segmentation

  Psychographic segmentation is when you segment audiences based on your interpretation of their personality or preferences.

  Potential data points :

  • Social media patterns
  • Follows
  • Hobbies
  • Interests

  Example of effective psychographic segmentation :

  Here, Adidas segments its audience based on whether they like cycling or rugby. It makes no sense to show a rugby ad to someone who’s into cycling and vice versa. But to rugby athletes, the ad is very relevant.

  

  If you want to avoid social platforms, you can use surveys about hobbies and interests to segment your target audience in an ethical way.

  Technographic segmentation

  Technographic segmentation is when you single out specific parts of your audience based on which hardware or software they use.

  Potential data points :

  • Type of device used
  • Device model or brand
  • Browser used

  Example of segmenting by device type to improve user experience :

  Upon noticing a considerable influx of tablet users accessing their platform, a leading news outlet decided to optimise their tablet browsing experience. They overhauled the website interface, focusing on smoother navigation and better readability for tablet users. These changes offered tablet users a seamless and enjoyable reading experience tailored precisely to their device.

  Transactional segmentation

  Transactional segmentation is when you use your customers’ purchase history to better target your marketing message to their needs.

  When consumers prefer personalisation, they typically mean based on their actual transactions, not their social media profiles.

  Potential data points :

  • Average order value
  • Product categories purchased within X months
  • X days since the last purchase of a consumable product

  Example of effective transactional segmentation :

  A pet supply store identifies a segment of customers consistently purchasing cat food but not other pet products. They create targeted email campaigns offering discounts or loyalty rewards specifically for cat-related items to encourage repeat purchases within this segment.

  If you want to improve customer loyalty and increase revenue, the last thing you should do is send generic marketing emails. Relevant product recommendations or coupons are the best way to use transactional segmentation.

  B2B-specific : Firmographic segmentation

  Beyond the five main segmentation types, B2B marketers often use “firmographic” factors when segmenting their campaigns. It’s a way to segment campaigns that go beyond the considerations of the individual.

  Potential data points :

  • Company size
  • Number of employees
  • Company industry
  • Geographic location (office)

  Example of effective firmographic segmentation :

  Companies of different sizes won’t need the same solution — so segmenting leads by company size is one of the most common and effective examples of B2B audience segmentation.

  The difference here is that B2B campaigns are often segmented through manual research. With an account-based marketing approach, you start by researching your potential customers. You then separate the target audience into smaller segments (or even a one-to-one campaign).

  Start segmenting and analysing your audience more deeply with Matomo

  Segmentation is a great place to start if you want to level up your marketing efforts. Modern consumers expect to get relevant content, and you must give it to them.

  But doing so in a privacy-sensitive way is not always easy. You need the right approach to segment your customer base without alienating them or breaking regulations.

  That’s where Matomo comes in. Matomo champions privacy compliance while offering comprehensive insights and segmentation capabilities. With robust privacy controls and cookieless configuration, it ensures GDPR and other regulations are met, empowering data-driven decisions without compromising user privacy.

  Take advantage of our 21-day free trial to get insights that can help you improve your marketing strategy and better reach your target audience. No credit card required.

• Custom Segmentation Guide : How it Works & Segments to Test

  13 novembre 2023, par Erin — Analytics Tips, Uncategorized

  Struggling to get the insights you’re looking for with premade reports and audience segments in your analytics ?

  Custom segmentation can help you better understand your customers, app users or website visitors, but only if you know what you’re doing.

  You can derive false insights with the wrong segments, leading your marketing campaigns or product development in the wrong direction.

  In this article, we’ll break down what custom segmentation is, useful custom segments to consider, how new privacy laws affect segmentation options and how to create these segments in an analytics platform.

  What is custom segmentation ?

  Custom segmentation is when you divide your audience (customers, users, website visitors) into bespoke segments of your own design, not premade segments designed by the analytics or marketing platform provider.

  To do this, you single out “custom segment input” — data points you will use to pinpoint certain users. For example, it could be everyone who has visited a certain page on your site.

  

  Segmentation isn’t just useful for targeting marketing campaigns and also for analysing your customer data. Creating segments is a great way to dive deeper into your data beyond surface-level insights.

  You can explore how various factors impact engagement, conversion rates, and customer lifetime value. These insights can help guide your higher-level strategy, not just campaigns.

  How custom segments can help your business

  As the global business world clamours to become more “data-driven,” even smaller companies collect all sorts of data on visitors, users, and customers.

  However, inexperienced organisations often become “data hoarders” without meaningful insights. They have in-house servers full of data or gigabytes stored by Google Analytics and other third-party providers.

  

  One way to leverage this data is with standard customer segmentation models. This can help you get insights into your most valuable customer groups and other standard segments.

  Custom segments, in turn, can help you dive deeper. They help you unlock insights into the “why” of certain behaviours. They can help you segment customers and your audience to figure out :

  • Why and how someone became a loyal customer
  • How high-order-value customers interact with your site before purchases
  • Which behaviours indicate audience members are likely to convert
  • Which traffic sources drive the most valuable customers

  This specific insight’s power led Gartner to predict that 70% of companies will shift focus from “big data” to “small and wide” by 2025. The lateral detail is what helps inform your marketing strategy. 

  You don’t need the same volume of data if you’re analysing and segmenting it effectively.

  Custom segment inputs : 6 data points you can use to create valuable custom segments 

  To help you get started, here are six useful data points you can use as a basis to create segments — AKA customer segment inputs :

  

  Visits to certain pages

  A basic data point that’s great for custom segments is visits to certain pages. Create segments for popular middle-of-funnel pages and compare their engagement and conversion rates. 

  For example, if a user visits a case study page, you can compare their likelihood to convert vs. other visitors.

  This is a type of behavioural segmentation, but it is the easiest custom segment to set up in terms of analysis and marketing efforts.

  Visitors who perform certain actions

  The other important type of behavioural segment is visitors or users who take certain actions. Think of things like downloading a file, clicking a link, playing a video or scrolling a certain amount.

  For instance, you can create a segment of all visitors who have downloaded a white paper. This can help you explore, for example, what drives someone to download a white paper. You can look at the typical user journey and make it easier for them to access the white paper — especially if your sales reps indicate many inbound leads mention it as a key driver of their interest.

  User devices

  Device-based segmentation lets you compare engagement and conversion rates on mobile, desktop and tablets. You can also get insights into their usage patterns and potential issues with certain mobile elements.

  

  This is one aspect of technographic segmentation, where you segment based on users’ hardware or software. You can also create segments based on browser software or even specific versions.

  Loyal or high-value customers

  The best way to get more loyal or high-value customers is to explore their journey in more detail. These types of segments can help you better understand your ideal customers and how they act on your site.

  You can then use this insight to alter your campaigns or how you communicate with your target audience.

  For example, you might notice that high-value customers tend to come from a certain source. You can then focus your marketing efforts on this source to reach more of your ideal customers.

  Visitor or customer source

  You need to track the results if you’re investing in marketing (like an influencer campaign or a sponsored post) outside platforms with their own analytics.

  

  Before you can create a reliable segment, you need to make sure that you use campaign tracking parameters to reliably track the source. You can use our free campaign tracking URL builder for that.

  Demographic segments — location (country, state) and more

  Web analytics tools, such as Matomo, use visitors’ IP addresses to pinpoint their location more accurately by cross-referencing with a database of known and estimated IP locations. In addition, these tools can detect a visitor’s location through the language settings in their browser. 

  This can help create segments based on location or language. By exploring these trends, you can identify patterns in behaviour, tailor your content to specific audiences, and adapt your overall strategy to better meet the preferences and needs of your diverse visitor base.

  How new privacy laws affect segmentation options

  Over the past few years, new legislation regarding privacy and customer data has been passed globally. The most notable privacy laws are the GDPR in the EU, the CCPA in California and the VCDPA in Virginia.

  

  For most companies, it can save a lot of work and future headaches to choose a GDPR-compliant web analytics solution not only streamlines operations, saving considerable effort and preventing future headaches, but also ensures peace of mind by guaranteeing the collection of compliant and accurate data. This approach allows companies to maintain compliance with privacy regulations while remaining firmly committed to a data-driven strategy.

  Create your very own custom segments in Matomo (while ensuring compliance and data accuracy)

  Crafting precise marketing messages and optimising ROI is crucial, but it becomes challenging without the right tools, especially when it comes to maintaining accurate data.

  That’s where Matomo comes in. Our privacy-friendly web analytics platform is GDPR-compliant and ensures accurate data, empowering you to effortlessly create and analyse precise custom segments.

  If you want to improve your marketing campaigns while remaining GDPR-compliant, start your 21-day free trial of Matomo. No credit card required.

• Segmentation Analytics : How to Leverage It on Your Site

  27 octobre 2023, par Erin — Analytics Tips

  The deeper you go with your customer analytics, the better your insights will be.

  The result ? Your marketing performance soars to new heights.

  Customer segmentation is one of the best ways businesses can align their marketing strategies with an effective output to generate better results. Marketers know that targeting the right people is one of the most important aspects of connecting with and converting web visitors into customers.

  By diving into customer segmentation analytics, you’ll be able to transform your loosely defined and abstract audience into tangible, understandable segments, so you can serve them better.

  In this guide, we’ll break down customer segmentation analytics, the different types, and how you can delve into these analytics on your website to grow your business.

  What is customer segmentation ?

  Before we dive into customer segmentation analytics, let’s take a step back and look at customer segmentation in general. 

  Customer segmentation is the process of dividing your customers up into different groups based on specific characteristics.

  These groups could be based on demographics like age or location or behaviours like recent purchases or website visits. 

  By splitting your audience into different segments, your marketing team will be able to craft highly targeted and relevant marketing campaigns that are more likely to convert.

  Additionally, customer segmentation allows businesses to gain new insights into their audience. For example, by diving deep into different segments, marketers can uncover pain points and desires, leading to increased conversion rates and return on investment.

  But, to grasp the different customer segments, organisations need to know how to collect, digest and interpret the data for usable insights to improve their business. That’s where segmentation analytics comes in.

  What is customer segmentation analytics ?

  Customer segmentation analytics splits customers into different groups within your analytics software to create more detailed customer data and improve targeting.

  

  With customer segmentation, you’re splitting your customers into different groups. With customer segmentation analytics, you’re doing this all within your analytics platform so you can understand them better.

  One example of splitting your customers up is by country. For example, let’s say you have a global customer base. So, you go into your analytics software and find that 90% of your website visitors come from five countries : the UK, the US, Australia, Germany and Japan.

  In this area, you could then create customer segmentation subsets based on these five countries. Moving forward, you could then hop into your analytics tool at any point in time and analyse the segments by country. 

  For example, if you wanted to see how well your recent marketing campaign impacted your Japanese customers, you could look at your Japanese subset within your analytics and dive into the data.

  The primary goal of customer segmentation analytics is to gather actionable data points to give you an in-depth understanding of your customers. By gathering data on your different audience segments, you’ll discover insights on your customers that you can use to optimise your website, marketing campaigns, mobile apps, product offerings and overall customer experience.

  Rather than lumping your entire customer base into a single mass, customer segmentation analytics allows you to meet even more specific and relevant needs and pain points of your customers to serve them better.

  By allowing you to “zoom in” on your audience, segmentation analytics helps you offer more value to your customers, giving you a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

  5 types of segmentation

  There are dozens of different ways to split up your customers into segments. The one you choose depends on your goals and marketing efforts. Each type of segmentation offers a different view of your customers so you can better understand their specific needs to reach them more effectively.

  While you can segment your customers in almost endless ways, five common types the majority fall under are :

  

  Geographic

  Another way to segment is by geography.

  This is important because you could have drastically different interests, pain points and desires based on where you live.

  If you’re running a global e-commerce website that sells a variety of clothing products, geographic segmentation can play a crucial role in optimising your website.

  For instance, you may observe that a significant portion of your website visitors are from countries in the Southern Hemisphere, where it’s currently summer. On the other hand, visitors from the Northern Hemisphere are experiencing winter. Utilising this information, you can tailor your marketing strategy and website accordingly to increase sells.

  Where someone comes from can significantly impact how they will respond to your messaging, brand and offer.

  Geographic segmentation typically includes the following subtypes :

  • Cities (i.e., Austin, Paris, Berlin, etc.)
  • State (i.e., Massachusetts)
  • Country (i.e., Thailand)

  Psychographic

  Another key segmentation type of psychographic. This is where you split your customers into different groups based on their lifestyles.

  Psychographic segmentation is a method of dividing your customers based on their habits, attitudes, values and opinions. You can unlock key emotional elements that impact your customers’ purchasing behaviours through this segmentation type.

  Psychographic segmentation typically includes the following subtypes :

  • Values
  • Habits
  • Opinions

  Behavioural

  While psychographic segmentation looks at your customers’ overall lifestyle and habits, behavioural segmentation aims to dive into the specific individual actions they take daily, especially when interacting with your brand or your website.

  Your customers won’t all interact with your brand the same way. They’ll act differently when interacting with your products and services for several reasons. 

  Behavioural segmentation can help reveal certain use cases, like why customers buy a certain product, how often they buy it, where they buy it and how they use it.

  By unpacking these key details about your audience’s behaviour, you can optimise your campaigns and messaging to get the most out of your marketing efforts to reach new and existing customers.

  Behavioural segmentation typically includes the following subtypes :

  • Interactions
  • Interests
  • Desires

  Technographic

  Another common segmentation type is technographic segmentation. As the name suggests, this technologically driven segment seeks to understand how your customers use technology.

  While this is one of the newest segmentation types marketers use, it’s a powerful method to help you understand the types of tech your customers use, how often they use it and the specific ways they use it.

  Technographic segmentation typically includes the following subtypes :

  • Smartphone type
  • Device type : smartphone, desktop, tablet
  • Apps
  • Video games

  Demographic

  The most common approach to segmentation is to split your customers up by demographics. 

  Demographic segmentation typically includes subtypes like language, job title, age or education.

  This can be helpful for tailoring your content, products, and marketing efforts to specific audience segments. One way to capture this information is by using web analytics tools, where language is often available as a data point.

  However, for accurate insights into other demographic segments like job titles, which may not be available (or accurate) in analytics tools, you may need to implement surveys or add fields to forms on your website to gather this specific information directly from your visitors.

  How to build website segmentation analytics

  With Matomo, you can create a variety of segments to divide your website visitors into different groups. Matomo’s Segments allows you to view segmentation analytics on subsets of your audience, like :

  • The device they used while visiting your site
  • What channel they entered your site from
  • What country they are located
  • Whether or not they visited a key page of your website
  • And more

  While it’s important to collect general data on every visitor you have to your website, a key to website growth is understanding each type of visitor you have.

  For example, here’s a screenshot of how you can segment all of your website’s visitors from New Zealand :

  

  The criteria you use to define these segments are based on the data collected within your web analytics platform.

  Here are some popular ways you can create some common themes on Matomo that can be used to create segments :

  Visit based segments

  Create segments in Matomo based on visitors’ patterns. 

  For example :

  • Do returning visitors show different traits than first-time visitors ?
  • Do people who arrive on your blog experience your website differently than those arriving on a landing page ?

  This information can inform your content strategy, user interface design and marketing efforts.

  Demographic segments

  Create segments in Matomo based on people’s demographics. 

  For example :

  • User’s browser language
  • Location

  This can enable you to tailor your approach to specific demographics, improving the performance of your marketing campaigns.

  Technographic segments

  Create segments in Matomo based on people’s technographics. 

  For example :

  • Web browser being used (i.e., Chrome, Safari, Firefox, etc.)
  • Device type (i.e., smartphone, tablet, desktop)

  This can inform how to optimise your website based on users’ technology preferences, enhancing the effectiveness of your website.

  Interaction based segments

  Create segments in Matomo based on interactions. 

  For example :

  • Events (i.e., when someone clicks a specific URL on your website)
  • Goals (i.e., when someone stays on your site for a certain period)

  Insights from this can empower you to fine-tune your content and user experience for increasing conversion rates.

  

  Campaign-based segments

  Create segments in Matomo based on campaigns. 

  For example :

  • Visitors arriving from specific traffic sources
  • Visitors arriving from specific advertising campaigns

  With these insights, you can assess the performance of your marketing efforts, optimise your ad spend and make data-driven decisions to enhance your campaigns for better results.

  Ecommerce segments

  Create segments in Matomo based on ecommerce. 

  For example :

  • Visitors who purchased vs. those who didn’t
  • Visitors who purchased a specific product

  This allows you to refine your website and marketing strategy for increased conversions and revenue.

  Leverage Matomo for your segmentation analytics

  By now, you can see the power of segmentation analytics and how they can be used to understand your customers and website visitors better. By breaking down your audience into groups, you’ll be able to gain insights into those segments to know how to serve them better with improved messaging and relevant products.

  If you’re ready to begin using segmentation analytics on your website, try Matomo. Start your 21-day free trial now — no credit card required.

  Matomo is an ideal choice for marketers looking for an easy-to-use, out-of-the-box web analytics solution that delivers accurate insights while keeping privacy and compliance at the forefront.