Specific segmentation is a tricky topic. The benefits of it are obvious: your clients get customized emails based on their profile. But it decreases the number of recipients of each email you send and increases your workload.

On the other hand, keeping segmentation more general allows you to reach a higher amount of people per email. This can increase your campaign revenue. But it can also threaten your engagement  rates and your reputation with inboxes.

One simple way to apply specific segmentation to your campaigns is to use Update Property Links in your emails. First, it encourages engagement through clicks. Second, it also helps you understand and classify your clients more precisely according to their interests.

Update Property Links allow you to create a property on a customer’s profile automatically  when they click the link. In Klaviyo, an Update Property Link looks like this:

{% update_property_link ‘profile_property’ ‘property_value’ ‘redirect_link’ %}

For example, let’s say you sell workout supplements and you want to launch a custom promo for your clients. You can send an email to your list teasing them about the promo and asking about their training goals. Then include buttons each listing a different, common training objective.

One of the most common fitness objectives is hypertrophy or “bulking up.” A button containing “Hypertrophy” would look have the following link:

{% update_property_link ‘Objective’ ‘Hypertrophy’ ‘www.yourwebsite.com’ %}

When people interested in supplements for Hypertrophy click that link, Klaviyo will automatically create the profile property Objective with the value Hypertrophy. From there, you can create a segment with people who share this property. The same applies to the other buttons, for example:

{% update_property_link ‘Objective’ ‘WeightLoss’ ‘www.yourwebsite.com’ %}

There are several ways you can use this in your emails in order to facilitate specific segmentation. Here are some ideas:

–          Create an ambassador program for your brand, with a button to sign up.

–          Ask your clients about what kind of products they’re interested in.

–          Create a list of people who want to receive emails less often.

With Update Property Links the only limit is your creativity. You can even create properties without letting your customers know that you’re doing it as well. If, for example, you  sell different categories of products, you can update customer profiles according to purchases. The profiles of customers who buy one product category get automatically updated with one preference tag. Those of customers who buy a different product category get updated with a different preference tag.

For major holidays and promotions, you can direct customers to either a built-in Klaviyo Preference Form or a Hosted Opt-In Page. Either can survey customers about several Property Links at once.

The biggest advantage of this simple trick is not that it provides you with data about your customers. That’s important, but even better is that specific customers directly provide their own data.  This makes the resulting segment more precisely targeted and engaged.

Let us know your experiences with refining your segments! Have you tried Update Property Links or other tactics, and what success have you had?

Rodrigo Santiago Juacaba and Thomas McClintock

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