Understanding Advanced Segmentation Logic

Advanced segments take our basic audience segments to the next level with nested conditions that combine “and” and “or” logic. These advanced segments are highly customizable, so it might take some time to learn their logic and filtering settings.

In this article, you'll learn about the logic that powers advanced segments.

Things to know

Here are some things to know.

• Advanced segmentation is included with the Standard plan, or higher.
• Before you read this explanation of advanced segmentation logic, you might want to review these advanced segmentation basics.
• Basic segments are available to you if you don't need complex segmentation. Check out these common combinations and a complete list of segmenting options.

About the logic

All segmentation in Mailchimp uses “and” or “or” logic that applies to the conditions within it. This means you can create a segment of contacts who meet any of your individual conditions, or all of them together.

Basic segments are limited to one type of logical relationship, but advanced segments can support both “and” and “or” logic together in one segment. This is because they contain groups of conditions that each use their own “and” or “or” logic. Think of an advanced segment as combining several basic segments into one.

Example

Let’s say you want to view all of the subscribed contacts who opened your last email and are either tagged Atlanta or have an address that contains Atlanta.

To do this, you’ll select and for the top-level logic. Then, you’ll choose Campaign interaction > has opened as your first condition and set the email campaign and timeframe as needed.

Next, you’ll add a new condition group that uses or logic, then add the appropriate Tags and Address conditions to the group.

It should look something like this.

For step-by-step instructions on how to create an advanced segment, check out Manage an Advanced Segment.

Applying and/or logic

It's important to think through the logic you plan to use when you build your advanced segment. If you take the time to set up your segment correctly, it’ll be easier to manage and take less time to generate.

To determine the correct logic and conditions, it can be helpful to write a sentence that represents your segment. After you've defined the relationship between the conditions, and the goal of each, you'll be able to easily choose your segmentation options.

When to use or

Use or for the top-level logic in your segment when you want to find contacts who meet one or more of your conditions or groups of conditions.

Example: Find any subscribed contact who's either a member of the “Tropical” Plant Interest Types group, or the “Rare” Plant Interest Types group.

This segment includes only subscribed contacts, uses or logic as the top-level filter, and has 2 stand-alone conditions. The first condition is for members of the Tropical Plant Interest Types group. The second condition looks for members of the Rare Plant Interest Types group. If a subscribed contact doesn’t meet at least 1 of these conditions, they wouldn’t be pulled into the segment.

When to use and

Use and as your top-level logic to find contacts who meet all of your conditions and condition groups.

Example: Find all members of the Tropical Plant Interest Types group who are either engaged subscribed contacts, or who made an e-commerce purchase.

This segment includes only subscribed contacts, uses “and” logic as the top-level filter, and has 1 stand-alone condition and 1 group of conditions. The first condition looks for members of the Tropical Plant Interest Types group. The condition group uses or logic and looks for subscribed contacts who either have a high contact rating or made an e-commerce purchase.

When to simplify your logic

If your advanced segment is very complex, you might be able to simplify your logic so it'll generate faster and more efficiently.

Advanced segments use a variety of operators that can look for one, all, or none of a variable, so consider whether a different operator would streamline your conditions. Familiarize yourself with our available segmenting options, so you can make the most of your conditions and condition groups.

Example: Find any subscribed contacts who are High Engagement, “or” find subscribed contacts who are New Clients “or” Plant Lovers who were sent the Welcome email “and” didn't open it.

This version of the segment uses separate groups of conditions to target subscribed contacts in the High Engagement Member Level field as well as New Clients and Plant Lovers who have not opened the Welcome email.

This returns the subscribed contacts we want, but we could get the same results with fewer conditions. Let's simplify it to just one stand-alone condition and one group of conditions.

We'll choose Subscribed contacts and set the top-level logic to or. Then we choose our filter, which in this case is a custom audience field labeled Member Level. So we'll use Member Level > is > High Engagement for the first condition. Then, in the group of conditions, we'd again use the Member Level field and add Member Level > is > New Clients or Plant Lovers. We'll type the New Clients and Plant Lovers values directly into the open field and make sure to select Any from the Any/All drop-down to include either of those values in the segment. Lastly, we'd add Campaign interaction > was sent and Campaign interaction > has not opened conditions.

This version of the segment avoids repeating unnecessary queries, which should reduce the amount of time it takes for the segment to generate.

About operators and empty fields

When you create advanced segments, you’ll use operators to include or exclude contacts based on audience field values they share. Operator types may vary in the way they handle empty audience fields.

For example, if you create an advanced segment of contacts whose address doesn’t contain Atlanta, contacts with a value other than Atlanta will appear in the segment. The system will also return contacts with an empty address field.

This chart shows which segment operators will include or exclude contacts with empty values in relevant audience fields.

Operator	Will Segment Include Blank Values?
is
is not
contains
does not contain
starts with
ends with
is greater than
is less than
is blank
is not blank