7 proven email segmentation strategies for 2026

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Ecommerce customers became more intentional in 2025, making intent a KPI in its own right. Email segmentation has shifted with them. It’s no longer just about grouping contacts, but also matching content to where a subscriber is in their journey.

The data backs this up. Click-to-conversion rates surged 53% YoY from 5.9% to 9%, and although fewer people are clicking, those who do are more likely to buy.

With Gmail rolling out AI features that prioritize emails based on engagement and relationships, unsegmented sends are more likely to get buried. 

Rens Robroek, Founder of La Machine Cycle Club, has built segmentation around intent and achieved extremely high open rates. “Our goal is to know our audience so well that our campaigns feel like a natural extension of their lifestyle,” he adds.

Your campaigns can do just that. This article provides seven email segmentation strategies you can use in 2026 and industry advice to get started.

Prefer to watch instead of read? This short video breaks down why irrelevant emails cost you engagement (and sometimes unsubscribes), plus the most practical segmentation approaches — behavior, engagement, purchase history, lifecycle stage, and how to combine segments without overdoing it.

Types of email segmentation

Segments let you target customer groups in campaigns, trigger automations, and exclude contacts from irrelevant messages. Omnisend automatically updates your segments based on customer and store activity, but you still need to set them up first.

These are the four main email segments for ecommerce:

• Demographic: People’s birthdays, gender, country, and other custom properties you collect via forms and checkout. Helpful for creating unique email content per segment (for example, different offers for men versus women).
• Behavioral: Groups based on what customers do that you track. The obvious stuff is browsing and purchasing. Also includes opening emails, contacting customer service, and abandoning carts and checkout.
• Psychographic: Interests and preferences, such as preferring blue jeans over black ones and being into golf or tennis.
• Geographic: Location ties into demographics. Includes country, city, and postcodes from orders, which you can use to send email campaigns at sensible times.

If you want to see what segmentation looks like inside Omnisend (and what data you can segment by), here’s a quick overview of Omnisend’s segmentation capabilities—from behavior and purchase activity to engagement and more advanced combinations. It’s a helpful reference as you build the segments below.

7 ways to segment your emails effectively

The seven segmentation strategies below group customers by where they are in their journey, what they’ve done, and what they’re likely to respond to. Each uses data you’re either already collecting or can start collecting with forms.

1. Segment by purchase behavior

Customers who purchase leave behind data you can use, such as what they bought, when they purchased it, how often they return, and how much they spend. Use this to segment by:

• First-time vs. repeat buyers, different messaging for each
• High spenders vs. bargain hunters, tailor offers accordingly
• Lapsed customers, those who haven’t bought in 90 days or more
• Recent buyers, exclude them from discounts they don’t need

La Machine Cycle Club’s email segmentation strategy uses behavior and targets customers during Black Friday. It ran a week-long campaign with gradually increasing discounts, but used exclusion logic to keep previous buyers out of the final push emails.

The image below shows one of its emails:

“Our core philosophy is to know our audience so well that our campaigns feel like a natural extension of their lifestyle,” says Rens Robroek, Founder, adding that “We know that cyclists love their Sunday rides. So we set key times for when we send our emails.”

2. Segment by interests

Not every customer cares about every product you sell. Someone browsing ski gear doesn’t need running-shoe promotions even if you sell both. Using interests as a segmentation filter helps you target customers with appropriate emails.

Segment by:

• Product categories: Outdoor gear vs. running vs. ski
• Stated preferences: Collected through forms or preference centers
• Browsing behavior: What pages and products they’ve viewed

Salomon Japan sells across multiple categories and segments, and its approach achieves a 45% open rate among over 130,000 subscribers.

“We send emails based on categories like ski, snowboard, outdoor, and running,” says Maria Nakazono, CRM/Digital Marketing Specialist at Salomon Japan. “We also have a membership program, so we make use of that segment to send member-only information.”

3. Segment by geography or language

Shipping costs, delivery times, holidays, and language all vary by location. If you sell internationally, your emails need to account for international time zones and context to ensure appropriate delivery times.

Segment by:

• Country, region, city: Then adjust your offers to local delivery times and availability
• Language: Prevents unintelligible sends
• Time zone: Schedule sends so emails arrive at sensible hours

Madrid-based dog accessories brand Dukier offers one of the best examples of email segmentation. It uses geography and language to cover Spain, Germany, France, Italy, and Portugal. It grew Omnisend revenue by 525%, and 45% of that came from segmented campaigns.

For instance, its welcome series arrives in the customer’s native language:

Patricia Jimenez, Ecommerce Manager at Dukier, says the brand was “sending the same message to everyone” before segmentation, adding that “the result was low relevance, high manual effort, and revenue leaking every day.”

4. Segment by engagement

Not everyone on your list is equally interested. Some open every email. Others haven’t clicked in months. Treating them the same sends the wrong signal to people who’ve tuned out and risks annoying those who haven’t.

Segment by:

• Active subscribers: These have opened or clicked a link in an email within 30 days
• Disengaged: The 30-day rule applies, no clicks or opens
• Inactive: Customers who haven’t engaged with your emails for 90 days or more

Kate Backdrop, a global photography backdrop brand, uses segmentation to manage resources across channels. It excludes engaged email subscribers from SMS campaigns, optimizing costs without sacrificing reach.

An impressive 1:300 ROI, a 87% open rate on post-purchase automations, and a 62% view rate on push notifications demonstrate that an engagement-based email segmentation strategy works.

5. Segment for special occasions

Birthdays, purchase anniversaries, and seasonal events are triggers you can build revenue-generating email automations around. Even a signup anniversary date is a good enough reason to reach out with a discount.

Segment by:

• Birthdays: Send offers a week before or on the day
• Purchase anniversaries: Remind customers of their first order date
• Seasonal buyers: Tag customers who only shop at certain times of year

The Cake Store, a UK family bakery, segments customers who ordered within the last 360 days but haven’t purchased in the previous 355. It triggers a reminder automation just before their special occasion comes around again:

The aim is to target customers likely to make a seasonal purchase without pestering frequent buyers. A 43% open rate and 4.73% click rate prove the timing works, and it generated $37,000 in sales over two years, with conversion rates 32x higher than regular promotional emails.

6. Segment by lifecycle stage

Some customers signed up recently, and others purchased weeks ago. Between those, you have previous buyers who aren’t spending any more, and repeat ones who are always spending. Your segments should reflect those lifecycles so customers receive appropriate emails.

Segment by:

• New subscribers: Introduce your brand and give them a reason to buy
• First-time buyers: Build trust and encourage a second purchase
• Repeat customers: Reward loyalty with exclusive access or offers
• Lapsed customers: Win them back before they forget you

Bowy Made, a luxury baby apparel brand, segments by lifecycle stage and builds automations around them, which now generate over 70% of its total email marketing revenue. The image below shows one of its abandoned cart emails:

“We didn’t even realize some of these were possible at first,” says Dallas Singer, Co-Founder. “We saw five figures of additional revenue in a single month from those flows alone.” You could see similar success following Bowy Made’s email segmentation best practices.

7. Segment by customer type

All your customers bought from you, but that isn’t to say they purchased for the very same reasons and will respond to identical emails. A segment that groups them by B2B, B2C, value, and other types will improve your campaign targeting.

Segment by:

• B2B or B2C
• Wholesale vs. retail
• VIP members and loyalty tier
• Gift buyers vs. personal shoppers

SAVY, a peer-to-peer lending platform, shows how this works outside ecommerce. It segments by customer type and sends completely different emails to borrowers and investors. Borrowers receive educational content, whereas investors receive updates on opportunities.

“We’ve noticed that short, direct offer emails often lead to disengagement, even when the offer itself is strong,” says Justina Kelminskė, Head of Marketing at SAVY. “What has worked well is offering valuable information. This kind of content has helped us double loan conversions.”

Email segmentation strategies by industry

No customer group is the same across industries. They exhibit distinct behaviors, purchase cycles, demographics, and interests that you need to address through unique segments. These email segmentation strategies will get you started:

Fashion and apparel

Customers shopping for fashion and apparel expect emails that match their size, fit, color, category, and payment preferences. These segments work:

• Size and fit: If their last dress was a size 10 or from the petite category, the campaigns they receive next should recommend products in that size. 
• Style preferences: Go as granular as possible with colors, streetwear versus dresswear, and spring buyers versus winter buyers.
• Gender: Men and women have distinct tastes in clothing. Some customers might specify a different gender and require unisex and fluid styles.

The email below, sent by women’s and children’s clothing retailer Boden, goes out to customers whose style preferences are dresses and jumpsuits:

Its email encourages engagement with a spin-to-win wheel in return for 20% off, and links to the customer’s favorite category for immediate shopping.

Beauty & skincare

Your beauty customers have concerns, routines, and ingredient requirements that your emails can satisfy. Consider segmenting by:

• Skin type and concerns: Someone who bought acne treatment doesn’t need anti-aging serums. Segment by what they’ve purchased or told you in quizzes and forms.
• Replenishment cycles: A 50ml moisturizer lasts about six weeks. Time your emails to arrive before it runs out.
• Ingredient preferences: Create campaigns for vegans, vegetarians, animal-product-free consumers, and other customer segments.

The campaign example below shows how Skincare retailer ILIA sends educational emails to help customers find suitable products. The customer probably viewed the product but didn’t buy, so they’re educating to build confidence:

Food and beverage

Your food and drink brand will benefit most from segments related to diet, flavor preferences, and the consumable nature of your products.

Consider using these segmentation strategies:

• Dietary requirements and preferences: Some email segmentation tools, such as Omnisend, let you tag customers with dietary and allergy requirements and include or exclude them from campaigns.
• Order frequency: Some customers order much more frequently than others. Those infrequent buyers will be receptive to discounts.
• Product engagement: Use past purchases and list type, such as back-in-stock alerts, to guide this segment

Non-alcoholic beverage brand Nonny Beer capitalizes on its consumables, with a segment for customers who subscribe to back-in-stock alerts. Its email presents the products with an image and includes two CTA buttons for the customer to click:

Sports and outdoor

A runner and a climber have nothing in common except being active. Your segments need to reflect what customers do, not lump them into generic fitness categories. 

These segmentation strategies work:

• Activity type: Someone who bought trail running shoes doesn’t need yoga mat promotions.
• Skill level: Beginners want starter gear and how-to content, whereas experienced athletes will fancy performance upgrades and advanced equipment.
• Seasonality: Create four groups for the seasons and build unique, one-time campaigns for them.
• Event timing: Race season, tournament schedules, and major sporting events can generate significant revenue. Build your segments around them.

Sports retailer Altitude Sports uses seasonal segments for campaign targeting. It sent the email below in February 2025 in anticipation of spring:

Multiple category links let customers jump straight to what they need, and the trend callout gives them a reason to buy now rather than later.

Pet care

People buying pet products aren’t doing it for themselves. Your email segmentation strategy should focus on animal attributes, such as color, breed, and age, to improve campaign targeting.

A few segmentation strategies that work include:

• Pet type and breed: Recommend dog products to dog owners, basically. Breed is a helpful additional segment for recommending products by weight and size.
• Pet age and occupation: Kitten or adult cat, working dog, or family pet.
• Health needs: Base it on past purchases (for example, dog food with probiotics) or collect the information during signup.

Dog supplement retailer Wuffes sends educational emails to customers who previously purchased joint health products. The campaign below explains how each product works at a biological level, giving customers a reason to trust the science rather than just the brand:

Why AI segmentation is the future of email marketing

Campaigns become targeted sends instead of blasts, and flows can trigger when customers enter/exit segments when you build them.

However, not every prebuilt segment library covers your customer journey, and building multiple segments from scratch with a segment builder can take hours.

Omnisend’s AI segment builder solves both challenges and helps you refine your target audience in new ways based on your available data. With one prompt and, if necessary, refining instructions, it builds unique segments for you.

Check out the image below. It shows a segment request for customers who’ve spent over $100 in a single purchase or in total over the last three weeks:

Clicking View segment in the builder opens the segment builder, where you can edit the rules and add new filters for appropriate grouping:

All Omnisend plans let you build unlimited segments, and its AI doesn’t have any restrictions, so you can use it every time you have email segmentation ideas.

Join Omnisend to segment your customers with AI and maximize your email marketing ROI

Want deeper training?

Want to go deeper than templates? Omnisend Academy’s Mastering Email Segmentation and Personalization essential webinar series walks through real segmentation logic, personalization tactics, and practical examples you can adapt to your store. It’s a great next step if you want to level up from “segments I should have” to “segments that consistently drive revenue.”

Also, Omnisend’s help guide on creating and using segments walks you through the exact steps — how segment rules work, how to build them, and how to apply them to campaigns and automations. Keep it open while you set up your first few segments so you can move faster and avoid filter mistakes.

Email segmentation FAQs