Segment your List to Send Your Large Broadcast To

Overview: In an earlier module on How to Avoid Getting Blacklisted, we suggest that if your list is cold, large, or new (or any combination thereof!) that one of the important things you can do when you start out with your email broadcasting campaign is to first warm up your broadcast server and domain. 

Sending to smaller segments of your list at one time, and over a course of a day or two depending on how many lists you have, is a good approach to warming things up. This becomes especially important if you have a very large list, and it has been a while (months/years/ever!?) since you’ve sent to your list.

Without warming up your broadcast server and domain, sending out your large and exciting email broadcast campaign all at once can quickly turn into a nightmare of your emails not getting sent or delivered, and even having folks marking you as spam!

To avoid this scenario and ensure that your email messages get delivered in a timely way, and not get flagged as spam it is advisable send your first broadcast to segmented lists!

In this help module we cover:

• What is a Segmented List?
• Do I need to send my broadcast to a segmented list?
• How do I segment my list?
• How to I segment my list at Import
• How to segment your list that is already in your database

What is a Segmented List?

A segmented list just means that you are breaking down your existing lists into smaller sub-set of lists. You can create these segmented lists however you like based on criteria that suits your specific needs.

Do I need to send my broadcast to a segmented list?

It is a good idea to send to segmented lists if you have a large database and/or have not really sent to your list in a long time to help ensure you do not flag your email broadcast server or domain as probable spam. This is because if the email broadcast monitors notice a sudden spike in sending volume from your IP or Domain, it will assume it might be spam, and throttle or even abandon the delivery altogether.

However, If you have a smaller list, and/or have sent to your larger list regularly without any send or deliverability issues, then you do not need to  send out your broadcasts to a segmented list.

How do I segment my list?

There are a number of ways you can segment your large list. The method you use will depend on if you are importing your list for the first time or have already uploaded your list into Contacts. But the general idea is that you will find a criteria that works best for you to break down your existing list into multiple lists via the query list editor in the All Contacts database. 

How to segment your list at Import

1. Prep the files: Create as many Excel (.csv) files as needed to complete your import, limiting the number of records in your files to no more than 5000 records per file. Note: our importer does not recognize tabs in an Excel file, so you  must create separate files for each batch. Tip: name with the numbers 1, 2, 3 etc. at the end etc so you can easily identify them!

2. Create Categories: In Full Partner under Content Management/Categories, create corresponding categories under the parent category Contacts. You can come up with your own name and scheme for these.

A good suggestion is to include the source of the file in the name of the category as well as the date of import. This can really help you identify when the list was imported, and help you identify who these imports are and where they came from. So a good suggestion for a category name and hierarchy may be:
Contacts - 
Imported Contacts from "SalesForce"
     • Month/Year-1
     • Month/Year-2
     • Month/Year-3

3. Categorize at Import: When ready to import you will upload each .csv file one at a time. In the importing options screen, you will apply the correct corresponding category for each file at import.

4. Create the Query or Segment List: After you have imported your lists and assigned the relevant category, you would then create as many query type lists in contacts as the number of categorized files you have imported.  So in this example you will create corresponding query lists for: Month/Year-1, Import Month/Year -2, Import Month/Year 3 etc.

Watch: How to Segment a Contacts List At Import

See Also:

• Importing Contacts - Categorize Contacts on Import
• How to Create a Query Type List in Contacts

How to Segment your List of Contacts Already in your Database

If you want to work with your existing contacts and your list has not been sent to in some time, or at all…(!) you will want to segment your main list into smaller lists. This is a really important step in ensuring that your initial broadcast emails get delivered, and not sent to spam.

There are a few strategies you can use to break up your list, and it may depend on the number of contacts you are breaking into smaller lists. If you have 60,000 contacts in your database, you may need 12 or more segmented lists to accommodate the volume. If you have a list of 10,000 you may just need two. So it is up to you to understand what your specific needs are based on the total number of records in your database.

In our example, let’s say I have a list of just over 20,000 contacts. I have not really sent to them in bulk in the past few months and I want to get everyone to sign up for my opt-in list. In this scenario, I’ve decided to break my list into 5 segments of 5000 each so I do not alarm the broadcast servers and get my broadcast flagged for spam—Ideally I can trickle in my broadcast to my contacts and get good deliverability results.

For a good general query criteria that will work for all contacts at any time, I am going to use Email/Begins with/ x  where x will be a different range of  Letters and Numbers for each list. I will then create query lists in All Contacts until I have covered the full range of letters and numbers. (I covered how to do this in the video below.)

You may come up with your own criteria, maybe you can break your list up by region, or by date created or some other criteria that is relevant to their marketing interest, but if you just have one big list and no real way to break them up,  the above  should work in any instance.

Watch: How to Segment your List of Contacts Already in your Database