When was the last time you sent a campaign to anyone other than your full list? If the honest answer is rarely, you are not alone. Most Shopify brands install Klaviyo, import every subscriber, and hit send to all of them for every launch and every sale. It feels efficient. In practice it means your most loyal customers get the same message as someone who signed up for a pop-up discount two years ago and never bought, and your sender reputation is shaped by the people least interested in hearing from you.
Segmentation fixes that, but it does not require a hundred segments or a data team. Ten well-defined segments cover most of what a small or mid-size DTC brand needs. Below are the ten we suggest building first, what each one is for, and how to define it in Klaviyo.
Ground rules before you build anything
- Segments are dynamic. In Klaviyo, a segment updates as people meet or stop meeting its conditions. A list only changes when someone is added or removed. Use lists for signup sources and segments for behavior.
- Do not lean on opens. Apple Mail Privacy Protection inflates opens for many recipients, so build engagement around clicks, orders, and site activity. Where you include opens at all, treat them as a supporting signal.
- Name segments so a stranger understands them. Something like Engaged 90d (click, order or site) beats Good people v2.
- Adjust the windows to your business. The day counts below are starting points. A brand with a 30-day repurchase cycle should use shorter windows than one selling products that last a year.
The 10 segments
1. Engaged subscribers
Definition: can receive email marketing, and has clicked an email, placed an order, or been active on site in the last 90 days, or joined in the last 30 days.
Use it for: your default campaign audience. Sending most campaigns here instead of to the full list is one of the simplest deliverability protections available.
2. Unengaged subscribers
Definition: can receive email marketing, joined more than 90 days ago, and has not clicked, ordered or been active on site in the last 180 days.
Use it for: excluding from regular campaigns and feeding a sunset flow that asks whether they still want to hear from you.
3. Subscribers who have never bought
Definition: can receive email marketing, and has placed an order zero times over all time.
Use it for: education, reviews and social proof, first-purchase offers. These people need reasons to trust you, not loyalty perks.
4. First-time customers
Definition: has placed an order exactly once over all time.
Use it for: the jump from one order to two, which is where many brands lose most customers. Send how-to content, pairing suggestions and reasons to reorder.
5. Repeat customers
Definition: has placed an order at least twice over all time.
Use it for: new product launches, early access, and messages that assume familiarity. They already know the brand; skip the introductions.
6. VIP customers
Definition: pick one, and write down why. Common options are: placed at least four orders over all time; or total revenue (the sum of Placed Order value) above a threshold such as the top tenth of your customers; or, if Klaviyo's predictive analytics are available for your account, a high predicted customer lifetime value.
Use it for: early access, gifts, founder notes, and fewer discounts. VIPs often buy at full price; do not train them out of it.
7. At-risk or lapsed customers
Definition: has placed at least one order over all time, and has placed an order zero times in the last X days, where X is roughly one and a half to two times your typical gap between orders.
Use it for: winback campaigns, and as a check on how many customers are quietly drifting away each month.
8. Recent browsers who did not buy
Definition: has Viewed Product at least twice in the last 14 days, and has placed an order zero times in the last 14 days.
Use it for: campaigns featuring best sellers, reviews and comparison content. Your browse abandonment flow handles individual product views; this segment is for campaign targeting.
9. Discount-driven customers
Definition: has placed an order at least once where a discount code was used, and has placed an order zero times without one. The exact condition depends on how your Shopify order data is mapped; the discount codes property on Placed Order is the usual place to look.
Use it for: knowing who to include when you do run a sale, and who to hold back from full-price launches when you want to protect margin. It also tells you how dependent your revenue is on promotions.
10. Category or product buyers
Definition: has Ordered Product at least once over all time where the product's categories or name contains a chosen value, for example a hero product or a product type.
Use it for: relevant cross-sells, refill reminders, and launch announcements that only matter to people who own a related item. Build one per major category rather than one per product.
Which segment does what
| Segment | Main use | Discounts? |
|---|---|---|
| Engaged subscribers | Default campaign audience | Depends on the campaign |
| Unengaged subscribers | Exclude and sunset | No |
| Never bought | Trust building, first order | Sometimes, for a first order |
| First-time customers | Second order | Sparingly |
| Repeat customers | Launches, early access | Rarely |
| VIP customers | Perks and recognition | Prefer gifts or access |
| At-risk customers | Winback | Escalating, if needed |
| Recent browsers | Social proof campaigns | Usually no |
| Discount-driven | Sale targeting | Yes, that is the point |
| Category buyers | Cross-sell and refills | Rarely |
Segments overlap, and that is fine. A VIP is also a repeat customer and probably an engaged subscriber. When a campaign targets several segments, Klaviyo sends only once per profile, and you can use exclusions to keep, say, VIPs out of a heavy-discount send.
How your flows should use these segments
Segments are not only for campaigns. Several of them make your automated flows sharper too:
- Welcome flow: add a conditional split on segment 3 so anyone who buys during the welcome series stops getting first-order offers and moves to post-purchase content instead.
- Post-purchase flow: split on segments 4 and 5 so first-time buyers get education and repeat buyers get loyalty messages.
- Winback flow: segment 7 can act as the trigger, or as a filter that confirms someone really has lapsed.
- Sunset flow: segment 2 is its natural trigger.
- Abandoned cart and browse flows: use segment 9 to decide who sees an incentive and who does not. Someone who only ever buys with a code may need one; a VIP who left a cart probably does not.
When flows and campaigns read from the same segment definitions, you avoid the common situation where a customer is treated as a VIP by one email and a stranger by the next.
How to check a segment is right
A segment that looks sensible in the builder can still be wrong. Before you rely on one, run three checks:
- Size check. Does the count roughly match what you would expect from Shopify? If your store has around 4,000 customers and your first-time customer segment shows 40, something in the condition is off.
- Spot check. Open five profiles at random and read their activity timeline. Each one should obviously belong.
- Edge check. Look for people who should not be there, such as staff test orders, wholesale accounts or profiles without consent. Exclude them with an extra condition or a suppression list.
Repeat the size check monthly. A segment that suddenly shrinks or balloons often means an integration has stopped syncing, which is worth knowing long before a campaign goes to the wrong people.
A two-week rollout plan
- Days 1 to 2: confirm your Shopify integration is syncing Placed Order, Ordered Product and Viewed Product, and that your site tracking is installed. Segments built on missing data silently return nobody.
- Days 3 to 4: build segments 1 and 2. Check the sizes. If your engaged segment is a small fraction of your list, that is useful information, not a failure.
- Day 5: start sending regular campaigns to the engaged segment only.
- Days 6 to 8: build the purchase-based segments (3 to 7). Write down the window you chose for each and why.
- Days 9 to 10: build segments 8 to 10 and sanity-check a few profiles in each by hand. Open a profile, look at its activity, and confirm it belongs.
- Days 11 to 14: plan the next month of campaigns with at least one message written for a specific segment, such as an early-access note for VIPs or a how-to email for first-time customers.
Mistakes we see most
- Building segments on opens alone, which quietly counts many inactive people as engaged.
- Creating dozens of micro-segments nobody sends to. If a segment has not been used in a quarter, delete or merge it.
- Forgetting the consent condition, which inflates segment sizes with people you cannot actually email.
- Sending the same creative to every segment. Segmentation only pays off when the message changes too.
Turning segments into a working program
Segments are the foundation, but the value comes from what you send each group and how your flows use them. Our Klaviyo flows and email service builds the segments, the flows that depend on them and the campaign plan on top, so the setup keeps working after launch. If you would like a second opinion on how your account is structured today, send us a note and we will take a look.