You can easily create and define segments within your Act-On contact lists. Segments allow you to group and organize your contacts by a variety of factors, including profile information, behavior, lead score, subscription preferences, and more.

Build a new segment

You can create segments off of marketing lists, form submission lists, or webinar lists. To do this:

1. Go to Contacts > Marketing Lists
   or
   Go to Contacts > Other Lists > Form Submissions or Webinar Lists
2. Choose a list to segment and click the drop-down arrow to the right of the list name
3. Click Create a Segment
   

This will open the Manage Segment page, where you can define your segment's name, the segmentation method, and select the criteria for segmenting your contacts.

Choose a segmentation method

To get started, enter a name for your new segment and select one of these segmentation methods:

• Search
• Direct Selection
• Query

Each method offers different options for finding and organizing contacts in your segment.

Search Method

The Search method allows you to search for specific values across all of your list's contact data. Enter one or multiple text values and click View Sample to see your search results.

For example, you could search for:

• A contact's first name (e.g., 'Mary') – segment all contacts with the first name Mary
• A contact's last name (e.g., 'Marketer') – segment all contacts with the last name Marketer
• A company name (e.g., 'Act-On') – segment all contacts that work for the same company
• An email domain (e.g., '@act-on.com') – segment all contacts with the same email domain

Direct Selection Method

The Direct Selection method automatically provides a table of all contacts in your list, organized alphabetically by last name. You can directly select which contacts you want to add to a segment by checking the box next to their name.

Query Method

Query segments are the most dynamic and robust segmentation method. With the query method, you can define and segment contacts with the following list data:

Define query criteria

When segmenting your contact lists with the query method, you'll also need to define query criteria. These rules will help Act-On find the correct contacts for your segment. To do this:

1. Use the first drop-down to select the type of query you want to build
   • See above for more information on each type
2. Select a field name and an operator, then specify the value for your rule
   
   • These will vary depending on the type of query you've selected
3. Click the plus sign  to add additional criteria that your contacts must meet

Combine multiple query expressions

You can define how multiple criteria interact to segment contacts. In the Combine expressions with drop-down, select:

• AND to require that contacts meet all criteria listed
• OR to require that contacts meet at least one of the criteria listed
• CUSTOM to define custom combinations of criteria

For more help with setting query logic, see Defining Logic for Query Segments.

Custom combinations

Create custom criteria rules with boolean logic. Instead of only using AND or OR to combine your criteria in a segment, you can set custom boolean expressions to build variations of these expressions.

For example, the custom expression "1 AND (2 OR 3)" will require contacts to meet the criteria set by the first rule AND criteria set by the second OR third rule.

Save your new segment

Once you've finished creating your segment and setting segment criteria, click Save.

You can also save your segmentation queries as templates to reuse for future segments. To do this, click Query Templates to pull up a list of existing templates or to save your current query as a template.

Additional resources

Want to learn more about leveraging segments? Check out these additional resources:

• Creating an A/B Test Segment
• Creating a Birthday Segment for an Automated Program
• Creating a Query Segment Based on Lead Score
• Defining Logic for Query Segments
• How to Create List Segments using CRM Data
• How to Create List Segments with SMS Criteria
• Segmenting Lists using Advanced Social Media
• Tracking Form Views in a List Segment