When sending or scheduling email campaigns, you can choose your target audience. If your intended recipients meet specific criteria but you either forgot to create a Smart List or want to avoid cluttering your Smart Lists tab, the Build Segments feature is a handy alternative. It enables quick, flexible targeting and lets you exclude specific contacts or tags, all without creating a saved list. Here's how to use it.

Whether you send the campaign to your contacts immediately or use a scheduling option, you'll find the Build Segments feature in the Recipient (To) section.

With this feature, you can add conditions using Contacts, Smart Lists, Tags, or Pre-built Segments.

For Tags, Contacts, and Pre-built Segments, you can apply filters using the "Is" and "Is Not" operators to include or exclude specific assets. Smart Lists, however, can only be filtered by selecting the appropriate list from the dropdown menu.

Apply multiple conditions by duplicating filters or by clicking "Add more".

You can then create complex targeting rules by stacking conditions using logical operators:

  • AND – All specified conditions must be true.
  • OR – At least one of the conditions must be true.

The logic is processed sequentially from top to bottom, with each result (or group of results) forming the base for evaluating the next condition.

For example, if you want to send the campaign to contacts in Smart List 1 AND Smart List 2, but exclude contacts with tag 3, you would add these conditions:

Smart List is Smart List 1 AND Smart List is Smart List 2 AND Tag is not 3

Once the relevant conditions are applied, the system will display the number of contacts that match the selected criteria.

Fill out the remaining fields, then review your campaign settings and send when you're happy.

Now that you're familiar with building segments, you're ready to get more targeted with your email campaigns. Check out the other articles in this section to learn more about making the most of email campaigns.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is it possible to add a condition to exclude a Smart List?

  • No, the platform currently does not support adding a condition where a Smart List "is not" selected. Exclusion of a Smart List is not available.

Q: Can we freeze the list of contacts at the time of creation?

  • No, when using the Build Segment feature, the final contact list is generated at the time of campaign execution, not during segment creation. However, if you use options other than Build Segment, such as predefined lists or Smart Lists, you do have the ability to freeze the contact list at the time of selection.