283: How To Segment Your Email List The Right Way With Alexandra Edelstein

Podcast: Download (Duration: 52:22 — 60.2MB)

Emailing subscribers who never open is actively harmful, because Gmail reads low engagement as a spam signal and starts filtering your messages for everyone. Alexandra Edelstein’s rule at Klaviyo is that those who do nothing do harm, which is why the first segmentation move is excluding your unengaged audience rather than adding more targeting.

Alexandra is a senior product manager at Klaviyo focused on automation and flows, and spoke at Sellers Summit 2019.

This episode covers the recency, frequency, and value framework, how to define each segment, what content each one needs, and the two-hour setup that gets a small team started.

Key takeaways

• 20% open rate is healthy. Below 15% and trending down means you are heading toward spam.
• Gmail treats three to four months without an open as lapsed, and keeps filtering from there.
• Segment on recency, frequency, and value, and drop value first if your team is small.
• About 75% of marketing should go to your most recent segment.
• Win-back timing depends on your replenishment cycle, not a universal 30 to 45 days.
• VIP treatment can be access rather than discounts, like early product launches.
• Segmented emails earn roughly 3x revenue per recipient, and autoresponders do better still.
• Two hours a month builds the foundational segments you then reuse for every campaign.

Why segmentation matters more than volume

Alexandra’s framing starts from personal relationships. People listen, accumulate information, and use it to have relevant conversations without sounding tone deaf.

Marketing at scale breaks that, because you cannot get to know thousands of subscribers individually.

Segmentation restores it mechanically. Use your data to group people by characteristics that genuinely motivate them, then speak to those groups differently.

Her example is a store selling children’s clothing that has asked customers their children’s ages. Having collected that, sending age-appropriate products is obviously better than sending everything to everyone.

Why emailing unengaged subscribers damages everyone

Most people hear email deliverability and think of the spam folder without knowing what drives it.

The mechanism is that your recipients are Gmail’s customers, and Gmail’s job is keeping their inboxes clean.

Gmail watches sender engagement. High volume with low open rates signals spam, so your open rates drop further as more messages get filtered.

The consequence is that people who want your emails stop receiving them. Subscribers who never open ruin delivery for everyone else.

Recovering a damaged sender reputation is considerably harder than damaging it.

What open rate you should be targeting

Around 20% and above is a healthy open rate.

At roughly 15%, look at the trend. Falling from 20% to 15% suggests you are drifting toward spam territory and should clean your list or exclude unengaged subscribers.

Rising through 15% is a good sign that your targeting is improving.

Below 15%, and especially at 10% or lower, you need proactive intervention.

What recency, frequency, and value mean

Recency covers who has opened, clicked, or purchased most recently. Recent purchasers are more likely to buy again simply because they have not drifted away.

Frequency covers how often something happens: how regularly someone buys, and how regularly they open.

Value covers purchase size, total lifetime value, and revenue earned over time.

The goal is raising all three. Keep the audience actively engaged, encourage repeat purchases on a regular cadence, and lift both average order value and lifetime value.

How the segments map onto those three dimensions

Roughly 75% of your marketing goes to the recent group.

At the opposite end sit subscribers who are neither recent nor frequent, with value long since tapered off. Emailing them is the danger zone, because you are very likely landing in spam.

Between those is the win-back territory: people who used to purchase frequently, only recently lapsed, across different value levels.

When a subscriber counts as lapsed

Three to four months without opening an email.

That is not an arbitrary threshold. It is roughly what Gmail also treats as lapsed, and continuing to send to those people is what triggers spam filtering.

Purchases complicate it. Someone can buy without opening emails, and Gmail does not care that they bought.

The resolution is running two tracks. Segment for deliverability and inbox placement separately from segmenting for repeat purchases, because the strategies differ.

How to set your win-back timing

There is no magic number, and 30 to 45 days is a starting guess rather than an answer.

The first question is: if I bought your product today, when would I need it again?

For a replenishable product, serving sizes give you the cycle. On a 30-day cycle, send a reminder about a week before, and a win-back roughly two weeks after.

Without a known replenishment cycle, think about the occasions people buy for. Is it yearly, or a holiday gift purchase?

You can also get precise by exporting order data and analyzing actual time between orders.

How to split your win-back audience further

Win-backs trigger on purchase recency, and you should still segment them by email engagement.

Take everyone who has not bought in 45 days, then split by whether they have opened an email since their last purchase.

People who have been opening are far more likely to open a win-back and buy, so the question becomes what content pushes them over the line.

People who have not opened since their last purchase need inbox appeal first. That is where a discount in the subject line or genuinely compelling preview text earns its place.

The principle is that segmentation is about tapping into different motivations, not just splitting lists.

How to build a VIP segment

Take your average order value and set a threshold above it, or use purchase count instead, such as everyone who has bought three or four times.

The treatment changes rather than the offer. Language like exclusive, just for you, or a thank you to our loyal customers.

Discounting is optional. A single annual promotional event for VIPs works, and so do free birthday gifts or early access to a product launch.

Exclusivity is what drives engagement. The bar to qualify does not need to be high, because these people become your promoters and advocates.

How to raise average order value for frequent buyers

The segment below VIPs is people who buy often at lower value.

Related and recommended products are the strongest lever on order size, and habits form. Someone used to buying two items together keeps doing it.

The method is to study what your high rollers’ orders actually contain and why they buy more, then work out how to make brand enthusiasts look more like them.

Practically that means bundling, volume discounts, and consistently recommending complementary products.

That in turn requires topical segmentation on top of RFM: what people browse, what emails they engage with, what they purchased before, and what they abandoned.

What to send people who buy rarely

Two things: best-selling and related products, plus limited-time urgency offers.

The reasoning is that infrequent buyers need to see value, so lead with your strongest products rather than your newest.

Then create urgency with a discount, a free gift, or a bundle offer to push the purchase.

Cross-sells cut across every segment for a compounding reason. Selling a second product produces a sooner repeat purchase, a larger order, and another item that can replenish later.

How to convert subscribers who have never purchased

Alexandra calls these the nearly-theres or waiting-for-wows. They engage and have not bought, which means they are waiting for something specific.

Diagnose what. Do they not understand the product and need education, or do they think it is too expensive and need the value sold?

The content that works is social proof: product reviews and testimonials, since seeing others enjoy the product builds trust.

Pair that with light discounting or an urgency deal as the one-two punch.

How often to email each segment

For nearly-theres, two emails a week is a safe starting point, then measure.

Good engagement at two lets you test three if you are being genuinely targeted. Poor open rates mean dropping back to one with a more impactful offer.

Never email multiple times a day when you are trying to nudge people and protect deliverability. Multiple sends per week are fine once open rates sit safely above 15%.

Engaged high-value customers give you more latitude, and buying at high value does not mean loving your emails, so segment them by opener status too.

The counterintuitive outcome is that segmenting means sending fewer emails and earning more. Alexandra cites Taylor Stitch among brands that cut volume, focused on segmentation, and became believers in less is more.

The two-hour setup for a small team

Start with two base segments.

The engaged segment: everyone opted in who has opened an email in the last three to four months. That is what you send big promotions and holiday campaigns to.

The unengaged segment: nobody who has opened in three to four months, filtered to people who joined over 30 days ago so new subscribers are not misclassified. Check clicks as well as opens, since blocked images make open tracking imprecise.

Exclude that second group from most sending.

From there, pull out your high rollers and brand enthusiasts, combining them if you would rather not split on value.

The two hours goes into building those foundations, and they then update in real time. Before every campaign you pause and ask what your high rollers should receive, and what would make a never-buyer purchase.

How to simplify when your team is small

Drop value and work on recency and frequency alone.

That gives you three practical groups: people who bought recently and buy often, people who bought recently but not often, and people who have engaged without buying.

If your high roller group is tiny, bundle it with brand enthusiasts and treat them as one.

For recent-but-infrequent buyers, focus on replenishment. For the lowest tier, lean more promotional.

How segmentation applies to automated flows

Campaigns are where the segments get used directly, and automations are what carry everyone along underneath.

Automations are already targeted because they are behavior triggered, so the segmentation work there is splitting paths within each flow.

Abandoned cart is the clearest case. Someone who has never bought needs a different message than a loyal customer who probably just got distracted and needs a reminder rather than a discount.

Welcome series has the same issue. People subscribe through a pop-up or footer form at any time, including existing loyal customers, so sending a first-purchase discount to someone who has bought repeatedly reads as odd.

Win-backs split the same way, since encouraging a second purchase differs from encouraging a fourth.

How to recover if you have been blasting your whole list

Build the engaged segment and send only to it. Ignore high rollers, recency, frequency, and value entirely at first.

The reason is that fixing deliverability and building sophisticated targeting at the same time is difficult. Get open rates climbing first.

The realization most people have is that sending less email to fewer people makes more money.

Sender reputation takes a couple of weeks or longer to rebuild, so give it time. Once open rates reach 15% or above, start layering the other segments back in.

Watch the ratio as you ramp. When emails sent runs far ahead of emails opened, you are back in the danger zone.

Why autoresponders protect your deliverability

Alexandra’s strongest recommendation for rebuilding is getting at least five autoresponders running.

Highly segmented campaigns earn roughly three times the revenue per recipient. Automated flows do considerably better, because they are timely and triggered by behavior.

The foundation is a welcome series, abandoned cart, win-back, browse abandonment, and a post-purchase follow-up.

Those routinely average around 30% open rates, which cushions your sender reputation as you increase campaign volume.

They also protect campaign revenue. Sending a campaign without an abandoned cart flow behind it wastes the traffic you just generated.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good email open rate for ecommerce?

Around 20% or above is healthy. At 15% check whether you are trending up or down, and below 15% take proactive steps like list cleaning and excluding unengaged subscribers.

Why is emailing unengaged subscribers harmful?

Gmail reads low engagement as a spam signal and starts filtering your messages, so subscribers who never open cause your emails to miss the inbox for people who do want them.

When is an email subscriber considered lapsed?

After three to four months without opening. That roughly matches what Gmail treats as lapsed, and continuing to send to them triggers spam filtering.

What is RFM segmentation?

Grouping subscribers by recency of purchase and engagement, frequency of purchase, and monetary value. Small teams can drop value and segment on recency and frequency alone.

How long should you wait before a win-back email?

It depends on your replenishment cycle rather than a fixed number. On a 30-day cycle, remind about a week before and send a win-back roughly two weeks after.

How do you build a VIP segment?

Set a threshold above your average order value, or use purchase count such as three or four orders. Treat them with exclusivity and early access rather than necessarily discounting.

How often should you email your list?

Two emails a week is a safe baseline for engaged subscribers, moving to three if engagement holds. Avoid multiple sends per day, and only increase frequency when open rates are safely above 15%.

How do you recover from poor email deliverability?

Send only to subscribers who have opened in the last three to four months until open rates climb back toward 15%, then reintroduce other segments while watching the sent-to-opened ratio.