3 Email Platforms That Get Segmentation Right and What’s Missing From All of Them

Narrator 0:00
You’re listening to the all systems go podcast, the show that teaches you everything you need to know to put your business on autopilot. Learn how to deploy automated marketing and sell systems in your business the right way with your host, the professor of automation himself and founder of automation bridge, Chris Davis.

Chris 0:32
Welcome everyone to another episode of The all systems go podcast. I’m your host, Chris L. Davis, founder of automation bridge, the professor of automation himself, as you heard on the intro, and I want to talk a talk in this episode, about just three, just three, because it can be a bit much trying to review all software, but I want to talk about three of the more prominent platforms and how they get segmentation, right. And the one thing that they’re all missing, and this is a theme across a variety of software, I’m just highlighting it in these three, This by no means is limited to these three. But in terms of segmentation, and in the spirit of ensuring that you are understand how to go about segmenting your contact database, effectively, for the end result of scale, it’s extremely important for you to be able to identify what’s good, and and enter who is good at doing that good stuff when it comes to segmentation. Right. And this is let me say this segmentation has been important, but a long, it has plagued the industry of marketing for a very long time. And and here’s what I mean, in advertising. Segmentation is standard. You can’t when they talk about ad sets and audiences, the segmentation, no good advertiser can do any level of advertising without knowing at least a minimal criteria of who they’re advertising to. When approved me, prove me right. Let’s go back before technology really took over the way that it did. And think of direct mailers, you at least had to know the area code of who you are mailing. If you are a local business, you need it that what good would would your flyer be if you’re living in Chicago and sending flyers to Florida? Right, as a segment, you’re segmenting the entire population down to just a subset of it. So you even think about TV programming. They look at their stuff, they look at viewership, they look at the the they take the census data, which is another means of segmenting, they take the census data, and then they match it with Hey, this is these are the areas where people are watching our shows the most in those areas are comprised of single family homes, regular full family homes, males, females, workers, blue collars, entrepreneur, whatever the case may be this process of collecting data and organizing it so that you can put the best next thing in front of somebody is not new technology, just put it in your hands. And because it was just kind of part of it, it wasn’t its own thing. There’s there’s no software that you can buy, that’s dedicated to segmentation. None. It’s just a function of marketing, software, marketing automation software, really more than anything. It’s a function. And, and what I’m saying and you I’m gonna beat this drum all year, is that we need to pay more attention to segmentation as its own thing. It can’t be just lumped in with lists now. It can’t just be an option that you have to know the software intricately to find and click and then oh, I found it. Wow. Right. It has to be more intentionally integrated with the experience of marketing. It has to be now how we do that. I don’t know. I don’t know but let me tell you how it’s being done well so far and I’m going to start off with clay vo clay vo Clavijo however you want to say it tomato tomahto is growing in my list of platforms that I love. And the reason being the primary reason being is segmentation. Segmentation. Once you integrate Klaviyo, which by the way, I don’t know how you use Klaviyo without Shopify, because it’s literally built to easily bring in all of that purchase data, and allow you to create segments. So using clay vo without Shopify really confuses me, I have seen some applications where they do direct integrations and sync custom metrics over like from a membership site or something like that. But even then, they still had a Shopify presence. Um, CLEVEO exists because of Shopify. Now, if they want to kind of branch off and be their own thing, I don’t think that’s smart. But okay, so be it. But I’m more confused. When I see people say, Oh, I use Klaviyo for email marketing, then you look and they have courses, or they’re a consultant or something like that are coach, very confusing, because it’s meant is created to be integrated with Shopify. Now, with that being said, they do a great job with giving you all the information that you need. Me, you can get so targeted in clay, VO and, and the thing that I love the most about it, is that there’s a lot of native conditions, excuse me native conditions, that you don’t have to build an automated workflow to generate, right, they’ll say, hey, has been sent X amount of emails in the last X amount of time, that’s extremely important, has opened the last 10 emails or has not opened. That’s extremely important when you’re maintaining a database, just simple stuff like that, right? As never purchase last purchase was this lifetime customer value is this. It’s beautiful. It really is. It’s, it’s it’s very strong. And the thing that they get wrong, the thing that CLEVEO gets wrong, is the fact that every segment is based on properties, and there’s no way to easily manage the properties. Come on. Now. That’s like given me a car that I know I can drive the car. But for whatever reason, whenever I push down on the gas, nothing happens. Why give it to me if you’re going to make it so hard to use it. So now I got to put my car in neutral, and hope for a downward slope just appear as if I’m driving. If the hill or slope is big enough, I can achieve driving with my faulty gas pedal write properties faulty feature, it just doesn’t work. There’s no way to manage them. There’s no way to update them change them easily. You can easily No, there’s not an easy way a way to easily create them. The way that they do it is just ridiculous across the board is confusing. And I’m shocked that they have gone this far this long. Without a proper property manager. I am shocked. They want you to export your contacts to see all the properties that they have. But if those contacts don’t have all the properties that are in your database, you won’t see them. So you could think that those are your properties that are not this, this is crazy. And many of you didn’t even realize this, you may be a CLEVEO user. And this is news to you. Which is why I call it ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. That’s that’s clay vo that last week, we talked about what they get right. Integration with Shopify, the the native, the native engagement conditions, and everything else. Right, there’s if you can capture it, you can segment on it in clay VO. And one thing, one more thing I’ll give the CLEVEO that I have to highlight this is that they added when you send an email to multiple segments, they’ll show you how each segment performed. Which is Beautiful, just beautiful. Case in point do you want to prove where the drop off is 3060 90 120 days, create those segments 3060 90 Hasn’t open an email in 3060 90 days, send an email to all four of those segments, one email, you can just select all four and Clayfield one email goes out handled the dupes and all of that and then just look so Okay, pretty good for 30 days. 60 good 60 days good. Oh, wow, 90 Look at that drop off. Well now you know, if they haven’t opened that in a round 90 days, they’re probably not going to be opening anymore. Right? Just by adding that there’s so many more use cases when it comes to promotions and other marketing efforts that clay vos how they handle segments and measuring it it really comes into play in a good way. Next up is Active Campaign. Come on. I feel like you You asked saw that one come in, right Active Campaign what I really not mentioned, it’s at the time of recording my CRM of choice in my business, I do have, I have a backup, and I have a backup for the backup, in case they want to act up.

Chris 10:16
Okay? This is true, I have that in place, I have to be prepared at all times, because your contact data is your most important data in your business. They are the ones that give you the money, those contacts, so you want to make sure you’re taking care of them. And what I’ll say that active campaign just gets right. And when I say gets, right, I’m trying to do it in it, like unique, right? Not just Oh ActiveCampaign allows you to do this isn’t that that every platform allows you to do. And I just have to say that when it comes to segmentation, inactive campaign, they give you access to so much information. Without integration. We just talked about how clay vo once it’s integrated with Shopify, and it’s got some native stuff in there, that’s good. But you really unlock CLEVEO by integrating with Shopify, you don’t have to integrate active campaign with anything. Anything set, you want to run a segment based on somebody who’s been on a list ever is not on the list is on a certain list of combo lists. Alright, got it. Hey, entered in automation has not has reached a goal and automation has not right as a tag does. The work flow conditions in Active Campaign to create an automation are absolutely great. There’s no other word for it, I can go in and say, Hey, I gave a lead magnet out a few few years ago, then even had to be recent few years ago, I gave a lead magnet out and steal it quickly understand who got that and say I didn’t know to tag them at the time, you just type and say, hey has entered this automation. And everybody that’s into that automation is there, right there for you to see. Right, these workflow conditions. They’re amazing. And some of the more recent work that I’ve been doing, has been with active campaign events. Alright, so sending over custom events to Active Campaign to start, start automations or segment. And that’s been unlocking that much more. Now, of course, this is through integrations. So let me go back and stay true. And say the workflow conditions again has entered in automation has not entered in automation is waiting at a go condition has completed a go condition. Right is currently in an automation is not currently in the automation, when you start to understand and these are just three that I listed active campaigns is has so many conditions that you can use, natively again, without a single integration. When you start to put them together, you can you can really get targeted, you can get retro actively and proactively with Active Campaign, they get it right, they get it right the ability to truly Mark whoever you need to to receive that email. It’s, it’s there, it’s and it works really well. Now with with with such that is given to them even more is required of them. And this is where they dropped the ball. Now, I know I’m gonna sound like a broken record. But that’s only for you all who have been listening to the podcast from day one. For my new my new ones, my new booties there is no segment manager and Active Campaign. And if you’re a new user, go try to find without searching Google, where to access the segments buried in at least 1234 At least four clicks at least four clicks. To get to this to get to a list of your segments now. There is no way to see how many people are in a segment unless you select it and then click View context. There is no segment manager where you can copy a segment where you can delete segments where you can easily see all of your segments in CAD and sort them by date created or size or any of those things. It doesn’t exist. And while I’m saying that let me go back to clay VO and say I can easily duplicate segments and CLEVEO easily. It brings over the criteria and everything. Let me tell you one of the most frustrating things in Active Campaign If you have a segment built, and you want to build another segment based on that criteria, but just add one, one or two conditions to it, there’s no there’s no copy, you have to go. And hopefully you have a monitor that has to windows up, you have to go and rebuild the whole segment, using these criteria, and then update and then add the additional criteria and save that out on an on a song. And some of you are like, Oh, Chris, that’s not too bad. Oh, yes, it is. Depending on the complexity of the segments that you all are building, the if you just want Hey, has the tag and hasn’t done this, okay? But even two conditions can be a little cumbersome. Right? Let me hit duplicate, duplicate, let me hit copy instead of having to type in tag exists tag does not exist and or. Right. So they, they dropped the ball. I don’t know if they’ve ever held the ball. I don’t. And as much as you know, company talks about personalized marketing and all of that, to not have a segment builders, just criminal segment manager, it’s criminal, it really is to have a tag manager before segment manager, I really think it’s selling somebody a wheel before they even know what a vehicle is, Hey, man, just get this wheel, I promise you, you’re gonna need four of them. You’ll need for them because one day they’ll be able to row and you’ll be controlling them, you’ll be moving fast. It’s like oh, I can almost see it. That’s like giving. That’s what the equivalent of giving people tags. But a Tag Manager before segment manager. Good give me give me give me the car first. Because that’s the hardest piece, engine axles body window, give me that first. And then when the wheels I just throw those on, don’t give me the wheels first and then talk about the vehicles come in later. Come on, guys, we were better than this. I know it. Last one high level. Go High Level I love mentioning them because their their growth is so so great. A lot of people still don’t know about them. So it’s still kind of like techie. us in a techie industry know first. And then a lot of people who aren’t techie are using high level and don’t even realize it because the marketing agency or advertising agency that they’re working with is white labeling it. So it’s being used a lot more than actualized and understood. And in that, I have to say I have to throw high level in with the campaign in terms of the conditions, I level has just as many conditions if if not more, could be more I haven’t counted lately. And they’re updating the app like crazy. But every thing that you can do in the app is a condition that you can create a segment based on. Now, I’ve also docked them, I haven’t even gotten to the one thing that I want to share that they do really well with personalization. But I am gonna go ahead and dock them for no segment manager. I mean, they have smart lists. But everybody once you start having like more than 10, sometimes up to 2030, even more segments. They’re just pills, they just display as pills. They don’t even have like a number that shows how many contacts are in each, you have to click on each one to understand. And it’s just clunky. It’s clunky. Again, there’s no official segment manager in there’s just a place for you to see the list. And you know, let next next time I have to check if I can duplicate. I think I can. I think I can. But there’s it’s it’s lacking. It’s further along than active campaign because it’s easier to find. Don’t get me wrong, it’s further along. But it’s still lacking. But what I want to highlight with high level is more so a result of segmentation. And that’s website personalization. Do they ever get that right? Oh my gosh, it is beautiful. It is a thing of beauty. To be able to collect information and then publish a website, web, a web page or a funnel a series of web pages that uses and displays the information you captured easily on the page. No, this I don’t hear it talked about enough when we’re talking about personalization. This is it. This is how you capture information. use that information to increase your conversions, high level nails it nails it. It’s it is a thing of beauty. And

Chris 19:56
it’s great is great to see now we’ll go back Add to Active Campaign on that may try to create a personalized experience with their web page builder. I’ve to date everyone, because I anyways to date everyone, I’ve maybe engaged with two or three landing pages built by active campaigns, Website Builder, maybe three, maybe three apples, right? Very low adoption, I don’t hear many people talking about it, it never comes up as an alternative to landing page software in any of the circles that I’m in. It’s just kind of like a, hey, let’s add this to the app. People when asked him about it, let’s give them something else. But it’s not really well thought out. And you would think that since the same platform that is capturing the information is allowing you to build a page, that website, personalization will be easier, go high level gets it, if you can merge a name into an email, you can create a whole personalized landing page and go high level the same way. And all of my local marketers, they’ve been drooling. And using this consistently for years. Right, just placing the city, the region the name of somebody on a on a webpage. Come on man, it doesn’t get it doesn’t get much more personalized than that. Alright. So those are some things that really stand out to me. And all of these platforms have Tags List and custom fields, all of them. This is not a podcast to discuss which one you should use and when later for that. But there is a glaring, glaring feature that none of them get right, none of them now let’s reflect clay vo does have a segment manager, go high level does have a segment manager nowhere near as good as club yells and nowhere near as effective, easy to use, and all of that Active Campaign has none of them. So I can easily layup would be Hey, they all need better SEC segment managers. That’s not where I’m going. That’s not where I’m going. Because I found out I found a flaw. It’s not a fatal flaw. But it’s enough to say, man, if they could just get this part, right. And that is the fact that none of them are have the capability to start an automated workflow and automation, whatever you want to call it by someone being or being added to a segment. Maybe it’s too complex, maybe the technology to do it uses too many resources. But if you’ve created your segment and criteria, I meet that criteria, and I enter that segment that should be able to serve as a start trigger. And these platforms do not do it. In fact, in my in my just casual browsing around, I found a platform that does do it drip drip does it. And drip gives you a disclaimer it says it could take a while to get runs like a polling more than immediate. But I can’t remember what the what the warning says. But it does let you know like hey, this Star Trek when someone interested segment will start this. And then there’s some calls that let you know that it could take a little bit of time. So if you need it to be time sensitive, within five to 10 minutes, don’t use that but otherwise, yes. So drip is the the main platform that I’ve seen that actually allows you to start an automation based on a somebody being added to a segment one thing that I wish was on my wish list is being able to use segment B B as a condition or criteria and segment a right because then I can say is not in segment a and or you know these things. Listen, no one can only dream of such power. One can only dream of such power. So I hope this was helpful you all in this year. As we continue to really double down on segmentation. I’m there’s so much good information that’s to come that’s already come and that we’re in the process of creating I hope this is one that you will say yes, this is just as good. Thank you so much. These are the things that I needed to know, comfortable where I’m at. I now realize that why I need to move or that I may need to move or maybe I need to use the software that I have more more effectively. Whatever the case, I hope this was more than illuminating I think I hope it was revelatory in terms of what you can start to do now. To start to move that segmentation needle forward. I am always grateful and appreciative of your listenership. So gonna sign off for now in this episode and until next time, I see you online. Automate responsibly my friend Thank you for tuning in to this episode of The all systems go podcast. If you enjoyed it, make sure that you’re subscribed at the time of recording the all systems go podcast is free to subscribe to, and it can be found in Apple podcast, Google podcast, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. New episodes are released every Thursday, so make sure you’re subscribed so that you don’t miss out. And while you’re at it, please leave us a five star rating and review to show some love but also to help future listeners more easily find the podcast so they can experience the value of goodness as well. We’ve compiled all resources mentioned on the podcast, as well as other resources that are extremely valuable and effective at helping you grow your marketing automation skills quickly. And you can access them all at all systems go podcast.com Thanks again for listening. And until next time, I see you online. Automate responsibly, my friends