Segment an Audience by Purchase Activity

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Mailchimp’s segmentation tool helps you build your own e-commerce segments. Available conditions depend on your connected store and segmentation access. To get started, see Connect Your Online Store to Mailchimp.

In this article, you'll learn about Mailchimp's e-commerce segment options.

Pre-built e-commerce segments

If you're new to e-commerce segments, or looking for a shortcut to targeted sending, Mailchimp offers a selection of pre-built e-commerce segments. For users who have e-commerce data in their account, including data from supported e-commerce stores and custom API 3.0 integrations, pre-built segments make it easier to locate specific contacts in your audience.

Here are some examples of pre-built e-commerce segments.

  • High-value customers Contacts predicted to have the highest customer lifetime value.
  • Potential Customers Contacts who haven't made a purchase from your store.
  • Recent Customers Contacts who have purchased from your store in the past 30 days.
  • First-time Customers Contacts who have recently made their first purchase from your store.
  • Repeat Customers Contacts who have placed at least two orders from your store.
  • Lapsed Customers Contacts who haven't purchased in the past eight months.

To view these segments, choose an audience in the To section of the email builder and click the Recipients drop-down.

To learn more, check out About Pre-Built Segments.

Custom e-commerce segments

Mailchimp's segmentation tool helps you build your own e-commerce segments with a variety of conditions.

You can open the segment builder in any of these ways:

  • From the left navigation: Under Audience, click Segments, then click Create segment.
  • From the contacts table: Open Audience, click Segments above the contacts table, then choose Manage Segments > Create segment.
  • From the contacts table using advanced filters: Open Audience, then click Advanced filters.

If you have more than one audience, select the audience you want to work with. For an introduction, see Getting Started with Segments. For advanced builder instructions, see Manage an Advanced Segment.

Saved advanced segments automatically update their matching contacts when you use them. You don’t need to recreate or manually refresh them before sending. Changes to your audience and synced store data typically appear within minutes.

Regular e-commerce segments

The regular segment builder includes these purchase conditions. For an introduction to building segments, see Getting Started with Segments.

Purchase activity

Find contacts who have purchased or have not purchased. Use the separate conditions below to target specific purchase details.

Total number of orders

Find contacts based on how many orders they’ve placed.

Average amount spent per order

Find contacts based on their average order value. Compare the amount using is, is not, is greater than, or is less than.

Amount spent in total

Find contacts based on their combined spending across orders. Compare their spending with the amount you choose.

Vendor purchased

Depending on your e-commerce platform, you’ll have the option to assign a vendor or category to your products. Use this option to organize your products by brand, bundle similar items together, or create any kind of category that’s useful to you.

Segment by Vendor purchased to reach contacts who have bought items from a specific category in your store. This option is available with Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, and many other custom e-commerce integrations.

Products purchased

Send an email to contacts who’ve purchased a specific product, or products, from your store.

Purchase date

Use this condition to find contacts who purchased on, before, or after a specific date.

Amount spent on a single order

Use the purchase history to target a segment of contacts who purchased a specific amount on a single order.

Store ordered from

Use this condition to send to a segment of your contacts based on which of your stores they've purchased from.

Advanced e-commerce segments

Use advanced conditions to target purchases and shopping activity with more detailed filters.

Purchase activity

Use Purchase activity to find contacts who have purchased or have not purchased. Filter by Timeframe, Campaign, Store, Category, Collection, Product, Product Variant, Total, or Discount Code. For has purchased, you can also filter by Number of Times.

Back in Stock Request

Use Back in Stock Request to find contacts who requested an alert when a product becomes available again. Filter by Store, Product, or Product Variant.

Product added to cart

Use Product added to cart to find contacts who have or haven’t added a product to a cart. Filter by timeframe, store, category, collection, product, product variant, price, or quantity. For has added, you can also filter by Number of Times.

Checkout started

Use Checkout started to find contacts who have or haven’t begun checkout. Filter by timeframe, store, category, collection, product, product variant, or quantity. For has started, you can also filter by Number of Times.

For example, combine has started checkout with has not purchased during the same timeframe to find contacts who began checkout without purchasing.

Search submitted

Use Search submitted to find contacts who have or haven’t searched your store. Filter by timeframe, store, or search input. For has searched, you can also filter by Number of Times.

Page viewed

Use Page viewed to find contacts who have or haven’t visited a page in your store. Filter by timeframe, store, or page URL. For has viewed, you can also filter by Number of Times.

Collection viewed

Use Collection viewed to find contacts who have or haven’t visited a collection page. Filter by timeframe, store, or collection. For has viewed, you can also filter by Number of Times.

To find contacts who bought products from a collection, use the collection filter within Purchase activity.

Product viewed

Use Product viewed to find contacts who have or haven’t viewed a product in your store. Filter by timeframe, store, category, collection, product, or product variant. For has viewed, you can also filter by Number of Times.

Total number of orders

Use Total number of orders to find contacts based on how many orders they’ve placed. In advanced segmentation, narrow the results by timeframe or store. Without a timeframe filter, the condition uses the contact’s lifetime order count.

Average amount spent per order

Use Average amount spent per order to find contacts based on their average order value. Compare the amount using is, is not, is greater than, or is less than. In advanced segmentation, filter by timeframe, store, or collection. Without a timeframe filter, the condition uses the lifetime average.

A collection filter uses the full value of matching orders, including products outside the selected collection. It doesn’t calculate the average price of only the products in that collection.

Amount spent in total

Use Amount spent in total to find contacts based on their combined spending across orders. Filter by more than or less than a certain amount. In advanced segmentation, narrow the results by timeframe, store, or collection. Without a timeframe filter, the condition uses lifetime spending.

A collection filter adds the full value of matching orders, including products outside the selected collection. It doesn’t add up only the products in that collection.

Predictive customer conditions

Use predictive conditions to group contacts by their expected purchase behavior.

  • Churn Risk: Find customers with a high, medium, or low risk of not purchasing again.
  • Likelihood to Purchase: Find contacts whose predicted likelihood of purchasing is greater than or less than a value you enter.
  • Predicted Customer Lifetime Value: Find customers based on the revenue they’re predicted to generate over time.
  • Predicted Next Order Date: Find previous customers based on the date they’re predicted to purchase again.

See About Predictive Analytics and Demographics for details and requirements.

Combine segmentation criteria

Purchase activity can be used in conjunction with other segmenting conditions in your account to target specific groups of contacts. For example, you could combine purchase history with email engagement and send to highly engaged contacts who recently spent a large amount of money.

In advanced segmentation, find subscribed contacts who added a product but did not check out or purchase by combining these conditions with AND:

  • Email subscription status | Subscribed
  • Product added to cart | Has added within the last 30 days
  • Checkout started | Has not started within the last 30 days
  • Purchase activity | Has not purchased within the last 30 days

Use the same store and timeframe on each activity condition. Change the timeframe to match your campaign.

For more examples of combining conditions, see Understanding Logic in the Advanced Segment Builder.

About e-commerce filters

In regular segmentation, Vendor purchased, Products purchased, Purchase date, Amount spent on a single order, and Store ordered from are separate conditions. In advanced segmentation, use the Category, Product, Timeframe, Total, and Store filters within Purchase activity to target these purchase details. Total number of orders, Average amount spent per order, and Amount spent in total are separate conditions in both builders.

In advanced segmentation, Number of Times filters how often a contact completed an activity within your selected timeframe. It’s available only for positive options, such as has purchased, has added, has started, has searched, or has viewed. Choose once or more, is, is greater than, or is less than. For the last three options, enter a number from 1 to 10.

Quantity is a filter on Product added to cart and Checkout started. It counts product units rather than activities. For example, adding 3 units in one add-to-cart activity is one activity with a quantity of 3.

In advanced segmentation, the Category filter refers to product vendor names. Use Collection to target product collections. A positive collection match in Purchase activity requires only one matching product in the order.

Timeframe filters for Total number of orders, Average amount spent per order, and Amount spent in total are limited to a rolling two-year lookback. Without a timeframe filter, these conditions use lifetime totals or averages.

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