I originally posted this message elsewhere on the forum under suggestions, within a relevant thread on segmentation, but I haven't had a response. Maybe it is better framed as a help request. Here it is:
I am trying to create a list of "inactive" contacts which I am defining as those that have been consistently receiving our emails for a length of time (let's say two years) AND have never opened any. I want to begin the process of updating or removing these inactive emails from our email list (managed in an outside CRM). Having more options in segmentation would vastly improve this.
My current idea to accomplish this is to (Step 1) create 24 segments by contact activity, each segment with the criteria of "were sent" for a one-month timeframe, such as "were sent 1/1/2017-1/31/2017." (I can't simply do one segment with a two-year timeframe because I want to ensure the contacts have been getting emails the whole time, not just once or a few or even half of that two-year timeframe. We send emails to our entire list at least once a month.). Next (Step 2) I take the 24 segments, export them, and combine them into one Excel spreadsheet, then remove all the records that don't appear in every segment (very time-consuming). Now I have a list of contacts that were sent email in every single month for two years. (Step 3) I create one more segment by activity, for "opened" during that total two-year time frame. I export and add that to my Excel sheet and remove duplicates so that the only remaining contacts are those which received email campaigns in every month for two years but never opened any.
This feels like a ridiculous amount of work to get a list that meets this criteria: Was sent email in every month from Jan. 2017 through Jan. 2019 AND never opened. Is there a better way to do this?? Adding multiple criteria for each segmentation category seems to be the answer, but until that feature is available (IF it become available), what do I do?
Thanks!
Hi @EmilyD85
Thank you for reaching out to the Constant Contact Community. It's my pleasure to assist you today.
That's a great question. At this time, you have outlined the best method for achieving the information you are looking for. You might be able to eliminate one step by using the "in between" option with Date Added in the segment to eliminate the new contacts, but the rest of the process would remain how you mentioned. I will absolutely submit your feedback to our team regarding more segmentation options. Please feel free to reach out should you need anything else. Thank you for choosing Constant Contact. Have a great day.
I don't know if it's just that things have changed since you posted this, but when you export a segment as a csv file, you have the option of including the date the contact was added, which you can then use to filter out more recently-added contacts. That should save you a lot of trouble.
Thank you so much for that suggestion! You are correct! While exporting your Segments you can select one of your fields to be “Date Added” now. Since the launch of our Segments tool we have added a number of options to it, mostly based off of customer feedback! If you have any other suggestions or questions never hesitate to reach back out to The Community!
Here's how we implemented this. Our goal was to identify "active subscribers" defined as those who have opened an email in the last year OR been recently added. Here are the steps we took:
This is now the base of our communications.
Hi @BrianM143
Thank you for sharing this information here in the Community! We hope other users find these steps helpful for them as well.
As far as I know, there is no way to create a segment based on when a contact was added. That is something you can do in Excel, Google Sheets, or your CSV reading software of choice.
Hi @KyleM961
You are correct; the date added is not a detail available through segmentation tool. Have you tried using our advanced search feature instead? This tool does allow you to filter contacts based on the date they were added into your account.