Basic segmentation bug

[KevinH5319]

Using Constant Contact for a certification and am very familiar with segmentation and lists, which is why it is confusing that currently segmentation won't "sort" on the columns that I have in my test list.

I am trying to create a list based that contains 3 of possible 10 states in a custom list that I uploaded and it is not allowing for that. Instead it offers weird preset criteria that currently don't have anything to do with my list. 

What am I doing wrong here? 

[William_A]

Hello @KevinH5319 ,

Segments can't have their columns (contact fields) modified. If you're wishing to sort your segments by other columns, I'd advise making a list from the segment, and selecting the columns you wish to view and sort by.

Can you elaborate on what it is you're looking for in regards to the criteria for the segmentation? Also keep in mind that free trials will have limited segmentation compared to paid accounts.

[KevinH5319]

Sure!

So modifying it is not what i'm looking to do.

Let's say my list has 3 fields :

Email
Name
State

I want to segment by state. 

When I go to create a segment and add criteria, none of my fields are represented and most fields in this input have nothing to do with my data/list at all. 

Feels like I'm missing something here. One would logically expect to be able to segment by fields actually relevant to the data. 

[William_A]

If you're wishing to segment by state, would you not select Home State? Segmenting by name or exact email aren't available criteria.

[KevinH5319]

It isn't clear that Home State maps to anything in the list is why. In fact it's not clear it is mapping to any list in my interface. 

Say i have 2 lists in my contacts. If I follow the below order of getting into creating a segment, there's no point where it asks WHICH list I want to segment. 

[KevinH5319]

I should add that I work in Data Analysis and Variable Imaging/Programming, so none of these concepts are foreign to me. You can alias a column in data to be anything, but if you do that (so Home State is mapped to State) you have to be able to tell it what to map to. 

[William_A]

If you're wanting specific lists included or excluded, you'd select them from the List Membership option in the lefthand menu.

I would suggest going through our main article on contact segmentation (also available in your account via the Help tab at the top) if you're facing confusion with how segmentation works in our system. If you're wanting further, 1:1 guidance on segmenting your contacts, then you're welcome to call in. Our phone support can screenshare your Constant Contact browser screen, so they can highlight where and what to select when setting up your segmentation. 

[KevinH5319]

I think the issue here is there is no List Membership option or left hand menu. I've looked at that article, and it also wasn't helpful, so I guess my journey with Constant Contact ends here. 

[William_A]

You can see it in the screencap you provided, it's one of the criteria you can add, from which you can then choose whether you wish to include or exclude certain lists in the calculation of other criteria.