Create a segment

A segment is a saved set of conditions that groups matching contacts. You could create one for contacts who opened an email in the last 30 days or for people in the UK with a VIP tag. Membership updates automatically as contact details and activity change, so you do not add contacts to a segment manually.

Build the segment

1. Open Segments and choose how to start

   Click New segment or Start from scratch to open an empty rule box. To begin with prepared rules, find a card under Ready segments and click Use.

2. Name the segment

   Click the pencil at the top and type into Segment name.

3. Click Add filter and pick a field

   The fields are organised into four groups. Contact includes email, name, country, status, source, permission and dates. The other groups are Custom fields, Lists and tags and Engagement, which includes opens, clicks, sends, bounces, engagement score, temperature, Last device, Last email client and Last location.

4. Pick the condition and the value

   The available conditions depend on the field type. Text fields include contains and is. Number fields include at least and at most. Date fields use in the last … days. Engagement fields also include options such as at least once and never.

5. Join the filters

   Choose And when every condition must be met or Or when any one condition can match. If part of the segment needs And while another part needs Or, click Add filter group to create a separate group of conditions.

6. Check the live preview and click Save

   As you edit, Live preview shows how many contacts match and displays a few examples. Click View all matching contacts to inspect the full list. When you save, MailGraf returns you to Segments.

The This segment matches sentence at the top summarises how the rules work together. Click part of the sentence to highlight the corresponding rule. A segment can contain up to 50 rules.

Example conditions

• Tag is VIP and Country is United Kingdom.
• Opened in the last 30 days: everyone who opened at least one email in the last 30 days.
• Sent at least once and Opened never: received an email but never opened one.
• Engagement score at most 15.
• Last device is Mobile and Last email client is Gmail.
• Last location is United Kingdom.

Segment by last known activity

Last device, Last email client and Last location do not use a fixed date range. For each field, MailGraf uses the latest value revealed by a genuine email open or link click. Test sends, automated clicks and information hidden by privacy proxies such as Apple Mail do not overwrite it.

A last known value is not the same as recent engagement. To find contacts who engaged on mobile in the last 30 days, combine Last device is Mobile with Opened in the last 30 days or Clicked in the last 30 days. Contacts without reliable technology or location data do not match these rules.

Templates

The Ready segments gallery is visible on the Segments page. Search the cards or filter them by Basics, Consent, Data cleanup, Engagement and Sending. Each card shows the rule it will add, so you can understand the audience before opening the builder.

Click Use to open the builder with those rules already in place. You can change the segment name, values, conditions and joins before saving. Templates do not create or save a segment automatically; the live preview shows the matching audience first.

Use the segment

To use a segment in a campaign, choose Segments on the Audience step and click Add segment. The Segment actions menu for a saved segment includes Create list, Export CSV, Duplicate and Delete. Create list makes a fixed copy of the contacts who match at that moment. The new list does not continue to update with the segment.

The Contacts column on the Segments page shows the last saved count. Click the Refresh count icon in the row to fetch the current number. Campaign sending always calculates the audience from the latest segment rules.