When it comes to marketing your business during Q4 and the holiday season email marketing is one of the most powerful tools you have. But with that power comes a lot of overwhelm and today I want to talk about a common misconception about being successful with email, especially during this time.
This episode was inspired by a conversation I had with a lounge member recently who had attended a workshop hosted by Klaviyo talking about segmentation for your Q4 emails.
As much as I love Klaviyo and appreciate the effort they make to educate their user base, the truth is I told her to ignore 99% of what she learned on that call.
While segmentation isn’t inherently bad, we’ll talk about when and for who it makes sense, the truth is, there is such a thing as over segmenting and that’s what I want to make sure you avoid in the season ahead.
Because not only can it dwarf your reach during the holiday season, but in most cases, the extra work it takes usually doesn’t make a meaningful difference in your bottom line. And if there’s anything I want for you it’s to do less.
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How Segments Can Hurt in During the Holiday Shopping Season
So, first let’s talk about how segmentation can actually hurt you in Q4.
The short story is, you can actually miss out on sales if not everyone on your list knows what’s going on.
Sure, during the rest of the year, your customer might be pretty consistent. They buy for themselves. They gravitate toward the same products. You can build segments based on things like their favorite collection or average order value, and it makes sense.
But in Q4, that behavior shifts. Now they’re buying gifts. Maybe for their sister, someone else’s baby, maybe their boss… who knows? So if you’ve segmented your list based on their past behavior, like only showing them women’s clothing items because that’s what they usually buy, you might miss out on a sale because they were shopping for their brother this time.
If your segmentation is too narrow, you risk excluding people who would of bought from you, which is the exact opposite of what you want to do during the biggest revenue season of the year.
Why Email List Size Matters in Segmentation
List size plays a huge role in whether segmentation is worth your time—especially during Q4. Like I mentioned earlier, the Lounge member who sparked this whole convo has fewer than 2,000 subscribers. With a list that size, if she starts creating all these little hyper-targeted segments, she’s going to end up with like 50 people per email. That’s just not enough volume to make it worth the effort.
And even back in my corporate days, when I was sending emails to a list of 150 to 200 thousand subscribers, we didn’t do a whole lot of segmentation during the holiday season either. Because the truth is, even with a big list, if that extra work doesn’t lead to a significant increase in results, it’s not worth doing.
It’s kind of like how I talk about sitewide promotions. I don’t want you running a sitewide sale unless it brings in enough additional revenue that you actually end up with more profit dollars vs. just giving away money on things people would pay full price for. And the same principle applies to segmentation. If you’re going to send three different versions of an email to three different segments, but those segmented emails don’t dramatically outperform a single send, you’re wasting time. Full stop.
And look, segmentation can seem like a really smart idea. On paper, it feels strategic and personalized, right? Something I talk to you about all the time. Like, let’s say you sell scented candles and someone always buys the cozy fall scents. You might think it’s smart to send them an email featuring just those. But if doing that only gets you a handful of extra sales—and takes twice as long to build the campaign—is it really worth it?
Or let’s say someone buys a yoga mat and you want to follow up with a feature on ankle weights. That’s a solid cross-sell move and yes, strategic cross-sells are important when you’ve got a wide assortment. But also… who says other people on your list don’t want ankle weights too?
And here’s the biggie: unless you’re actually going to send an email to every one of those tiny segments, the majority of your list isn’t going to hear from you at all. Email isn’t just about what product is featured—it’s about showing up in someone’s inbox and reminding them that you exist. So if you’ve got a segment of 50 people and only build a campaign for them, that’s 1,950 people who hear crickets from you. Meanwhile, they’re buying from your competitors who are showing up.
Plus, remember that eCommerce is still mostly a numbers game. Let’s do a little math. Say you send a segmented email to 50 people and get a 10% conversion rate. Cool, that’s 5 sales. But if you sent a broader email to your full 2,000-person list and it converted at just 1%, that’s 20 sales. See what I mean?
Now once you start getting to the 10, 20k+ list size, sure—you’ve got more room to play. You might test a product-interest segment here or there. But even then, a well-crafted, high-level message with a strong offer or best sellers will likely outperform some hyper-specific campaign. Especially if you use product recommendations to personalize what each subscriber sees.
If you’re using Klaviyo, those recommendation blocks are your best friend. You don’t have to guess what they want—just let the data do the work. And if you’re not ready for that, a simple feature of your best sellers or new arrivals will still get the job done.
And instead of building a whole separate campaign for people you think won’t be interested in something, just use an exclusion segment. If you’re promoting something and you’ve got a very clear group of people who absolutely should not get that email—exclude them. Done. No need to build a whole new email just for them.
What Segments to Use in Q4
Does that mean there is no opportunity to segment in Q4? No, let’s talk about the types of segments you might want to use during the holiday season.
The most important types of segments are not driven by their product or category interests at all. They’re actually driven by the subscribers’ relationship with you and shopping patterns.
VIP or Early Access Segments
This is my number one recommendation, especially in regard to your BFCM strategy. You should be building a list of subscribers who want early access or first dibs on your promotion. While running a pre-launch campaign is super important for building hype, it’s also a way to ensure people are paying attention. Think of someone signing up for that list as a micro-conversion. These are the people who are going to be most interested in what you have to offer and will be paying the most attention.
This is the group that will take action quickly, will spend more, and will give insight into how successful or not your launch or promotion are. Without that initial boost, it can be hard to tell if it was your offer or the marketing that was the problem.
Engaged vs. Unengaged
These are probably the segments you’re most familiar with, and usually the first segment you create. Week to week in non-peak times, your engaged segment are the people you send to the most. But anytime you have a product launch or a big promotion, you want to make sure to bring those unengaged people back into the fold.
For example, on Black Friday weekend you want to include the less engaged group in the launch and last chance emails at a minimum. Just because they’re not engaged on a regular basis, doesn’t mean they won’t be during this time.
Never Purchased
Within your engaged segment you might have a group of people who are quite active on your list, but have yet to make a purchase from you yet. These are people who have gone through your welcome series, never purchased series, received a few campaign emails but they still haven’t bought.
I recommend you create a special campaign for this group on a quarterly basis with a special offer to try and get them to make their first purchase. I usually make this text-based and position it as a note from the founder. You want them to feel like you sat down at your desk and wrote the email just for them. Lounge Members search convert first timers in circle and you’ll find a swipe file to get you started with this campaign.
As I mentioned, I like to do this quarterly, and you still have time before black friday weekend to work this into your schedule. But, if you can’t make it work before the then, considering introducing your black friday sale to this group with this same method.
Holiday Shoppers
Holiday shoppers are people who don’t typically buy from you throughout the year and only show up during the holiday season. This is essentially me with uncommon goods.
These people are going to be wrapped up in your unengaged segment, so even if you don’t create a campaign specifically for them, they should still get wrapped up in your holiday emails.
The most important reason to identify this group is to make sure you don’t end up suppressing them by accident. While I’m all for a good list clean, and encourage it often, if you do have a group of people who only engage during this time, it’s worth it to keep them around.
And of course we have…
Exclusion Segments
Exclusion segments can be used in a few different ways. At my previous day job we had a lot of different customer avatars from all over the country. Some were very anti-certain product categories and very interested in others. Instead of creating a separate email for each of the different category preferences, when I was sending an email that I knew some people wouldn’t appreciate I just excluded them from that specific email.
You can also use exclusion segments during high promotional times like Black Friday weekend to exclude anyone who already took advantage of the deal. So you could create a segment that says placed an order since the date your promotion went live. As people place orders, they fall into that segment, and you know they won’t get bombarded with additional promo emails.
Pro Tip: When scheduling your emails in advance make sure you set the campaign to choose recipients at send time. That ensures it uses the most updated versions of the segments you’re sending too, something that’s super important when using exclusion segments.
What if Your Data Shows Email Segmentation Works
Now, if you’re sitting there thinking, “But Jessica, I’ve seen segmentation work for me,” then great—keep doing it! On this podcast I’m speaking to a lot of different business owners, in different industries, with different product assortments, at different revenue levels. I do my best to give multiple different scenarios so you can always hear yourself if my examples, but for the most part I’m speaking in generalizations based on my past experience. If your data proves me wrong, then your data wins. My goal is always for you to do the best for your business, without doing too much.
A great example of this is a student I have who sells a hobby product that while he does see an increase in sales in Q4, it’s not necessarily for gifts. It’s his regular customers who are likely just in a shopping mood and they spend more. For him, the shopping behavior of his customers doesn’t actually change. If they’re into a specific category of his products, he knows that is the category that person is going to continue to buy. So, if he releases something new, he can continue to use those category segments without much fear that he’s going to leave sales on the table. But, he has a super niche product and customer base, so that’s not going to ring true for everyone.
Your Next Steps
At the end of the day, just because you can segment doesn’t mean you should. Don’t do it just because it seems like what you’re supposed to do because you hear so many people or your email platform talk about it. Make sure it really makes sense for your business, and that it’s worth the extra effort.
And if you want to see the exact email schedule and strategy I used at my previous day job and still recommend, there are 3 ways to get your hands on a spreadsheet with all the details. Lounge members, you have this in your workshops + guests section. Just search example promo calendar and it should pop up. It’s also included in 2 of my 3 holiday products, Q4 Badassery (formally the Badass Holiday Planning Guide, and the Holiday Content Bundle. I’ll stick links in the show notes so you can snag those.
As you finalize your Q4 marketing plans and email strategy, just remember that the ultimate flex is doing less, but better.
