Segment your audience
Build rule based segments in Mailsoftly, discover ready made groups with Audience Insights, and send to the right people so every campaign lands better.
Sending the same email to everyone rarely works as well as sending the right email to the right people. Segments let you slice your audience by the traits that matter, so each message feels relevant.
This guide walks you through your segments, shows how Mailsoftly can suggest groups for you, and covers building your own from rules.
Open your segments
Start on the Segments screen to see the groups you already have. Each segment is a card with a live member count, and Mailsoftly keeps a set of ready made Smart segments alongside any custom ones you build.
- The Smart segments cover engagement and risk automatically: Engaged, Not engaged in 90+ days, New contacts, and At risk (bouncing).
- Each count pill shows Calculating while it works, then the live total, which updates on its own as contacts change. Use Recalculate to refresh one on demand.
From here you can review an existing group or start a new one.
Open your segments in Mailsoftly
Discover groups with Audience Insights
Before you build from scratch, let Mailsoftly do some of the thinking. Choose Analyze my audience and it scans your contacts, then opens Audience Insights with a set of Suggested Smart Segments you can act on right away.
- Suggestions are practical cuts of your list, such as Business contacts, Personal email, Real people only, Has a job title, or a group for a top country.
- Each card has a Create segment button that turns the suggestion into a live, self updating segment, or use Create all to add them in one go.
These suggestions are a fast way to find pockets of your audience worth a dedicated message.
Build a segment from rules
To create your own, choose New Segment and give it a name and description. Under Include contacts matching, add rules that narrow the group until only the people you want remain.
- Pick a field from Default Fields (like country, company, or job title), your Custom Fields, or Tags, then an operator such as Equals, Contains, Starts With, or Is Empty, and a value.
- Add New Condition stacks more rules, and Add new condition group lets you combine blocks. An AND or OR toggle between rules decides whether contacts must match all of them or any.
Keep your first segments simple. The live count updates as you refine, so you can always add more rules once you see it.
The rule builder targets contact fields and tags. For engagement based groups like recently active or bouncing contacts, reach for the ready made Smart segments instead, since those track behavior for you.
Put your segment to work
When you send to a plain contact list, Mailsoftly can nudge you toward your most engaged people. The prompt compares your list size against how many contacts engaged recently.
- The nudge reads that sending to recently engaged contacts improves deliverability and open rates, with a Send to engaged contacts instead button.
- It is only a suggestion, never a gate. Accept it to swap in the Engaged segment, or dismiss it and send as planned.
Sending to people who want to hear from you is the single easiest win in email.
Filter your audience and save the view
Segments are not the only way to slice your audience. On the contacts screen, and on any contact list, the Advanced Filter chip in the filter bar opens Filter Contacts, with two tabs: Build and Saved Filters.
- Build stacks condition rows of field, operator, and value inside groups, with an AND or OR rocker on each group and buttons for Add New Filter and Add New Filter Group.
- Operators cover Equals, Contains, Starts With, Ends With, Does not contain, Is Empty, and Is Not Empty, plus Duplicate, which needs no value and pulls up every contact whose value for that field repeats. Pick email with Duplicate to surface duplicate addresses worth cleaning.
Once a filter earns its keep, Save this filter names it in the Save Filter window and parks it on the Saved Filters tab.
- Saved filters sit there as cards you can search by name, each showing how many conditions it holds.
- Click a card to load it back into the builder, a Filter loaded toast confirms it, then Apply. Delete clears out one you no longer need.
A filter is a working view of the contacts table, handy when you are hunting for something or cleaning up. A segment is a saved, live audience you can send a campaign to. Reach for a filter to tidy your data, and a segment when you are ready to send.
Ready to try it in your own account?
Free to start with your Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 account. No credit card required.
