What is a segment?
A saved filter over contacts or companies that returns a current list every time it runs, the unit a campaign is built from.
Segment — A segment is a saved filter over contacts or companies — by ICP fit, status, activity, source — that yields a current list whenever it is run. It is the unit an outreach campaign is built from.
Why it matters
A segment is a definition, not a fixed list. It is a set of filter conditions, such as ICP fit, lifecycle status, recent activity, or where the contact came from, saved so it can be run again at any time and return whoever currently matches. That is what makes a segment different from a one-off export: the same segment run today and next month can return different people as contacts change status, get added, or leave the database.
Because a segment is the input a campaign is built from, what it excludes matters as much as what it includes. A segment defined purely by positive criteria, such as industry and company size, will happily include current customers, contacts already in an open deal, and anyone on a suppression list unless those exclusions are built into the filter itself. The safer default is a segment that subtracts customers, open deals, and suppressed contacts automatically, so a campaign built from it does not need a separate manual cleanup step before it can be frozen and sent.
How a segment is built and used
- 1
Define the filter conditions
Set criteria such as ICP fit, status, activity or source.
- 2
Add default exclusions
Subtract customers, open deals and suppressed contacts as a baseline.
- 3
Save the segment
Store the filter definition so it can be run again, not only the current result.
- 4
Run it to preview
Check who currently matches before building a campaign from it.
- 5
Freeze it for a send
Lock the current result into a fixed audience when a campaign actually goes out.
The mistake to watch for
Questions
- How is a segment different from a list?
- A list is typically a fixed set of records. A segment is a saved filter that is run again each time it is needed, returning whoever currently matches its conditions rather than a static snapshot.
- How is a segment different from an audience freeze?
- A segment is a live, reusable filter. An audience freeze is the act of locking one run of that filter into a fixed list, with suppression and dedup applied, for one specific send.
- What should every segment exclude by default?
- Current customers, contacts already in an open deal, and anyone on a suppression list, so that a campaign built from the segment does not need a manual cleanup pass before it can send.