How to build a customer segmentation strategy

A customer segmentation strategy connects a business goal to a group of customers, an action, and a measure of success. Start with a decision you need to make, such as helping new buyers return. Choose the audience, test a relevant message, and check whether the result earns its cost.

For a Shopify store, the first plan can fit on a page. You need clear customer rules and someone responsible for the campaign. Add more groups when they need different treatment and you can measure the difference.

What makes a customer segmentation strategy useful?

A useful strategy changes how you treat a customer. Sorting buyers into groups gives you a segment; deciding what each group receives gives that segment a purpose.

For example, new buyers may need help using their purchase. Repeat buyers may need a reminder that a favorite product is back. Sending a different message can make each campaign more relevant, but better sales still need to be tested.

Customer segmentation focuses on people who already buy from you. Market segmentation looks at the wider audience you could reach. For definitions, models, and Shopify setup, use the broader guide to customer segmentation in Shopify.

Choose one business goal

Pick the business problem before picking the customer group. “Improve retention” is a direction; “help first buyers place a second order” gives you something specific to test.

Match the audience to the problem you can act on:

Choose the audience you can reach, serve, and measure with the resources you have. A large list is less useful if you lack permission to contact it. A small audience may deserve personal service but provide too few purchases for a reliable campaign comparison.

Write down the goal, audience rule, action, channel, owner, and success measure before building anything. If the team cannot agree on the action, pause the segment. More detailed customer labels will not settle that decision.

Choose the customer data that fits the decision

Use the information needed to decide who gets different treatment. For a repeat purchase goal, start with order dates, order counts, products bought, and past spending. Customer feedback can explain a barrier that purchase history alone cannot reveal.

The four common approaches answer different questions:

• Behavioral: What has the customer done? Purchase history helps separate a new buyer from someone who orders regularly.
• Geographic: Where does the customer live? Location matters when shipping availability, climate, or delivery timing changes the offer.
• Demographic: Who is the customer? Age or life stage can help when customers have shared that information for a relevant purpose.
• Psychographic: What matters to the customer? Surveys and conversations can reveal interests and motivations that orders cannot confirm.

Two other useful approaches are value and needs. Past spending can guide the effort you put into personal outreach. A stated need can guide product advice, such as choosing a gift rather than buying for personal use.

Choose a clear rule you can explain in ordinary words. “Customers with one order who bought a starter kit” points toward a different message from “customers who bought refills.” These behavioral segmentation examples show how purchase patterns can shape the action.

Check a few customer records before launching. Look for duplicate profiles, missing purchase history, and wholesale accounts mixed with retail buyers. Treat a product purchase as a clue, rather than proof of a customer's identity or motivation.

Let second-order timing shape your first test

The observed timing gives you a reason to test helpful contact early in the customer relationship. It does not tell you an ideal send date.

Among customers whose first order fell between September 2024 and August 2025, 6.6% placed another order within 30 days at the median store. Within a year, 19.5% had returned. The comparison covers 1,299 Shopify stores.

A refill store may have a natural reason to follow up soon. A furniture store may do better with care instructions or accessory advice. The benchmark helps frame the question; it does not make those businesses interchangeable.

Give the audience one action and an owner

Give each segment a message that follows from its rule. Name the person who checks the audience and the person who approves the campaign. In a small team, that can be the same person.

Consider a hypothetical coffee store trying to encourage another purchase. Its starting audience is buyers whose only order contained a starter kit. The campaign offers brewing advice and explains which refill fits the kit, without a discount at first.

The owner checks that recipients can receive marketing email and removes customers with an unresolved delivery problem. Buyers leave the campaign after ordering again. If they also qualify for a general promotion, decide which message takes priority so the campaigns do not compete.

Choose tools after defining that workflow. Check whether your current customer and email tools can describe the rule, keep membership current, and stop messages when someone leaves. The choice between dynamic and static customer segments matters most for recurring campaigns.

By the Numbers lets you build customer segments from purchase history and sync them to Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Attentive, Meta, Google Ads, TikTok, and Reddit Ads. Keep your campaign rules and contact permissions clear in the destination you use.

Measure whether the action earned its cost

Compare customers receiving the new treatment with similar customers who do not receive it. A random holdout within the same eligible audience helps separate the campaign's effect from buying that would happen anyway.

Decide the observation period before sending. Give both groups the same time to buy, based on your product's usual purchase cycle. Keep other campaigns consistent across the groups, and record promotions or stock problems that could affect the result.

For the coffee store, the main measure is the share of eligible buyers who place another order. Also compare revenue per eligible customer, including those who bought nothing. Email opens and clicks can help diagnose a message, but they do not establish extra sales.

Agree on a success rule before the test begins: extra contribution after offer and delivery costs, with acceptable complaints and unsubscribes. Check the cost alongside the result. A higher order rate may still be a poor trade if discounts, shipping offers, or returns consume the extra revenue. Track unsubscribes and complaints too, since an aggressive campaign can make later contact harder.

Avoid comparing the new audience with your best customers or with last holiday season. Those groups differ before the campaign starts. If the audience produces only a few orders, treat the result as uncertain and gather more evidence before expanding it.

Review, merge, or retire the segment

Keep a segment when it supports a different action and the results justify the work. If two groups receive the same treatment, consider merging them. If nobody uses a segment, retire it.

Review after the test and when your products, promotions, or buying patterns change. Ask whether the rule still reaches the intended customer, whether the message still fits, and whether the owner can maintain it.

Keep a short record of what you tried and what you learned. The next segment should come from a new decision or an unresolved customer need. Build on evidence from the first plan before adding more campaigns.

How we measured it

These benchmarks use anonymized, aggregated data from Shopify stores in the By the Numbers network. No individual store is identifiable from any figure. Stores that use an analytics app are not a random sample of all Shopify stores, so read the figures as a reference point, not as an average for the whole market.

Keep reading

If you want the full picture on customer segmentation, start with how to segment Shopify customers.

Related reading: Behavioral Segmentation: Store Examples, Which Customer Segments Predict the Next Order? and Build Segments That Self Update in Shopify.

By the Numbers builds this into the dashboard. See customer segments.