Segmenting Buyer Groups

Most brands segment by demographics. Top performing brands segment by behavior. Demographics tell you who someone is. Behavior tells you what they're about to do. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗴𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗱𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲: → Engaged non-buyers (opened 3+ emails, no purchase) → One-time buyers who haven't returned in 60 days → High AOV repeat customers → Cart abandoners by product category → Browse abandoners by price tier 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗴𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻: → Age ranges → Location → Gender → "VIP" based on spend alone These aren't useless. But they don't predict action. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸: Start with purchase behavior. Recency, frequency, monetary value. Layer in engagement. Opens, clicks, site visits. Add intent signals. Browse history, cart activity, wishlist adds. Build flows around each segment. Not one welcome series for everyone. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆: A 35-year-old in Texas and a 35-year-old in New York might have nothing in common. But two people who both browsed the same $80 product three times this week? They're the same segment. Segment by what people do. Not just who they are.

Segmenting your customers is the easiest lever you could pull to maximize profit. There are 5 segments you need specifically: 1/ First-time buyers: They need reassurance they made the right choice. Send: - How-to guides - Care instructions - Gentle intro to other products Don't push hard sells immediately 2/ Repeat customers (2-3 purchases): They trust you but need reasons to buy more. Send: - Early access to launches - VIP pricing - "Since you loved X, try Y" 3/ VIP Customers (4+ purchases or high spend): These are your brand advocates. Send: - Behind-the-scenes content - Ask for product input - Exclusive experiences - Personal touches 4/ Lapsed Customers (90+ days inactive): Remind them why they loved your brand. Send: - "We miss you" campaigns - Compelling reason to come back - Special win-back offer 5/ High-Value Segment (Top 20% spenders) Send: - Premium customer service - Exclusive access - Personal check-ins I implemented this for a supplement brand with 25K customers. Result: Email revenue increased 160% in 90 days.

Most brands think they’re segmenting. In reality, they’re just tagging people. ✅ Purchased once ✅ VIP ✅ At-risk ✅ Never purchased That’s not real segmentation. That's basic filing. Real segmentation tracks how people behave over time. Examples: 🛒 What categories they browse 📦 How often they buy 💰 How fast they repurchase ⏰ How long they take to open a reorder reminder 💸 Who always buys full price vs waits for discounts 👀 Who views a product multiple times without buying 📈 Who's steadily increasing order value over time 📉 Who's steadily decreasing engagement over time 📬 Who only clicks campaigns vs who only clicks flows 🛍️ Who shops based on product drops vs seasonal moments 📦 Who bundles multiple products vs buys one-offs 🎯 Who engages immediately after ads vs needs multiple touches When you segment this way, you don’t just send emails — you predict behavior and influence it. Klaviyo's Marketing Analytics now gives brands a better view of customer lifetime value trends, order patterns, and channel-specific engagement — making it easier to slice audiences by real behaviors, not just demographics. There are also powerful third-party tools that can be layered in to go even deeper on behavior signals. The brands that survive the next five years won’t just "have segments." They’ll build retention engines that think like their customers do.

How To Define Your Ideal Customer Personas If you’ve got thousands (or even millions) of prospects, figuring out who your true customers are can feel overwhelming.... Here’s a simple 6-step framework that just works: 1. Start With Segmentation Break your population of current prospects, users, and customers into meaningful groups: By Role: Admins, billing, end users, managers, executives. By Company Size: SMB (1–200 employees), mid-market, enterprise. By Industry: SaaS, healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, etc. By Usage: Heavy (daily exports/searches), moderate, light, inactive. This allows you to see patterns in who is most engaged and who drives the most value. 2. Analyze Revenue Contribution Not all users matter equally.... customers who pay (and expand) define your ideal persona. Look at top 20% of customers driving 80% of revenue. Track renewals, upsells, and churn rates by persona. Identify which roles in the account drive expansion. 3. Layer in Product Usage Data Your product data is a goldmine: Who uses your product daily / weekly / monthly? Who uses your product the most and your top features? Which roles trigger support tickets (admins) vs. create opportunities (users)? Usage + revenue combined shows you which personas are most valuable. 4. Define Your Personas Based on the above, you’ll likely discover multiple ideal customer personas: Decision Maker / Economic Buyer Personas: The titles that approve budget. Admin Persona: Leader/Manager responsible for setting up integrations and data flows. Power User Persona: The title or titles that live in the product daily to do their work. Champion Persona: A manager or director who ensures adoption and advocates internally. Each persona should include: >> Role/title >> Company size/industry fit >> Pain points >> Value they get from your product >> Triggers that lead them to buy/expand 5. Validate With Data + Interviews Run cohort analyses on your best customers to confirm patterns. Interview 20–30 top customers across segments to hear why they bought and what value they get. Overlay churned users to see what personas don’t stick. 6. Create a Playbook Once defined, you can: Align marketing messaging to each persona. Build sales talk tracks and ROI cases tailored by role. Prioritize product roadmap items that serve these personas best. Optimize customer success playbooks by persona (power users vs. admins need very different success paths). Once personas are clear, you can tailor messaging, sales talk tracks, customer success strategies, and even product roadmap decisions around them. The takeaway: Don’t guess your personas. 👉 Use data + revenue + real customer feedback to define them....then build everything around those who get the most value.

Buying Groups aren’t just theory anymore. The best GTM teams are making them the foundation of their entire GTM system. Here’s how you operationalize Buying Groups at the CRM level: The biggest miss in GTM? Most opportunities in CRM still only have one contact attached. But we know B2B buying decisions involve 6–10+ people. That gap is why pipeline conversion, forecasting, and attribution break down. This is largely due to the fact that for most opportunities are based on MQLs. The most impactful step that can be taken is creating opportunities with buying groups pre-populated and each stage of the funnel requiring increasing engagement with the buying group. Forrester recommends the opportunity object in your CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot, etc.) as the perfect container for buying groups. Why? - It aligns Marketing, SDRs, and Sales around the SAME OBJECT instead of leads vs. opps. - It lets you systematically ASSOCIATE CONTACTS INTO BUYING GROUPS linked to the solutions they care about . - It enables you to track PROGRESSION OF THE ENTIRE GROUP, not just a single contact. And the evidence is clear: - According to Forrester, companies that systematically use buying groups to build pipeline see 2x HIGHER OPPORTUNITY WIN RATES and FASTER DEAL CYCLES compared to traditional lead-based approaches . - In Demandbase customer data, opportunities with buying groups attached consistently show HIGHER CONVERSION TO CLOSED-WON than single-contact opportunities. Operationalizing buying groups this way gives you: 1. Clarity: Everyone focuses on opportunities populated with the right group of buyers. 2. Efficiency: Less waste from scattered leads and misrouted signals. 3. Predictability: A true view of pipeline health because all decision-makers are visible. If your CRM opportunities aren’t fully populated with buying groups, you don’t really have visibility into your pipeline. You’re running on incomplete data. That’s why we’re making buying groups central at Demandbase. They’re not just the bridge between ABM and pipeline — they’re the foundation for creating, accelerating, and winning opportunities.

We've worked on 500 positioning projects. 95% of the companies get this wrong 👇🏻 When I ask each company to "describe your ideal target customer," they all do the same thing: Start listing company attributes: “Our ICP is SaaS companies based in Europe in EdTech with 1000 employees" But a list of firmographics doesn't constitute a marketable segment. Simply being a certain size or being located in a geographic region does not guarantee the companies will actually need or want your product. There's a better way to segment, and it guarantees that the people you do outreach to will at least have the NEED for your product. 1) Target customers in a "mature market" centered around existing product category You're going to build a segment starting with the companies that recognize an existing product category and are actively shopping for it OR currently have/use it. So for example, if you have launched a CRM, your target market might begin with all the companies that are actively shopping for CRMs or using CRMs right now. That way, when you pitch them your CRM, you know that it will not be irrelevant — assuming you have a compelling argument. You can use the same differentiated argument to get the shoppers to use you and those already using a CRM to consider switching to you when their contract expires. This is essentially the equivalent of buying shelf space in a busy store and looking to capture the incoming demand of the daily shoppers looking for that specific product category. 2) Target customers in an "immature market" centered around a job-to-be-done If you want a more greenfield market with less vendor-level competition, you can create a segment based on people all trying to accomplish something (something that your product makes easier/cheaper/better, etc.) Your outreach to this market will be relevant in the sense that you'll be speaking directly to something they are trying to accomplish (again, to say nothing of how compelling or uncompelling your solution is). However, this group is "immature" because they've never bought a solution like yours before. They weren't shopping for what you provide. You'll have to explain it to them and convince them you're worth of allocating budget. This is essentially the equivalent of door-to-door sales to pitch something new and novel related to something a homeowner is currently doing or struggling with.

+63% revenue per campaign in 14 days. Most DTC brands dream of email performance like this. Pietro Pelizzari at Orbis (Swiss wellness brand) just made it reality. Here's the crazy part: He didn't hire more people. Didn't overhaul his entire email strategy. Didn't even change his messaging. He just stopped shooting emails to just his 30-day engaged list. The problem? Orbis had a solid email list of health-conscious Europeans. But they were treating a fitness fanatic the same as a casual browser. Generic segmentation = generic results. So Pietro tried something different. Instead of just sending emails to his engaged list, he let AI watch customer behavior and tell him exactly when someone was ready to buy. They started with just two AI-segments that were pure gold: - Segment 1: Site visitors showing strong purchase signals (but not converting) - Segment 2: New customers displaying early loyalty behaviors Every night, these segments updated automatically based on real actions. Not demographics. Not assumptions. Actual behavior. The results hit different: → +63% revenue per recipient → +10% revenue per campaign → +72% email efficiency → Deliverability scores back in the green Pietro's reaction: "It's like switching from a shotgun to a sniper." Here's what most brands miss: Your customers are already telling you when they're ready to buy. Their clicks. Their browse time. Their purchase patterns. It's all data you can act on. But most teams are still segmenting ONLY by "bought in last 30 days" or "lives in California." Meanwhile, brands like Orbis are reading behavioral intent in real-time. Then to start, they're just layering better segments on top of what they're already sending. Same team size. Same budget. 63% better results. Your customers are sending you the buying signals you need to convert more. Are you listening?

Half our marketing budget targeted women 25-34. Our highest converting audience? Men 45-65 buying gifts. Discovered this by accident when analyzing order patterns from last Diwali season. These gift-buying men were completely invisible in our targeting strategy. Weird pattern we noticed: ⤵︎ They never used discount codes ⤵︎ Always chose express shipping ⤵︎ Bought our highest-priced items ⤵︎ Had near-zero return rates Our acquisition cost for this segment was 4X lower while average order value was 3.2X higher. Instead of ignoring this insight, we rebuilt our entire holiday strategy around it: ↗︎ Created "gift concierge" landing pages with curated selections ↗︎ Added gift wrapping and personalized message options ↗︎ Developed email sequences specifically for gift occasions ↗︎ Built lookalike audiences based on this high-value segment These changes increased our holiday revenue by 142% year-over-year while reducing marketing spend by 17%. The most profitable audience segments rarely match your brand's imagined customer avatar. Data reveals who's actually buying, not who you think should be buying. What hidden audience segments are you overlooking?

𝗗𝗢𝗡'𝗧: Download/webinar sign-up → send leads to sales. 𝗗𝗢:       Match the next step/CTA with the buyer's intent level. Don't propose marriage on the first date. Instead, ask yourself:  What does the buyer actually want? 𝗛𝗜𝗚𝗛 𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝘈𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯: Book a demo call 𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵: Get a demo and evaluate the fit 𝘕𝘦𝘹𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘱𝘴: Let ICP buyers book a call with AE directly. Actually provide the demo, pricing and discuss their use-case. 𝗟𝗢𝗪 𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝘈𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯: A buyer downloads a piece of content, or registers for a webinar 𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵:  To learn Possible next steps that match the intent: - Connect before the webinar to ask what they're hoping to learn - Follow up after the webinar asking their feedback, and offering more resources on the topic - Offer them newsletter sign-up upon content delivery - Progressive profiling (using marketing automation to collect more info about needs, goals, and priorities—and using these insights to provide more relevant content) 𝗠𝗘𝗗𝗜𝗨𝗠 𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝘈𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯: Visit high-intent pages; several buyers spent 30+ min on website 𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵:  Considering a vendor (but not yet ready to book a call) 𝘕𝘦𝘹𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘱𝘴: provide a personalized buying experience for high-value accounts. Here is how: When an account is engaged, the next step is account qualification (if it's a right fit) and account segmentation (to what tier it belongs). We do tier segmentation to define what level of personalization to use. Tier 1 accounts (highest revenue potential): 1-1 highly personalized campaigns Tier 2 accounts: vertical-based and job-role based personalization. Tier 3 accounts: should be generated via demand generation programs. 𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 Collect all the publicly available insights about the strategic initiatives of the qualified accounts and map out the buying committee. Map your value proposition and content to the needs, JBTD and challenges you discover. 𝗔𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁 𝗗𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 Specific activities and channels to engage the target buyers (of a specific account), create awareness and distribute your personalized value proposition and content. These include: 1. Social engagement and social selling 2. Content collaboration 3. 1:1 content distribution 4. 1:Few content distribution using paid 5. 1:1 and 1:Few direct mail 6. Events (virtual events, local micro events, breakfast meetings, round tables, etc.) 7. Communities The key is to have clear agreements with sales on who does what. --- 70% of B2B buyers are frustrated with their buying experience. This is an opportunity: better buying experiences will help you stand out. So review all your CTA with sales, asking yourself: What is the actual intent of the buyer, and what is the best and fastest way to serve them at this step of their journey?