Segmenting considerations

Choosing a segmenting method

You can segment by field or by query when you configure a Segment process in a Unica Campaign flowchart.

In some cases, the same results can be achieved when segmenting either by field or by query. For example, assume that the AcctType field in your database divides your customer accounts into Standard, Preferred and Premier levels. Segmenting by the AcctType field will create three segments for these account types.

You could achieve the same results using queries, but creating the segments would require writing three separate queries. Determine the most efficient method based on the data that you are segmenting.

Making segments mutually exclusive

You can specify that segments are mutually exclusive, meaning that each qualifying record is guaranteed to be placed into no more than one segment. When the segments are assigned to offers, each customer will receive only one offer.

Records are placed in the first segment whose criteria they satisfy, based on a priority order that you define. For example, if a customer qualifies for segments 1 and 3, and segment 1 is before segment 3 in the priority order, that customer will appear only in segment 1.

Restricting segment size

When you configure a Segment process, the default size for the number of records per segment is Unlimited. You may want to restrict the size of the created segment if, for example, you are performing test runs of a campaign flowchart or process.

You can limit the segment size to any positive integer. When you limit the segment size, the qualifying records are chosen randomly.

The same random set of records will be used for each subsequent run of the process (unless the input to the process changes). This is important if you intend to use the Segment results for modeling purposes, because different modeling algorithms must be compared across the same set of records to determine each model's effectiveness.

If you do not intend to use the results for modeling, you can make the Segment process select a different random set of records each time it runs. To do this, use a Random Seed of zero (0) in the upstream process that provides input to the Segment process. A value of 0 ensures that a different random set of records will be selected each time the process runs.

Selecting source cells

When you configure a Segment process in a Unica Campaign flowchart, all selected cells must be defined at the same audience level. If more than one source cell is selected, the same segmentation is performed on each source cell.

Using segments as input to another Segment process

Segments can be used as input cells to another Segment process in a Unica Campaign flowchart. For example, you can segment by age range, then further segment by preferred channel.

For this example, assume that you want to segment your customers into age ranges. Your database contains the field AgeRange, which assigns one of six age ranges (such as 26-30) to each customer. Segment by the AgeRange field to create six segments.

You could then use these six segments as input to another Segment process that further divides customers by another field or query. For example, assume that your database contains a field called PreferredChannel, which specifies each customer's preferred contact channel: Direct mail, telemarketing, fax, or email. Using the six age range segments as input, you could then create a second Segment process to segment by the PreferredChannel field. Each of the six age range segments is further segmented into four preferred channel segments, to produce a total of 24 output segments.