Audience segmentation is achieved through Lists.


For example, if your business sells clothing, you'll want to segment your audience by Gender to achieve personalised marketing.


But how does SharpSpring know which of your audience is Female? The answer is Custom Fields.


Custom Fields are assigned to contacts via the Contact's profile >  tab "Custom Fields".


Creating a custom field


Using our example for Gender, with "Male" and "Female" as the options, we'll setup, configure and import your contacts. Follow these steps:

  1. Go to New (top right) > Custom Field
  2. Click "+ Add Field"
  3. Choose "Lead Field"
  4. Enter the name "Gender", and check where you want the Custom Field to be used. 
  5. Choose a Field Type, like "Drop-down Select"
  6. Leave placeholder blank, and check the "Uncheck default" button
  7. Enter "Male" in the label field
  8. Then, on the far right of "Male", click the green "+" button
  9. Enter "Female" in the label field
  10. Click the green "Create field" button
  11. Export your leads via the Contacts Manager, you will have a new Column called "Gender"
  12. Open the CSV sheet in a spreadsheet editor like Google Sheets, and freeze the first row
  13. You now need to assign either "Male" or "Female" to each row in the "Gender" column
  14. When you're done, select the "Email" and "Gender" column headers > Copy > Create new sheet > Paste
  15. Download the new sheet as a CSV and go to Contacts > Import in SharpSpring Marketing menu
  16. Upload your CSV and select Create New List called "All Contacts" or Use Existing if you have one already have one
  17. On the How should we handle duplicates?, choose "Update only new information"
  18. Next, you need to Map the 2 columns to SharpSpring fields. You can select on the right which SharpSpring fields (Gender may be near the bottom of the list) should be assigned to each column.
  19. Click Import and wait for the import to finish.
  20. Go to Contacts > Lists, create new List. Name this "Female audience" and select "Rules based".
  21. Create the list and scroll down to Triggers and Filters.
  22. Choose the following: Add the Trigger > when a contact "Has the field" > Enter "Gender" > changes to "Female" > exactly > Click "Add rule"
  23. Save Changes and wait for the list to build
  24. Repeat steps 20-23, but instead change the list name to "Male Audience" and the Trigger to > when a contact "Has to the field" > Enter "Gender" > changes to "Male" > exactly > Click "Add rule"


If your contacts haven't loaded, try rebuilding the list again in 15 minutes. SharpSpring may still be updating the database from the Import in the background.


This is the basis to segmentation in SharpSpring. 


If you have any trouble completing this task, please submit a ticket on the portal and Harry will assist you shortly.


Please ensure you have valid Time-based Credits in your account to allow us to respond to your ticket request.


Advanced segmentation


With SharpSpring lists, you can apply multiple rules like Filters and select how the conditions are met, either "When All" or "When any".


Dynamic Lists


SharpSpring lists are smart. If your site has tracking enabled, and if a contact is being tracked, you can define specific workflows. If a contact completes this workflow, they can be added or removed from lists.