Segments and lists: which one to save

When you have filtered your customers down to the people you want, you can save what you found. There are two ways to save it, and the difference matters the next time you use it.

A segment saves the criteria

It re-runs your filter every time it is used, so its membership changes as your customers do. “Customers added this year with no completed job” is a segment: somebody who books tomorrow drops out of it by themselves.

A list saves the customers

It holds exactly who matched at the moment you captured it, and it does not change afterwards. Use one when the group needs to stay fixed — who was invited to something, who was written to about a specific problem.

Reading the cards

• The membership count is how many customers are in it right now. For a segment that is a live answer; for a list it is what you captured.
• The email-ready count is how many of those have an email address and have not unsubscribed. It is the number that matters before a campaign.
• A segment whose saved criteria no longer make sense — a custom field that was deleted, for instance — says so, and its membership is treated as empty rather than guessed at.