Date Filters in Segmentations

[Anonymous]

I have on occasion seen people use date filters in their segmentation smart lists. This doesn't function the way people think. Relative operators like "In Past" or "In Future" don't get recalculated constantly so people may not switch segments when you want them to.

When a segmentation is created using a date filter, it evaluates the people at that moment and segments them based on the current value. The segment the person is in only gets reevaluated when there is a data value change, which does not get registered unless the actual data in the field changes. Relative operations don't register this in the activity log since the actual field value isn't changing.

For example, imagine you built a segment with the filter "Created At in Past 30 Days". Every new lead would be put into this segment when they were first created, but they would not be moved out of it on Day 31.

Since you should really only be using segmentations when you want to create dynamic content, your best option in this case would probably be to add people to and remove people from static lists with a smart campaign and use the static lists in the segment definition instead, just as suggested when doing this with custom objects.

[Rachel_Noble]

Jeff Coveney​ maybe this is at the root of our date filter questions a while back.

Thanks Kristen.

[Anonymous]

Still wished segments supported the date fields so the data would be available on demand. Have used the great workaround Kristen Carmean talks about but it's just an extra step.

Here's a great example of a segment currently use adding/removing of different lists to manage. We trigger different emails/actions when people move from one segment to another.

Everything is based off a custom activity date field that gets populated every day that someone takes action.

Inactivity Segment

Active last 30 days

Active 31-60 days

Active 61-90 days

Active 90 days+

[Anonymous]

This is super helpful! We often have debates about when to use a segment v. a smart list but the more I know about segments, the less valuable they sound

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Tabitha,

There is one thing for which segmentations are invaluable, it's if you want to use dynamic content.

There are also very useful with regards to the ability to create custom dimensions in Email Insight reporting, and in the future in  other similar reporting tools that Marketo is, AFAIK, planning to release.

-Greg