Dynamic Segments

[Anonymous]

I have come across this when researching using segmentation's and segments "Rules: Segments use Smart Lists to create hard coded groupings for dynamic content. Choose these rules carefully because they define the Segment and the first time a Lead qualifies, it joins the Segment forever."

My question is centered around "joins the Segment forever". Do the segments move people in and out based upon the rules?  In my opinion if you don't qualify for the segment anymore you should be dropped.

We have a B2B database and this data is constantly changing so perhaps its better to use smart lists.

[Josh_Hill13 · Accepted solution]

This is not accurate.

If the lead becomes a member of a Segment, it can only join ONE segment at a time. If the fields' values change such that the lead should be in a new Segment, then the lead is moved to the new Segment.

Segmentation Rules are processed at the time of Lead Creation and, I believe, once a day at night.

Segmentations are best used for general divisions of Leads such as by Country, Region, Industry, Marketeability, etc. You can only have 20 Segmentations and 100 Segments per Segmentation.

[Anonymous]

OK that's good news! Thanks for the quick response Josh!

[Anonymous]

I noticed your from rockstartguides and I got that quote from this doc fyi

How to Create Marketo SegmentationsMarketing Rockstar Guides

[Anonymous]

Jason it should be noted that when a Lead qualifies for a Segment and is labeled as such. If that same Lead, in the future, qualifies for another Segment within the same Segmentation; Marketo will only assoicate the Lead to the segment that is higher alphabetically.

For example.

     Lead is created, falls under the Segmentation State, and is labeled as being a part of the New York segment via State = NY

     Let's say your Lead ends up moving and the State field is now populated with RI for Rhode Island.

     Marketo has told me multiple times that this lead WILL NOT change to the RI segment since NY comes before RI in the alphabet.

This has been a nightmare for me specifically due to our need of dynamic content via segmentations. If this is incorrect please let me know because Marketo has been pushing this theory on us for a few weeks now.

Tom

[Anonymous]

Ok this is troubling. You have detailed a similar scenario I'm trying to avoid. The world is dynamic and this type of design seems to undermine the usefulness of segments.

[Anonymous]

Jason I could not agree with you more. The fact that Leads can re-segment is awesome but why it restricts to the alphabetical aspect is just absurdly hindering.

[Anonymous]

Agreed - how do we get a Marketo tech on here to weigh in?

[Anonymous]

I am working with them on this exact issue, the result is not amazing/fast produced just an fyi.

[Dan_Stevens_]

I think there's some misunderstanding here.  If a lead qualifies for another segment - let's use the scenario here, where the lead moves and now lives in RI (from NY) - their segment will change as well.  However, when a lead qualifies for two segments (this is not a good example since a lead record can only contain a single state value), they will belong only to the first one in the list - which is listed alphabetically.  So a lead can change to another segment within a segmentation - and will be part of the segment that is listed first, for which the lead qualifies.