How to Use Subscriber Actions to Improve Open Rates

Behavioural Email Segmentation: How to Use Subscriber Actions to Improve Open Rates

Suppose you run an online clothing store. You have 10,000 email subscribers. Some of these subscribers buy shirts from your store. Some browse dresses but never buy. Some people read almost all the emails you send, while others haven’t opened your emails in three months.

Do you think that sending the email to everyone will work the same way?

The answer is no because someone who bought something from you would prefer an email about your new collection. Similarly, people who only browse need a nudge like a discount or new offers. People who haven’t opened your email need a completely different win-back email.

This is where email behavioural segmentation comes in.

Instead of treating everyone in your email list the same way, use your subscribers’ actions to understand what they are interested in and send emails accordingly.

What Is Behavioural Email Segmentation?

Behavioural email segmentation is the process of grouping your subscribers according to their actions and interactions with your business.

These actions help you understand what subscribers are interested in, how they engage with your email and where they are in their buying journey.

Think of it like this: traditional segmentation groups your audience by location, age and job title. Behavioural segmentation groups subscribers based on what they do or what they’re interested in.

For example, you might create a separate group for people:

• Who regularly open your emails.
• Who click on your product emails.
• Who browse products but don’t buy them.
• Who add products to their cart but leave before completing the transaction.
• Who have purchased from you before.
• Who haven’t engaged with your emails for a long time.

Difference Between Traditional and Behavioural Segmentation

As said above, traditional segmentation often groups people by gender, age, location or industry. But behavioural segmentation focuses on what people actually do.

Here’s the basic difference between these two:

Traditional Segmentation	Behavioural Segmentation
Groups subscribers by location	Groups subscribers by the link they click
Groups subscribers by age	Groups subscribers by products they browse
Groups subscribers by industry	Groups subscribers by how they engage with emails
Uses information about who the subscriber is	Uses information about the subscriber’s actions

Both approaches can be useful. However, subscriber behaviour segmentation provides clues about a person’s current interest, which can change over time.

How Does Behavioural Email Segmentation Improve Email Open Rates?

The basic principle is that people are more likely to open and engage with an email when its subject and content are relevant to their interests.

For example, you run an email marketing agency and have 5,000 subscribers. You send the same newsletter to everyone. The subject line says “Our Latest Email Marketing Tips.” But your subscribers have different interests. Some want to improve email deliverability. Some want to learn about automation. Some need help generating leads and others are interested in email design.

That one general subject line may not feel relevant to all of them.

But when you segment your list by past actions, you can send emails that address specific interests and give subscribers a stronger reason to open.

Behavioural segmentation can improve open rates in several ways:

Create More Relevant Subject Lines

When you know what someone clicked before, you can use that reference and write a more relevant subject line. So it’s no longer the general newsletter subject line “Our Latest Tips” but “It’s more on deliverability, since you asked”, and that’s much harder to ignore because it’s what they were looking for.

Send the Email at the Right Stage of the Buying Journey

Someone who joined you yesterday doesn’t need your advanced scaling strategies. They need the basics. Similarly, someone who’s been reading your emails for 6 months and has checked your pricing page wants advanced stuff. Sending the right message at the right time is why people open email.

Reconnect with Inactive Subscribers

Every business has inactive subscribers. But if you keep emailing them, they will drag your open rates down. Instead of the same emails you send to all your subscribers, keep these inactive subscribers in a separate group and send a dedicated email like “Should we stop emailing you?” Or, “Still want deliverability tips?” These emails help you re-engage subscribers while protecting your sender reputation.

Avoid Sending Irrelevant Emails

The fastest way to kill your open rates is to keep sending irrelevant emails. Don’t send anything about email design to recipients who have never clicked on something related to email design. It simply isn’t relevant to them, and they won’t open it. When you stop sending emails on topics your readers ignore, your overall open rate goes up because you send relevant emails on topics they care about.

How to Use Subscriber Actions to Create Behavioural Email Segments

You know behavioural segmentation helps improve open rates. But how do you actually do this? It may sound technical, but it’s not. Here’s what we use for our clients. It’s simple and requires no technical setup.

Decide What You Want to Achieve

Don’t just segment because you have to. Set a goal first. Think about what you want to achieve. Is your open rate decreasing? Do you have a bunch of people who haven’t purchased in 3 months? Are people subscribing but ghosting after receiving a welcome email?

Your goal decides your segment. If your goal is to increase open rates, your first segment should be based on how your readers engage with you. If your goal is to get more repeat purchases, segment by purchase behaviour. Pick one goal for one month.

Collect Information About Subscriber Actions

Once you know your goals, look at the actions your subscribers take when they interact with your business, email or website. However, you don’t have to track multiple things. Just focus on the four important things that tell you the most:

• Email Opens: Check which subscribers regularly open your emails. Which ones haven’t opened the recent campaign? Who hasn’t opened in 30 days? This is your engagement segmentation. It helps you identify active and inactive subscribers.
• Email Link Clicks: Opens tell you readers are interested, but click rates tell you what they are interested in. Look at what links they click inside your emails. Did they click on the link about automation or the one about deliverability? Clicks can show what your subscribers want to learn more about.
• Website Visits and Browsing Activity: Notice what the subscribers are doing after they click the link. Are they visiting your website? Are they checking your pricing page twice? Browsing the same product for three days? Reading two or three blogs on the same topic? This is intent, and intent is much stronger than demographics.
• Purchases and Other Completed Actions: See if your subscribers made a purchase. If yes, check what they bought, when and why. Did they add anything to the cart and leave without completing the purchase? Did they download your lead magnet but never book a call? This helps you understand what a subscriber has already done and which next step will be helpful.

Look for Patterns and Divide Subscribers into Groups

This is actually where you do behavioural segmentation. Behavioural segmentation is simply dividing people into groups who performed similar actions or show similar patterns of interest.

Look at the data and ask what these people have in common. Start with the pattern first and group them accordingly.

For example, create Group A, B, C and D.

• Group A: They open every email but never click, maybe because your CTAs are too pushy.
• Group B: They clicked on your automation email, but ignore everything else.
• Group C: Bought 2 months ago, but hasn’t been back since.
• Group D: Visited your service page twice this week, but did not fill out the form.

These are your behavioural segments, and you don’t need any fancy names for them. You can call them what they are, like “One-time buyers”, “Cart abandoners”, etc.

Decide What Email Each Group Should Receive

This is where most people make mistakes. They segment subscribers but still somehow end up sending the same email to everyone. You should understand that if the segment is different, the email should also be different. Email segmentation is only half the job. Sending the right email to the right person at the right time will increase open rates and engagement rates. And you can do this by using the available information to decide what to send.

Suppose one of your subscribers recently clicked a blog post about email segmentation and personalisation. Instead of sending a generic email to a new subscriber, send a more relevant email with a subject line like “A practical guide to email segmentation and personalisation.”

This way you can send a new email on a topic the subscriber has already shown interest in. You don’t need to change the entire email marketing campaign for every subscriber. You just have to ensure the topic, subject line and content are appropriate for the group receiving it.

Set Rules for When Subscribers Enter or Leave a Segment

Subscribers’ interests and actions change, so your segment shouldn’t be fixed forever. You will have to change it as people move. For example, someone interested in email design this month may become interested in automation next month. So you cannot keep sending them the same email design emails.

You can have rules to update your segments when new actions are recorded.

For example, if someone hasn’t opened your email in 90 days, they enter the “inactive customer segment.” But if they open your “win back” email, then they move back to “engaged.” Many email marketing platforms allow you to do this automatically. Just set the rules, and it keeps your list clean automatically.

Test Whether Your Segments Improve Open Rates

Don’t just assume that segmentation will help. You will need to test whether this approach is working.

Send the same campaign two ways:

• Version A to your whole list (old way)
• Version B to your segmented audience with tailored subject lines (new way)

After this, compare open rates by segment. You will probably see Version B win, not because you personalised the subject line, but because readers will feel like, “it is written for me.” This is the whole game. You are not tricking people into opening promotional or salesy emails. You’re sending them what they already told you they want.

Why Behavioural Segmentation Sometimes Fails

Behavioural segmentation is powerful, but it can go wrong if you make these common mistakes:

• Creating Too Many Segments: It’s common to create segments for almost everything. But too many small groups can be hard to manage and may not provide enough data to judge results. Start with 3-4 big, useful groups. You can always get more specific later.
• Relying Only on Email Opens: Many businesses rely only on email opens, which can be inaccurate. So, you should combine them with clicks, purchases and meaningful actions to send more relevant emails.
• Using Old Behaviour: Someone clicked a link 6 months ago and may no longer be interested. Recent actions matter way more than the old ones. You should focus on recent actions to send relevant emails.
• Sending Too Many Emails: Just because someone’s interested in a topic doesn’t mean they want daily messages about it. Interest doesn’t mean permission to spam. If you send them too many emails regularly, your subscribers will go from interested to annoyed really fast, and they will unsubscribe.
• Using Misleading Subject Lines: Relevance matters, but your subject line must accurately represent the email content. Don’t just use a clickbait strategy. Make sure the subject line exactly matches what’s inside the email. Otherwise, people will stop opening altogether.
• Ignoring Privacy and Consent: This is one of the biggest mistakes that businesses make. You cannot just track everything and email people without their permission. Collect subscriber activity responsibly. Be transparent about what you track, have proper consent and give people an easy way to opt out.
• Not Testing Anything: Don’t just assume the segment will work. Track the results to know whether it is working. Different audiences respond differently. So, test and see what the data say instead of just guessing.

Conclusion

Sending the same email to your whole list doesn’t work because not everyone wants the same message or information. Behavioural segmentation helps you send more relevant emails that match people’s actions and interests. When you send more relevant emails, more people open them and engage with them, because then you are not tricking them but sending them what they asked for. It’s that simple.