Segmenting guests into groups by shared data points is a powerful marketing tool that allows you to tailor messaging to the guests who are most important to your business goals, and personalize your communication. With the right Segments, you can drive frequency, boost acquisition, increase traffic for specific dayparts, build online ordering, reach out to loyal fans, keep regulars engaged, and more.
As Engage collects more guest data for your brand, and as you build Segments and test campaigns, you will learn which Segments work best to accomplish your defined goals.
In this article, we will list Segments any brand can get started with and a few ideas for the next steps. To learn more about how to build Segments, check out Building Segments.
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- Segment by Value
- Segment by Source
- Segment by Daypart
- Segment by Ordering Behavior (Requires POS & OLO integrations)
- Frequently Created Segments
- Build Segments Specific to Your Brand
- Example Use Cases
Segment by Value
Grouping guests by frequency, spend and churn risk is good for business goals related to growth, increased sales, acquisition of high-value customers, and reducing the number of lapsed guests.
Loyal Fans >> Number of visits greater than 25
Weekly Regulars >> Seven days or less between visits
High Average Spend >> Greater than $X.XX check
Churn Risk >> Guests who have visited more than 3 times, but have not visited since ___ date
Segment by Source
Grouping guests by acquisition source can help you track the channels driving the most traffic, and target messaging to the most valuable channel.
Google Parties
WiFi Signups
Segment by Daypart
Grouping guests by daypart can help you drive frequency at times when your dining room is slow, or help you promote new initiatives specific to times of day.
Tuesday Dinner Diners >> Visit on Tuesday, 6 - 10 PM
Brunch Lovers >> Visit on Saturday + Sunday, 9 AM - 2 PM
Happy Hour Frequents >> Visit Mon-Fri, 4 - 6 PM who have visited more than 5 times
Segment by Ordering Behavior (Requires POS & OLO integrations)
Grouping Guests by behavior and preferences can help you target new menu items and special events to interested guests, and can help you drive traffic across channels—i.e. bring online orderers in-restaurant.
Item Ordered >> Have ordered specific item like Fish Tacos
Item Type Ordered >> Have ordered something within a group of menu items
Please note: for items ordered, the term searched must match the item as it appears in the POS system — if your POS lists "Guac" and you search "Guacamole," results won't appear
Recent Online Orderers >> Ordered online within the last month
Frequently Created Segments
- Guests who have visited X brand location
- Guests who visit with Large or Small Parties
- Guests who we can E-Mail, Text or Notify
- Guests who ordered X
- Guest who waited X or more minutes
- Guests by Age Bracket
- Guests by Average Spend
- Guests with an Increasing/Decreasing Visit Trend
- Frequent or Special Occasion Guests (3 Visits = High Frequency)
- High or Low Revenue Generation Guests
- High or Low Tipping Guests
- spend > $___ on check
- Waitlist Abandoners
Build Segments Specific to Your Brand
Once you've grown comfortable creating suggested Segments to get yourself started, you can experiment with and drill down to the Segments specific to your brand business goals
For example—if a growing valuable demographic for your brand is young families and you have a new Family Happy Hour menu to promote:
Weeknight Parents >> Visit Mon-Fri, 5 - 6 PM and have ordered kids menu items
Build Custom Fields
Custom fields are now accessible in Segments, and by extension, can be used as CRM filters in Automations.
Any custom fields created via the CDP or CSV uploader should be automatically and immediately available in Segments:
Example Use Cases
Below are examples of the kinds of campaigns and outreach possible to drive business goals with Segments.
Acquire Valuable New Guests
- Leverage Lookalikes: Target a lookalike audience of your top 1% frequent visitors via a social media campaign that includes a lead magnet (e.g. $10 bonus certificate for every $50 gift card purchased during the holidays)
Drive Frequency by Staying Top of Mind
- Personalization: Use triggered campaigns to reach a segment of first-time guests with content that feels truly personal (“Thanks for coming in, Mark! How’d we do?”)
Boost Slow Dayparts
- Fill your Dining Room: Target an audience of ‘weeknight dinner lookalikes’ with your Monday special through paid search + social ads and email to fill your empty tables
Increase Loyalty by Promoting Your Purpose
- Get ‘em Involved: Use your marketing channels to encourage a segment of Weekly Regulars to join you when giving back to causes you believe in (e.g. No Child Hungry, or local sustainability efforts)
Drive Online Orderers In-Restaurant
- Market What They’re Missing: Target an online order segment on social and email with a special offered in-restaurant only—e.g. an event or your chocolate lava cake that can’t travel in to-go packaging
Keep ‘em Coming In
- Target Lapsed Guests: Send a triggered email to a segment of ‘Last Visit Longer Than 60 Days’ with personalized copy that makes it feel like you’ve noticed they haven’t been in