Operate > IBM Management Center for WebSphere Commerce > Marketing tool > Work with Web and Dialog activities > Activity building blocks: triggers, targets, and actions > Actions in marketing activities
Action: Add To or Remove From Customer Segment
Use this action to dynamically build and manage customer segments according to the behavior of individual customers. Each customer who reaches this action in a Web or Dialog activity is added to the customer segment you specify. You can also use this action to remove customers from the customer segment. This is an ideal way to categorize customers for behavioral marketing initiatives or to entitle customers to promotions.
As customers shop on the store and experience the Web and Dialog activities, you can gather valuable information about each customer, for example:
- The products they buy and how much they spend
- The parts of the catalog they browse
- The external sites that refer them to the site
- Their participation in social commerce
Categorize the customers according to these interests and behaviors by adding the Add To Or Remove From Customer Segment action to the Web and Dialog activities. Then use the resulting customer segments as targets in other marketing activities and promotions. Here are some examples of customer segments you might build:
- People who have purchased children's clothing
- People who have responded to free shipping e-mails
- People who are referred from the partner site
- People who contribute frequently to product reviews and store blogs
Example
Your store sells sports equipment. You want to categorize the customers according to the type of sports equipment they buy.To accomplish this:
- You create three empty customer segments called "Golfers," "Skiers," and "Tennis Players." In the properties for each customer segment, you select the following check box on the General Properties tab: Use marketing activities to add or remove customers.
- You create a Dialog activity that runs indefinitely to categorize different sporting personas. The Dialog activity works like this:
When a customer places an order, check the customer's purchase history:
- If the customer has ever purchased anything from the Golf category, add the customer to the Golfers customer segment.
- If the customer has ever purchased anything from the Ski category, add the customer to the Skiers customer segment.
- If the customer has ever purchased anything from the Tennis category, add the customer to the Tennis Players customer segment.
In the previous example, over time, the three customer segments (Golfers, Skiers, Tennis Players) will accumulate more and more customer names. You can then use the three customer segments for targeted marketing activities. For example, if the store has a sale on ski equipment, you can market to customers in the Skiers customer segment and be confident that the marketing message will resonate with those customers.
Accept customer segments to entitle individual customers to a promotion if they do something specific
When you create a promotion using the Promotions tool alone, you can either:
- Entitle the promotion to everyone, or
- Entitle the promotion to customers in an existing customer segment that is typically based on registration data
What to entitle customers to a promotion based on their behavior during a specific point in time? You can use the Add To Or Remove From Segment action to create dynamic, time-sensitive customer segments based on individual customer behavior. Here is an example:
To encourage customers to register, to offer the following promotion: Register this week and receive 20% off the order. You do not want customers who previously registered to be entitled to the promotion; the goal of the promotion is to get new customers to register and make a purchase during the 7 days of the promotion.
To accomplish this:
- You create a customer segment called "Entitled to 20% off orders placed during promotion." In the properties for that customer segment, you select the following check box on the General Properties tab: Use marketing activities to add or remove customers.
- You create a promotion in the Promotions tool that runs for 1 week and offers 20% off orders. In that promotion, you target the customer segment called "Entitled to 20% off orders placed during promotion."
- Finally, you create a Dialog activity that runs for the same week as the promotion that works like this:
When a customer registers, add the customer to the customer segment called "Entitled to 20% off orders placed during promotion." When the customer places an order, remove the customer from the customer segment so that they are no longer entitled to the promotion.
Prerequisites for using this action
- Make sure a site administrator has the site configured to support Management Center marketing features. See Configure marketing for Management Center.
- Create the customer segment to which to add or remove customers. See Create a customer segment. When you create the customer segment, select the check box labeled Use marketing activities to add or remove customers on the General Properties tab. This check box must be selected for these dynamic updates to take place.
- If you are using this action to entitle customers to a promotion, as shown in the second example in this topic, create a promotion using the Promotions tool. In the properties for the promotion, specify the customer segment that you are building with the Add To Or Remove From Customer Segment action.
Guidelines for using this action
When setting up the Add To Or Remove From Customer Segment action, specify:
- Whether to add customers to a segment or remove customers from the segment.
- The customer segment to build. You can specify only one customer segment for each Add To Or Remove From Customer Segment action element.
Related concepts
Activity building blocks: triggers, targets, and actions
Actions in marketing activities
Related tasks