OMB Cloud AES

Best practices for contact segmentation

Tags and custom fields that let you slice your contacts for marketing, sales and reporting.

Five segmentation habits that compound into precise targeting.

1. Use the company's industry, not the contact's "interests"

Segmenting by contact-declared interests is fragile — most never fill that field. Industry of the company they work at is automatic, accurate, and stable.

2. Three tags max per contact, not 15

Long tag lists become noise. Pick the three most decision-driving attributes (e.g. "champion", "evaluator", "decision-maker") and apply them consistently.

3. Saved segments beat ad-hoc filters

If you filter for "VPs in mid-market SaaS in Mexico" three times, save it as a segment. Saved segments are sharable across the team and reusable in automations.

4. Lifecycle stage on every contact

Set a lifecycle stage: subscriber, MQL, SQL, customer, advocate. The stage is independent of any specific deal — it describes the contact's relationship to your business overall.

5. Audit segments quarterly

Segments drift as your business changes. A "high-value SMB" segment from 2024 might mean something different in 2026. Quarterly review keeps definitions tight.

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