Behavioral Segmentation: Your Secret to Targeted, High-Impact Marketing

Market segmentation is the core of an effective marketing strategy. How can you direct your marketing efforts to your target audience when you don't know who they are or what they care about?

More than identifying your customers' age, gender, and location, you should know how they interact with your business, which channels they're most active in, and what problems they need to solve.

The good news is that technology has made it significantly easier to identify customers' habits and actions. This behavioral data helps optimize marketing campaigns and overall strategy.

In this article, we’ll dive into the power of behavioral segmentation, uncovering what it is, why it’s your secret weapon for targeted marketing, and how to start using it to drive meaningful customer connections.

Let's get to it.

What is behavioral segmentation?

Behavioral segmentation groups customers based on their actions, preferences, and engagement with a product or service.

It focuses on understanding how and why customers interact with a brand, rather than demographic factors like age or location.

This approach allows businesses to tailor their efforts based on specific behaviors like purchase frequency to create more relevant and personalized experiences.

Ten types of behavioral segmentation

Customers offer tons of valuable information just by the way they interact with your product or service.

To implement an effective behavioral segmentation strategy, you need to identify the different ways customers interact with your business.

There are ten main types of behavioral segmentation.

1. Customer journey stage

Understanding which stage of the buying journey a customer is in allows you to deliver tailored, timely experiences that resonate deeply.

For example, if a customer is in the 'awareness' stage, they’re likely just learning about your product—offering educational content or free trials at this point can build trust without pushing for a sale too soon.

In contrast, for customers in the 'decision' stage, targeted discounts or testimonials from similar industries can help nudge them toward conversion.

By segmenting customers this way, you can not only remove friction at key stages but also ensure your marketing is relevant, ultimately improving conversion rates and creating a smoother path to purchase.

2. Purchasing behavior

Purchasing behavior focuses on how customers make buying decisions, from exploring options to completing a transaction. This includes their frequency of purchases, average spend, and preferred products or services. Some customers may make quick, high-value purchases, while others take time, frequently adding items to a wishlist before deciding.

For example, if you know someone only buys during sales, you can reach out when there’s a deal. On the other hand, frequent shoppers might keep coming back after introducing a loyalty program. It’s all about meeting them where they’re at in their buying habits, making it easier—and more enticing—for them to choose you every time.

Segmenting customers based on their unique purchasing behavior helps you understand how they approach the purchase decision, their role in the purchasing process, and which obstacles they've faced.

3. Usage behavior

Usage behavior data can be used as a solid indicator of customer lifetime value.

Knowing how and when customers use your product or service, for how long, and which features they use the most is essential in usage-based segmentation.

Learning about these patterns helps you categorize customers into heavy, medium, and light users, so you can try different marketing strategies to increase usage.

4. Occasion or timing

Occasion-based segmentation refers to purchasing patterns that occur at specific times or occasions, such as holidays, personal celebrations, or sales events.

When you anticipate customers' behaviors during Christmas time, for example, you can target relevant marketing materials and send compelling content in advance.

For example, if you anticipate customer behaviors around Christmas, you can schedule targeted holiday promotions. You might offer seasonal discounts and send tailored product recommendations to increase engagement and encourage timely purchases.

5. User status

Grouping customers based on user status allows you to divide them into:

• Non-users: don't know they have a problem yet.
• Prospects: don't know why your product or service is the best option.
• First-time buyers: don't know how to use your product or service.
• Regular users: don't know about your supplemental products or services.
• Defectors: don't know you've fixed the issue that made them switch to a competitor.

6. Benefits sought

Although many customers may be looking for the same product, this doesn't mean they're also looking for the same benefits or features.

For instance, some people buy coconut oil to replace olive oil when cooking. Others use it as a hair moisturizer, and others buy it to mix with face creams.

All customers are looking for the same product but for different reasons. Explaining its benefits as a hair moisturizer to people who use it to cook is probably a waste of time and resources.

Segmenting customers based on the benefits sought allows you to feature the product in a way that genuinely matters to buyers.

7. Customer loyalty

Customer loyalty is all about identifying the most loyal customers who keep coming back—not just out of necessity, but because they truly value your brand. Customer loyalty segmentation helps you understand who your most dedicated customers are, why they’re loyal, and how to keep them engaged.

To determine and segment by loyalty, look at purchase frequency, brand interactions, and satisfaction levels. For example, frequent buyers who also engage with your content, participate in surveys, or refer others are indicators of loyal customers. Meanwhile, habitual customers—those who purchase regularly because they need your product—might interact differently.

Why is this distinction important? Because while habitual customers rely on your product, loyal customers choose your brand. This insight allows you to tailor your loyalty programs more effectively. For example, you might offer exclusive rewards or early access to new products for loyal customers to reinforce their connection to your brand. Habitual customers, on the other hand, could benefit from educational content on getting the most from your product or from reminders that encourage them to stay engaged.

By understanding these different types of customer loyalty, you can create experiences that deepen relationships, retain customers, and ultimately turn more habitual buyers into true brand loyalists.

8. Intent

Intent segmentation helps you determine the consumer's purpose when interacting with your business. Are they ready to buy, or are they just window shopping?

You can segment customers into groups according to:

• purchase intent: just starting to think about purchasing a product or service
• research intent: exploring the options
• navigation intent: searching for a specific brand
• transactional intent: ready to buy a product or sign up for a service and looking for the place to make the transaction

9. Interests

What are your customers interested in? Do they engage with certain types of content, or certain topics more than others?

You can group customers according to products or categories they engage with most. If you have even more detailed data, you can identify:

• content they engage with most: blog articles, social media posts, etc.
• hobbies: hiking, playing tennis, watercolor painting
• passions: traveling, fitness, community building

Understanding your customers' interests lets you create more tailored messaging that connects on a deeper level.

10. Brand interactions

You can also segment customers according to how they interact with your brand across multiple channels. Tracking online and offline interactions helps you understand how engaged customers are with your brand. When you understand how frequently and where customers engage with a brand, you can spend your marketing effort in channels and areas where they're most active.

Some ways to group customers according to brand interactions are based on the store and website visit frequency, social media interactions, web page visits, purchase frequency, and purchase history.

Why does behavioral segmentation make marketing strategies more effective?

Behavioral segmentation focuses your marketing efforts where they’ll have the most impact.

The goal of behavioral segmentation is to engage with customers in a way that's more relevant and personalized. Rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all approach, behavioral segmentation enables you to connect with customers in ways that resonate—ultimately making your strategy more precise and effective.

Here are some key ways it enhances your marketing efforts:

Promotes a deeper understanding of customer behavior

Behavioral segmentation gives you a clear view of how customers interact with your brand, from their purchase patterns to engagement habits.

With these insights, you can create more targeted messaging and experiences that resonate with their specific needs and behaviors, fostering stronger connections and driving loyalty.

Streamlines your marketing efforts

Behavioral segmentation is crucial to developing more precise and results-driven marketing strategies.

Using behavioral segmentation, you can send personalized messages to specific customers, identify loyal customers to send tailored offers to, and ensure your marketing efforts are directed to the right leads.

Increase customer lifetime value (CLV)

Loyal customers are crucial to businesses, as they're the more profitable. And what's better to cultivate loyal customers than communicating with tailored messaging, offers, and benefits?

Segmenting customers allows you to highly personalize their experience throughout the customer journey, making them feel cared for and valued. Satisfied customers have the highest lifetime value and are responsible for long-term revenue growth.

To sum up, the higher the level of accurate personalization, the higher the CLV.

Allocate resources more effectively

Targeting the right audience helps you use your resources wisely. When you know what each lead is looking for, you can shape your marketing to speak directly to them.

This prevents you from wasting resources on less-engaged customers and prioritize the ones who are ready to buy.

Engage and retain loyal customers

Understanding behaviors allows marketing teams to implement customer loyalty programs and retention strategies effectively.

Plus, analyzing customer loyalty behavioral segmentation data helps businesses create more personalized experiences and deliver timely, targeted marketing efforts. This, in turn, boosts customer engagement and reduces attrition and churn.

The basics: Implementing behavioral segmentation in three steps

To start using behavioral segmentation in your marketing strategy, start by thinking about your goals.

Are you looking to increase customer retention rates? Or is improving customer satisfaction your main objective?

When your goals are clearly outlined, then you should take the following three essential steps.

1. Find a reliable source of behavioral data

Start by gathering data on your leads’ and customers’ behavior from reliable sources like website analytics, email engagement, customer service interactions, and purchase history.

These are key to understanding how your audience interacts with your brand. To make this data truly actionable, consider setting up a KPI dashboard specifically for behavioral segmentation. This helps you track trends over time, spot where customers engage the most, and quickly identify opportunities for improving your marketing strategy.

2. Analyze customer data to locate valuable segments

Look out for trends that are correlated with high-value customers. Once you’ve gathered data, it’s time to dig deeper and find the real insights hiding in the numbers. Are there certain groups that return for repeat purchases, or others who only interact during promotions? Identifying these behaviors can reveal segments like loyal repeat buyers, high-spending customers, bargain-seekers, or brand advocates who may refer new customers.

With this knowledge, you can pinpoint behavior-based segments—such as customers who prioritize loyalty perks, those who respond best to discounts, or those who engage more through social channels.

Recognizing these groups lets you create messaging that speaks directly to what they care about, driving more meaningful connections.

3. Focus your marketing efforts on high-value behavioral segments

With a clear view of how your customers interact with your business, you can direct your marketing efforts where they’ll have the most impact.

For example, customers who increase their purchase size each time are ideal candidates for loyalty programs or exclusive offers, while those who primarily shop during promotions are likely to respond well to seasonal discounts.

Grouping customers by habits, like purchase frequency, referral behavior, or engagement with premium features, allows you to tailor campaigns to their unique behaviors, creating a more targeted and effective approach that boosts engagement and customer retention.

How to apply behavioral segmentation in marketing

Now that you understand the value of sorting customers based on their purchasing habits and interactions, it’s time to put behavioral segmentation into action across social media, direct mail, and email marketing channels.

Here’s how.

Social media marketing

Social media is a goldmine of real-time behavioral data that reveals what matters most to your audience and how they interact with your brand. Here's what to consider:

• Likes, comments, shares, and other engagement signals
• Content preferences, including the topics and formats they engage with most (like videos, stories, or posts)
• Ad engagement and online shopping patterns that show intent to purchase

These interactions give you insight into customers’ interests and intent. Someone who consistently engages with your posts might be a good candidate for brand advocacy, while frequent ad interactions could signal high purchase intent.

With these insights, you can tailor posts to match customers' specific interests, promote products to users who are ready to buy, and even engage high-activity followers as brand ambassadors. By using this data strategically, you make your social content more personalized, boosting both engagement and conversions.

Direct mail marketing

Direct mail marketing is unique because it’s a physical, higher-cost channel, so it’s crucial to be selective about who receives it. Using behavioral data, you can focus on customers who are most likely to respond, maximizing the value of each piece you send. You'll want to keep these things in mind:

• Purchase history and previous interactions with direct mail, like redeemed offers
• Offline engagement patterns and responses to past mail campaigns

Understanding which customers are more likely to respond helps you allocate resources wisely. Sending personalized promotions to high-value segments means you’re reaching those most likely to engage or convert, making the most of your investment in direct mail.

Target customers who have a history of redeeming offers or making repeat purchases with personalized promotions or loyalty rewards.

By focusing on these behaviors, you can keep direct mail focused, relevant, and cost-effective, strengthening connections with customers who value your brand.

Email marketing

Email marketing is ideal for segmenting customers based on their behaviors, allowing you to deliver personalized messages that reach customers when they’re most likely to engage. Here are some key metrics to be aware of.

• Open rates, click-through rates, and other engagement patterns
• Purchase history, frequency, and timing preferences
• Website behaviors tied to email interactions

Tracking these behaviors tells you a lot about each customer’s engagement level and interests. For example, frequent opens and clicks reveal a high level of interest, while purchase timing shows when they’re most likely to buy.

Use tools like Streak to automate segmentation and target emails based on customers’ behavior.

You can send exclusive updates to high-engagement subscribers, offer special promotions to frequent buyers, or trigger reminders when customers are due to restock.

By using these insights, you create relevant, timely messages that make customers more likely to open, engage, and convert.

How to collect behavioral data with Streak: the CRM in Gmail

Streak is a full CRM in Gmail that lets you track details about every customer or contact in your inbox. You can filter, group, and sort this data into segments called Saved Views, helping you engage with each group in a more targeted way.

Streak also helps you understand how customers are interacting with your email outreach and tracks data for each customer seamlessly within Gmail.

Learn more about your customer's behavior with:

• Email tracking: know when customers open your emails and how many times they open each email to understand what messaging resonates best.
• Link click tracking: lets you know if they clicked on your links, which ones, and how many times to understand what topics, offers, and resources are interesting to them.
• AI insights: Ask Streak AI questions like "which types of offers got the most responses from this customer". Get an AI summary of their entire customer journey with just a click.

Try Streak for free for 14 days and see how it can help you collect data and learn more about your customers. It only takes 30 seconds to get started.

Frequently asked questions

What is an example of behavioral segmentation?

The most typical example of behavioral segmentation is grouping customers based on their purchasing behavior. For instance, a supermarket realizes one of their customers only buys wine and chocolate during weekends.

To encourage the customer to buy these products during weekdays too, the supermarket can send offers on Thursdays to encourage customers to plan ahead for the weekend with their purchases and boost sales throughout the week.

This is a classic example of how businesses can identify behavior patterns, segment customers based on these patterns, and target their marketing efforts accordingly.

What are the four main segment categories, and how do they differ?

The four main segment categories are:

• Behavioral: customers are divided into groups based on their behavior patterns.
• Psychographic: customers are divided into groups based on their personality traits.
• Demographic: customers are divided into groups based on their age, gender, ethnicity, and other demographic information.
• Geographic: customers are divided into groups based on their location.

Why is it important to understand the behaviors of a target market?

Identifying a target market's behaviors helps businesses stand out among competitors, build meaningful customer relationships, and improve products and services based on customers' interests.

It's also the key to accurately tailor your marketing strategy to appeal to your target audience, consequently increasing conversions and sales.