Target Customer Groups
Target Groups (Recipient Groups) are created by saving a Search using any of the search forms: Customers, Memberships or Reservations; using the Search forms only. The corresponding result set of a saved search can be assigned as the recipient group for a campaign. There is no size limit for campaign recipient groups. The type of search will define the group type, and needs to match the campaign type. For general marketing email campaigns, these are most often sent to a customer type target group, and should be created using Customer Search. For reservation campaigns (appointment reminders, confirmations, etc) these are based on a Reservation Search recipient group. Search forms can be combined to create powerful, highly-targeted groups for customized marketing.
When creating saved groups (saved searches), there are two different types of groups:
Static group: The customer group is a fixed result set, and will not change. It does not expand or contract in size. For example, a search based on specific eCellar Customer IDs (as a comma-separated string search) will always result in the same records. This is a helpful way to create an internal Test Group using only one or a few customer records.
Dynamic group: This customer group will continually change, based on the dynamic nature of the criteria used in the search along with the data points of a customer record (or reservation information.) The total number of customers in the result set may expand or contract based on the number of customer records that meet the search criteria. For example, search for customers who have a birthday of This Month. The result of this group will change each month, because the criteria This Month is dynamic.
Note: A campaign can be assigned to one or more target groups. If a customer happens to fall within multiple groups assigned to a campaign, they will only receive the campaign once, if you have the setting set to allow resend = No.
How to assign Target Groups to a Campaign
In the campaign editor, any saved search (group) that matches the campaign type will be available to select as a target recipient group. Click into the Target Groups field to see the list populate, and select your desired groups.
Target Group Suggestions
Customer Groups: Create a group based on customer type, birthday, allocation tier, zip code radius, lifetime value, cumulative spending, prior visit history, campaign open/not open behavior, specific products in purchase history, and so much more. See all of the available data points in the Customer Search form.
Membership Groups: Create a group based on specific tiers, tenure history, active memberships with pick-up option only, gift memberships, and cc expiring soon. Any field in the Membership search form can be used to create a target recipient group of members.
Reservation Groups: Create a group of all booked reservations in the next three days, or a group of appointments created on a specific day (or dynamically, today) or previously visited appointments with specific purchases or specific hosts.
Recipient List Accuracy
To have the most accurate total for the possible recipients of an email campaign, we recommend also selecting the following three data points in the customer search form, using the Address & Email section:
- Blank Email = No (records without an email address cannot receive an email campaign)
- Wants Email = Yes (the customer has not opted-out from email campaigns)
- Bounced Email = No (the customer does not have a prior email bounce)
Preventatively, the eCellar bulk email server will not send email campaigns to any customers who have previously opted out of receiving email (this means they've unsubscribed) as well any any customers with a previous email bounce, which has triggered a flag in their customer record.