How to Create a Custom Segment

A custom segment is a group of customers you define with rules, such as “ordered 3 or more times” or “bought from one collection”. Once you save it, you can open its own page, pick it in the Segment dropdown on reports and dashboards, and sync it to your marketing tools.

If your store has Segments Page With Trends, each row also shows how the segment’s size has moved, and clicking its customer count opens a preview of it.

Steps

Your own segments are on the Your Segments tab.

1. Open Customer Segments: Segments in the navigation, under Customers.
2. Click Create segment.
3. Under Identity, enter a Name. A Description is optional, up to 240 characters.
4. In Filters, pick a field for the first rule, such as Total orders.
5. Pick a comparison, such as ≥.
6. Enter or choose a value, such as 3.
7. To add another rule, click + Rule.
8. Check the numbers under Live Preview.
9. Click Save segment.

Save segment stays grayed out until the segment has a name and at least one rule with a value. Cancel leaves without saving.

A segment whose rules can’t be run doesn’t save, and a Couldn’t save segment message appears. Check that every rule has a value, and that only includes has a single value.

Combining Rules

Rules start out joined by AND, so a customer must match every one. Change AND to OR to take customers who match any one rule.

To mix the two, click + Group. A group holds its own rules and starts as OR. A group can’t hold another group.

For example, keep Total orders ≥ 2, and add a group with Customer country = CA OR Customer country = US. The segment then holds repeat customers in Canada or the United States.

Type location values yourself: the two-letter country code, such as CA, the state or province code, such as ON, or the city name. If you pick one of the suggestions, such as “Canada”, the rule saves the name shown, and it matches no customers.

To remove a rule, click the ✕ at the end of its row.

Choosing Fields

The field list is grouped under headings: Customer Details, Orders & Spend, Returns, Order Timing, Products, Tags, Location, Sales Channel, UTM & Marketing, Discounts and Percentiles. Type in the field box to search it.

• Fields that end in “in last 90 days”, “in last 365 days” or “in last 730 days” count only orders from that window. The window is counted back from the last time your customer data was rebuilt.
• Returned in last 90 days and its siblings count refunds made in the window, whenever the order was placed.
• Fields that start with First order or Last order look at that one order. First order included product finds customers whose first order had that product in it.
• The other product fields, such as Has purchased product, look at every order the customer has placed.
• Days since last order never matches a customer who hasn’t ordered. To find those customers, use Total orders = 0.

Text comparisons ignore capital letters and spaces at either end. Comparisons in Segment Filters explains each comparison, such as contains and is one of.

Describe Customers in Plain English

Instead of building the rules yourself, you can describe the customers you want:

1. Click Describe with AI.
2. Type a description, such as “customers in Canada who haven’t ordered in 90 days”.
3. Click Describe. The dialog shows what it understood.
4. Click Apply to editor, or Try again to change your description.

Apply to editor replaces the rules already in the editor. If Description is empty, it fills that in too. Check each rule before you save, since the AI can misread what you meant.

The AI works from a shorter field list than the editor, with the comparisons each field offers. It leaves out Email, Customer city, Customer state/province and the product fields that take an ID, such as Has purchased product.

It also leaves out every field that starts with First order or Last order, except the two order dates. Add rules on any of these fields yourself.

When it can’t build what you described, the dialog says why and loads nothing into the editor. Reword the description and click Describe again.

What Happens Next

The segment’s page opens. It shows where the segment syncs, summary cards, charts over time, and the list of its customers.

A new segment is starred, so it appears in the Segment dropdown. The dropdown groups it under Custom, or under Your Segments if your store has Segment Picker With Previews.

Only starred segments appear there. To add or remove a segment, click the star at the top of its page, or beside its name on Customer Segments.

With a segment picked, a report counts only orders from customers who are in the segment now. An order placed before a customer joined the segment still counts. Orders with no customer are left out.

Membership comes from the summary of each customer, which is rebuilt on a schedule. A customer who qualifies after the last rebuild joins at the next one. How Often Is My Data Updated? gives the timing.

Change or Remove a Segment

• Edit: open the segment and click Edit segment. Reports and the segment’s page use the new rules as soon as you click Save segment. A synced platform gets the new list at its next sync. If the segment has a rule the editor can’t show, a warning names it, and saving removes it.
• Copy: open the Segment actions menu (⋮) at the top of the segment’s page and choose Duplicate. The copy has the same name with “(Copy)” added, and the same rules, but none of the syncs.
• Delete: choose Delete from the same menu, or click Delete in the editor. This can’t be undone. It stops the segment’s syncs, and turns off any scheduled export that used it.

Standard segments can’t be edited, copied or deleted. To change one, build a custom segment with the rules you want.

To send the segment to Klaviyo, Meta or another platform, see How to Sync a Segment.