Shopify Email Segmentation: Where to Start

Shopify's built-in email segmentation is better than most store owners realize. You can segment by purchase history, browsing behavior, email engagement, location, and even predicted spend — all without installing a third-party app.

The problem isn't the tool. It's that most stores either skip segmentation entirely (blasting the full list) or overcomplicate it with dozens of micro-segments they never actually use. Neither approach moves revenue.

This guide covers what Shopify's native segmentation can actually do, the three segments every store should build first, how to expand once those are working, and when your brand has outgrown what the native tool can handle.

What Shopify's Native Segmentation Can Actually Do

Shopify's segmentation lives inside Customers > Segments in your admin. It's built on top of Shopify's customer data — which means it's strongest at anything tied to purchase behavior, since Shopify has that data natively.

Shopify provides a full library of segment templates organized by goal. Here's what the tool covers:

• Purchase behavior — First-time buyers, repeat buyers, high spenders, customers who bought specific products or product tags, customers who haven't ordered recently
• Email engagement — Subscribers who opened recently, subscribers who haven't engaged in 30 days, high-spend customers who stopped opening emails
• Storefront behavior — Abandoned checkouts, viewed specific products or collections but didn't purchase
• Location — Country, state, city, or proximity to a retail location
• Predictive — "Customers who are likely to spend more at your store" based on Shopify's predicted spend tiers (high, medium, low)
• Re-engagement — Store credit reminders, birthday emails, win-back for lapsed buyers

If you just need to get targeted emails out to your customers, Shopify's native tool works. The templates are pre-built, segments auto-update as new customers match the criteria, and you can start sending the same day. For more background on how Shopify email marketing fits into the bigger picture, see our complete guide to email marketing with Shopify and Klaviyo.

The 3 Segments Every Shopify Store Should Build First

Before you build 20 segments, build three. These cover the fundamental split in your email list — and each group needs completely different messaging.

1. Non-Buyers (Subscribers Who Haven't Purchased)

These are people who signed up — through a popup, checkout, or account creation — but never placed an order. They're interested enough to give you their email, but something stopped them from buying.

Shopify has templates for this: "Subscribers who opened emails recently but never purchased" and "Subscribers who opened emails often recently but didn't make a purchase." Both target people who are engaging with your emails but haven't converted.

What to send them: Product education, social proof, first-purchase incentives. These people don't need a newsletter — they need a reason to buy. Highlight your bestsellers, show reviews from customers like them, or offer a limited first-order discount to get them over the line.

2. First-Time Buyers

A customer who has bought once is not a loyal customer — they're a trial run. The average repeat purchase rate across DTC is around 18-19%, which means 4 out of 5 first-time buyers never come back. That makes this segment the highest-leverage group in your list for retention.

Use Shopify's "First-time customers who have opted in to email marketing" template. You can also narrow this with "First-time customers who bought specific products" if you want to tailor messaging by product line.

What to send them: Post-purchase education, cross-sells related to what they bought, and a nudge toward a second order. The goal is simple — turn one purchase into two. Research shows that customers who buy a second time are significantly more likely to buy a third. For a deeper look at what good retention looks like and how to benchmark yours, check our repeat purchase rate benchmarks from 156K DTC customers.

3. Repeat Buyers

These are customers who've bought more than once. They've validated your product with their wallet — twice. They don't need convincing. They need reasons to keep coming back and to increase what they spend.

Shopify's "Customers who placed a lot of orders recently" and "Engage with your VIP customers" templates work here. You can also use "Customers who spent a large amount per order recently" to isolate high-AOV repeat buyers.

What to send them: Early access to new products, loyalty perks, VIP-only offers, and replenishment reminders if your product is consumable. Treat repeat buyers like insiders — because they are.

If your store is small, you can start with just two segments: buyers and non-buyers. As your list grows, split buyers into first-time and repeat. The point isn't to have the most segments — it's to make sure you're not sending the same email to someone who's never bought and someone who's bought five times.

Your Next Segments Depend on Your Business

Once your core three are running, there's one more segment that's nearly universal — and then it gets brand-specific.

Hot Audiences: Browse and Cart Abandoners

People who viewed products, added items to their cart, or started checkout but didn't buy are your highest-intent non-customers. They're telling you exactly what they want — they just didn't follow through.

Shopify has templates for all three: "Customers with recently abandoned checkouts," "Customers who have viewed specific products but never placed an order," and "Customers who have viewed specific collections but never placed an order." This is free money sitting on the table for most stores.

After That, It Depends on Your Brand

There's no universal "phase 2" playbook because the right segments depend on what you sell and how your customers buy. Here's what that looks like in practice:

• Subscription brands: Your segmentation path follows the customer lifecycle — prospect, one-time buyer, multi-buyer, subscriber. Every segment maps to a different goal: convert, retain, upgrade.
• Gendered product lines: If you sell both men's and women's products (apparel, skincare, accessories), segment by who bought what or who browsed what. Sending a women's collection launch to your men's buyers isn't just irrelevant — it trains them to ignore your emails.
• Multi-category brands: A brand that sells grilling equipment, home chef tools, and herbs and spices needs category-level segmentation. A customer who bought a smoker probably doesn't need a sous vide pitch the next week — but they might want wood chips and rubs.

The key is to match your segments to how your customers actually think about your products. Location segmentation only matters if you have a physical store or region-specific shipping. Birthday emails only matter if you collect birthdates. Don't build segments because a template exists — build them because you have something different to say to that group.

When You Outgrow Shopify Email

Shopify email segmentation works well for getting targeted emails to your customers. But there's a ceiling, and it's not about any single missing feature — it's about ecosystem depth.

Shopify Email is an email tool with segmentation. A platform like Klaviyo is a CRM with an email engine. The difference shows up in three areas:

Flow Logic

In Klaviyo, you can split automated flows based on real customer data. Take an abandoned cart flow: you can branch it based on whether the person is a first-time visitor or a returning customer, whether they have enough items in their cart to qualify for free shipping, or what category of product they left behind. Each branch gets different copy, different offers, different timing. Shopify's flows can't do that. For a walkthrough of what that looks like in practice, see our complete guide to Klaviyo flows.

External Data

Klaviyo can ingest data from outside your store and segment on it. Quiz results get pushed back as custom properties — so you can segment by skin type, style preference, or whatever the quiz captured. Loyalty program data from tools like Yotpo or Smile lets you target customers who have points to spend. Referral data, subscription status, support ticket history — all of it becomes segmentable.

Shopify's segmentation is limited to what Shopify knows. Klaviyo's segmentation uses everything connected to it.

List Management and Tagging

As your brand scales, you end up with people signing up from different places — your homepage popup, a product quiz, a giveaway, a retail event, an influencer collab. In Klaviyo, each source can feed into a different list. You can tag contacts based on actions they've taken, data they've provided, or campaigns they've interacted with. That tagging becomes the foundation for increasingly precise segments. Try our free Klaviyo Audience Builder to see how those segments come together.

The short version: if you're a newer store getting your first segmented campaigns out the door, Shopify Email handles it. When you start needing conditional flow logic, external data, or list management across multiple acquisition channels — that's when the move to Klaviyo makes sense. It's not about outgrowing Shopify's features so much as outgrowing what a single-platform data model can support.

Start Simple, Then Grow Into It

Shopify email segmentation doesn't need to be complicated. Start with the three core segments — non-buyers, first-time buyers, and repeat buyers. Add hot audiences once those are running. Then layer on whatever makes sense for your specific product and customer base.

If you hit a point where you need more — deeper data, smarter flows, integrations with your loyalty program or quiz tool — that's the signal to look at a dedicated platform like Klaviyo. But don't skip the fundamentals to get there. The brands that get the most out of advanced tools are the ones that nailed the basics first.