Three customer segments (in ElasticFunnels they are called audiences) on the demo brand: One-time buyers, started from a template; VIP buyers, built with two rules: bought in the last 30 days and spent 200 or more in total, your lifetime value (LTV) list; and a win-back audience the AI builds from one sentence: spent 600 or more, no refunds, no purchase in 30 days, but visited in the last 90. Then the dashboard filtered to one audience, and to everyone except another.
New to customer segmentation? Read the full guide first: what customer segmentation is, the four types, RFM analysis and examples for funnels and checkouts.
You need an ElasticFunnels brand with some orders or traffic: every count you see comes from your own data. Rules and templates are free to use; only the AI builder uses AI credits.
1Open Audiences
In the sidebar, open Reports › Audiences. Before you have any audiences, the page suggests a few templates that already have people in them on your data, with the count next to each.
2Start from a template
Click New audience. Pick a group on the left (here Buyers & lifetime value) and click a template (One-time buyers). The panel on the right shows who it is for and how many people it holds On your data now. Click Add audience: the audience page opens with its members.
3Build your own with rules
In New audience, click Or open an empty builder. On the Rules tab, click + Purchase, refund or checkout (it adds Had a purchase), then + Lifetime value and set Has at least lifetime revenue of to 200. Keep in the last 30 days at the top. The count on the right updates each time you change a rule.
4Save it and see who is in it
Click Save, give the audience a name (VIP buyers) and an optional description, and click Save Audience. The audience page shows how many Members it has, whether they are Customers (by email) or visitors, when it was last updated, and Who's in it: email, name, orders, revenue, last purchase and country. Export CSV downloads the list.
5Describe a complex audience to the AI
For an audience with several conditions, the Ask AI tab is AI customer segmentation on your own data: open New audience, click Or open an empty builder, switch to Ask AI and type what you want in plain English, for example customers who bought at least $600, had no refunds, did not make a purchase in the past 30 days but had a visit in the past 90 days. The AI writes the definition, checks it against your data and shows how many people match. Open Definition (SegQL) to read what it built: lifetime revenue of 600 or more, no refund ever, no purchase in the last 30 days, and at least one visit in the last 90 days (bot traffic left out).
6Save the AI's audience
Click Save: the AI has already filled in a name and a short description, so you can keep them or change them, then click Save Audience. Because this audience includes a visit, it is a visitor audience: its page lists people by visitor (last seen, sessions, country, device, source) instead of by email. On the demo brand it holds 7 people.
7Filter your dashboard by the audience
On an audience page, click Only this audience in analytics: the dashboard opens with an Audience filter, and every card counts only those people. To see everyone else, click the filter, choose is not, pick the audience and click Apply (the audience page also has Everyone except this audience).
Common mistakes when you segment customers
- Mixing up customers and visitors. Rules on orders make a customer audience (by email); rules on what people did on a page make a visitor audience. Check the badge on the audience page.
- Forgetting the time window. In the last 30 days at the top of the rules applies to the whole audience. A lifetime value rule always looks at the whole history.
- Reading a customer audience's conversion rate. Everyone in it bought, so the dashboard hides that rate; compare revenue, orders and average order value (AOV) instead.
- Saving an AI audience without reading it. Open Definition (SegQL) and check the count before you save: a sentence can be read differently than you meant, and the definition shows exactly what will be counted.
- Building from scratch what a template already does. Check the templates first: they are already written for direct response and show their count before you add them.
- Judging an audience by one day. Membership refreshes on its own, so a small audience can move day to day. Pick a window that matches how often people buy.
Keep going
Why segments work, the four types and RFM: what is customer segmentation. Where the numbers come from: analytics. The offers your segments react to: what is an upsell and add an order bump. All tutorials: the Academy.