Creating Segments

Creating a segment in SendBeam takes only a few minutes. You give the segment a name, add one or more rules, preview who matches, and save.

Creating a new segment

Follow these steps to create your first segment:

1. Navigate to Segments in the left-hand sidebar. You will see a list of any existing segments with a summary of their rules. Click New segment, which opens the builder on a page of its own.
2. Enter a descriptive name in the name field. Good names make it clear who qualifies — for example, Active UK subscribers or Acme staff.
3. The form starts with one rule. Choose a field from the dropdown — a built-in field or Custom field…, which asks for the key — select an operator, and enter a value where required (is empty and is not empty take none). See Operators & Fields for the full list.
4. Add additional rules as needed with Add rule, under the last rule. Remove a rule with the remove link beside it.
5. Watch the figure at the foot of the page. It keeps itself up to date as you change the rules — Reachable now is how many subscribed contacts the segment would reach today, and the number beside it is how many match in total. Sample of who matches opens a handful of them.
6. Save the segment. It is now available as an audience when creating a campaign.

Combining rules

When a segment has more than one rule, all rules must match (AND). Each extra rule narrows the audience. For example: status equals subscribed AND email ends with @acme.com.

There is no OR option. If you need "A or B", create two segments and send the campaign twice, once to each — or, where the two conditions can be expressed as one value, store that value in a custom field and match on it.

Previewing matching contacts

As you build your segment, click the preview button to run the rules against your contacts. The preview shows:

• The total number of matching contacts
• A sample of matching contacts with their names and email addresses

Preview and send use exactly the same rule evaluation, so the count you see is the audience a campaign would resolve at that moment (before the status check that drops anyone who is not Subscribed).

The same count is available from your own code through POST /api/v1/segments/preview, which takes a set of rules without saving a segment — handy for testing rules before creating one.

Editing and deleting segments

To edit a segment:

1. Go to Segments in the sidebar.
2. Click the segment's name, or choose Edit from the menu at the end of its row. The builder opens pre-filled with its name and rules, and the count at the foot shows who it reaches today.
3. Change the name or rules — the count follows them — and save.

The same is possible from your own code with PATCH /api/v1/segments/{id}.

To delete a segment:

1. Open the segment, or choose Delete from the menu at the end of its row.
2. On the segment's own page, open Delete this segment at the foot and click Delete segment.
3. Confirm. Draft campaigns that used the segment as their audience will need a new audience before they can send.

Changes made through the API take effect immediately — the next time the segment is resolved, at campaign send time, the updated rules are used. Campaigns reference the segment by its ID, so renaming it does not affect them.