# Using Segments

Target segments when sending campaigns.

Once you have created a segment, you can put it to work immediately as the audience of a
campaign. This page covers how that works and how segments fit alongside lists and
automations.

## Selecting a segment as a campaign audience

When creating a campaign, the **Audience** step lets you choose who will receive
the email: all contacts, a specific list, or a segment.

1. Create a new campaign via **Campaigns > New Campaign** and fill in the
  details step.
2. On the **Audience** step, choose **Segment**.
3. Select the segment from the dropdown. If you have no segments yet, there is a link to create
  one.
4. Continue to the email and review steps as usual, then send or schedule.

> The audience is resolved when the campaign actually sends — immediately for **Send Now**, or at the scheduled time. Any contact who matches the rules at that moment is included.
> 

Only contacts with a status of **Subscribed** are ever included in a campaign
send, regardless of segment rules. Contacts whose status is Unsubscribed, Bounced or
Complained are excluded at send time even if they technically qualify for the segment. The
campaign page shows the number of recipients actually queued.

## Segments and automations

Automations are started by events — a contact being created, a tag being added, a contact
joining a list, or a form being submitted — rather than by segment membership, so a segment
cannot be used as an automation trigger. To branch an automation on contact data, use a
**Condition** step, which tests the contact's status, tags, name, email or source.

If you want to reach everyone in a segment with an automated-style message, send a campaign to
the segment: it is a one-off send, but it uses the same templates and merge tags.

## Combining segments with other targeting

A campaign has exactly one audience: all contacts, one list, or one segment. There is no way to add
several audiences to one campaign. (There IS a suppression list — see
[Suppressions](https://sendbeam.io/docs/contacts/suppressions) — it is applied to every send automatically
rather than chosen per campaign.) Some patterns that work
within that:

- **Two audiences** — duplicate the campaign and send the copy to the second list
  or segment. A contact who is in both will receive the email twice, so make sure the audiences
  do not overlap.
- **List members with an attribute** — store the attribute as a custom field when
  the contact signs up (declare it on the form), then build a segment on the custom field. The
  segment covers the whole workspace, so add a rule on `source` or another field if
  you need to narrow it further.
- **Exclusions** — express the exclusion as a rule, for example
  `custom_fields.plan` does not equal `customer`, rather than as a
  separate suppression segment.

## Keeping an eye on segment size

The Segments page lists your segments with a summary of their rules, how many rules each has
and how many contacts it can reach today. Open a segment to watch that figure follow the rules
as you change them, or call `POST /api/v1/segments/{id}/preview` from the
[API](https://sendbeam.io/docs/api), which returns the current count and a sample of matching contacts.

SendBeam does not keep a history of segment sizes. If you want to track a segment over time,
call the preview endpoint on a schedule and record the count yourself.

---
Source: https://sendbeam.io/docs/segments/using