Segments let you group visitors and accounts based on metadata and product usage so that you can filter your analytics data and target guides to specific users.
A segment consists of rules that define a group of visitors and accounts based on selected metadata or usage-based criteria. Only visitors and accounts that meet the segment's criteria are included. For more information on segment rules, see Segment rules.
You can view and update your segments by navigating to People > Segments in the left-side menu. For more information, see Manage segments.
Use cases
In analytics, you can use a segment to get a count of users who meet certain criteria. You can also use segments in Data Explorer to compare data between groups.
In guides, you can use segments to target messaging at a specific group of accounts or to activate a guide when a user has performed a certain behavior, like visiting a page multiple times without using a feature.
You can use nested segments to pull existing segments into a new segment for more consistency and less duplication. This allows you to reuse core segments that identify certain user groups in other segments. For example, you can create a "New users at commercial accounts" segment with its own unique rules, then add that segment as a rule in a new segment with additional targeting rules, such as admins who haven't viewed onboarding guides within that segment.
You can also pull additional metadata into Pendo from your other business tools to use in segments with our integrations, such as the Salesforce integration. This is useful for improving the quality and utility of your Pendo analytics and allows for more refined guide targeting with business data.
Tip: Analyze the behavior of newly identified users using the First Identified Visit segment in any of our behavior reports.
Requirements
All Pendo users can create segments. If you want to share a segment you've created with all Pendo users in your subscriptions, use the Everyone permission under Visibility in the segment builder. This also allows your segment to be used in nested segments.
If you only have read-only or Viewer permissions, visibility defaults to Only Me and you can't select Everyone.
Only admin users can manage segment verification requests, including verifying and unverifying segments.
Create a segment
To create a segment, go to People > Segments in the left-side menu and select + Create segment in the top-right of the page. Alternatively, you can also select + Create New Segment at the bottom of any segment filter dropdown.
- Enter a Name and optional Description to identify your segment. Use a descriptive name that follows your organization's naming convention.
- Set your segment's Visibility. Use Everyone to make the segment visible to everyone in your subscription (Only users with eligible permissions can select this option). Use Only Me to restrict visibility to you, which prevents the segment from being used for guide targeting.
- Select a Visitor type to choose whether you want identified or anonymous visitors to be included in the segment. If you want to include anonymous visitors, your subscription must have Show anonymous visitor data enabled in your subscription settings. For more information, see Anonymous visitors.
- Select Add rules, and add any combination of product usage and metadata rules. Be mindful when adding rules, as combinations of rules can unintentionally target all users or be overly restrictive and not target any users. Some rules can't be used for guide targeting. For more information, see Segment rules.
- To save your new segment, select Create segment.
The right pane shows whether the segment is eligible for guides, which visitors are eligible if so, and the all-time total number of visitors that are included in this segment.
The new segment verification status is set to unverified by default. To submit a request for this segment to be verified after it’s created, select the verification dropdown, then select Request verification. For more information about segment verification status, see Submit a segment for verification.
Visit the Pendo Academy for a video on Segment Logic (And, Or, Not).
Preview a segment
You can preview a segment within any segment dropdown in Pendo. To do so, open the dropdown and hover over a segment. A segment hover card appears with the following information about the segment:
- Verification status
- Name
- Description
- Rules
- How many eligible visitors there are for the segment
- How many reports use the segment
- How many guides use the segment
- Whether it's marked as a favorite segment
Select the icons in the top-right corner of the hover card to star it as a favorite, open its details, edit it, or duplicate it.
When you duplicate a segment, this action creates a new segment named Copy of [segment name] with the same rules and visibility set to Only Me.
Create a nested segment
Nested segments allow you to add an existing segment as a rule in another segment. This simplifies creating new segments and makes it possible to create core segments that update other segments if their rules are changed.
You can add up to five nested segments to a segment. A segment must be visible to Everyone to be used as a nested segment. You can use nested segments in any type of segment, analytics, guide targeting, and draft segments in Data Explorer. The same restrictions that apply to each use case apply when using nested segments.
To add a nested segment rule, open the segment builder, then use these instructions to add a new segment rule:
- In the first dropdown menu, select Segment from the Product Usage section.
- Select is equal to or is not equal not to include or exclude the nested segment.
- Choose an existing segment from the Select a saved segment dropdown, which lists all segments shared with Everyone in your subscription. When editing a guide-targeting segment, ineligible segments are unavailable. Select the dropdown arrow to view all the rules associated with the segment.
- Add additional nested segments or segment rules as needed, then save your segment. If a nested segment is changed, it updates this segment automatically.
Note: You can't create compound nested segments. This means that you can't use a nested segment when creating a new segment if the nested segment contains a nested segment in its segment rules. If a segment is used as a nested segment, a message appears in the segment details on the Segments page indicating where that segment is used in analytics, guides, and segments.
Upload Visitor or Account IDs with a CSV file
Quickly define large groups of Visitor or Account IDs to include or exclude in a segment using a CSV file.
Format your CSV file correctly
Ensure your CSV file contains a single column of Visitor or Account IDs. A column header in cell A1 is supported if you select Exclude row 1 (column header) at the time of upload.
Avoid additional columns, punctuation, and special characters to ensure the file uploads correctly. For example, special characters like / and " in Visitor IDs can prevent the CSV upload from succeeding.
Upload the CSV to your segment rule
To add a new segment rule with a CSV file, open the segment builder and follow these steps:
- Select + Add rules.
- In the first dropdown menu, select Account ID or Visitor ID. You can either scroll through the list or search for the value in the dropdown field.
- In the second dropdown menu, select one of the following values:
- csv contains to include visitors or accounts listed in the CSV file.
-
csv does not contain to exclude visitors or accounts listed in the CSV file.
- Select Upload CSV, then Choose File, and select the relevant CSV file.
- If you have a column header in your file, choose to Exclude row 1 (column header).
- Select Upload File to add the list of visitors or accounts to the segment. The eligible visitor count won't update to include the newly uploaded Visitor or Account IDs until you save the segment in the next step.
- Add any additional rules as needed, then select Create segment. The eligible visitor count can take several minutes to update, depending on the number of uploaded IDs.
Tip: To add new users to an existing segment created with a CSV upload, either upload a new CSV file with the additional IDs or add an "OR" rule for each new ID.
Segment based on Feedback request votes
If you're a Pendo Feedback user, you can build dynamic segments based on request voters. Select + Add rules in the segment builder, then follow these instructions:
- In the first dropdown menu, select Feedback Requests from the Product Usage section.
- In the second dropdown menu, select a specific app that you want to focus on or a collection of apps.
- In the third dropdown menu, select a specific feedback request.
The segment contains any visitors who voted on the request. It's dynamically updated every 15 minutes with the current request voters. Only visitors identified by the Pendo agent are included. Team members and visitor records created manually with the UI, API, or Salesforce integration don't appear in the segment.
Note: Segments using Feedback request rules are only usable in analytics. Guide targeting isn't supported.
Frequently asked questions
I deleted a metadata field. What happens to the segment that's applied to a guide?
If a metadata field is deleted on the Data Mappings page and that field is used in a segment, it's removed from the segment. This makes the existing segment invalid, and any guide using that segment no longer displays.
Can I segment excluded visitors and accounts?
If you want to exclude users from appearing in your usage data, such as for automation testing, you can add specific users or environments to your exclude list.
You can segment excluded visitors and accounts for guide targeting, but you can only view product data for excluded visitors and accounts by filtering with the Excluded Accounts & Visitors segment.
Why does my eligible visitor count on my guide differ from the eligible visitor count in the segment builder and on the Segments page?
The eligible visitor count on a guide's details page might differ from what you see in the segment builder or on the Segments page due to several factors:
- Visitors and accounts in your Exclude List remain eligible for guide targeting but are excluded from the Pendo UI, including guide analytics, impacting the count on a guide's details page.
- Anonymous visitors aren't included in the eligible visitor total on a guide's details page.
- Only visitors with prior activity in the app featuring the guide are included in the eligible visitor count on a guide's details page. However, any visitor with subsequent activity in the app immediately becomes eligible and is added to the count.
Why does the eligible visitor count differ from what's listed in the Resource Center?
The total eligible visitors on the Segments page and in the segment builder reflect the overall count of visitors across all apps in your subscription who meet the segment rule criteria. Conversely, when you apply the same segment to a Resource Center module, the eligible visitor count reflects the total number of visitors from the app that the Resource Center is configured for.