Recently, Salesforce Data Cloud has been making changes to its segmentation component to help business professionals to do more, with three exciting new features. These features make it easier to create marketing campaigns that are spot-on, efficient, and impactful. Let’s break them down through the eyes of a marketing team launching a new insurance product, using a fictional company called SafeGuard for illustration.
SafeGuard Insurance is a leading provider of health insurance plans, focused on offering comprehensive and flexible coverage designed to meet the diverse needs of individuals and families. The marketing team at SafeGuard Insurance is gearing up to launch their latest product, a comprehensive insurance plan for young professionals. Their challenge? They need to target the right audience quickly, without wasting resources on the wrong segments. Also, they need to ensure that customers only qualify for one of their potential segments, to provide more pointed and targeted messaging to the right customers; given Safeguard doesn’t have a lot of technical people knowledgeable in Marketing Cloud, they want to limit the complexity there. Additionally, they need to ensure that customers qualify for only one segment to deliver more precise and targeted messaging to the right audience. Since Safeguard has limited technical expertise in Marketing Cloud, they aim to simplify the implementation process to minimize complexity. And finally, marketers at Safeguard don’t want to waste resources, and ensure their segments are correct before publishing them to Marketing cloud.
That’s where Salesforce Data Cloud’s newest features come in:
- Nested Segments in Rapid Segmentation
- Waterfall Segments Activated as a Single Data Extension
- Segment Membership Verification with AgentForce
Let’s go through them one by one.
Refine Your Audience with Nested Segments in a Rapid Segment
SafeGuard Insurance has tons of customer data and wants to target prospects in a frequent manner. They are thinking of using a rapid schedule for their segment, publishing every hour. However, they understand there is a data volume limit: “Total number of processed records for rapid segments” is limited. No problem! They can now use a rapid nested segment utilizing segment nesting. Using Nested Segments in Rapid Segmentation, they can pinpoint young professionals who are most likely to need their product while excluding others:
- Primary Segment: Customers tagged as “young professionals interested in financial security.”
- Nested Inclusion: Customers who meet the qualifications for an insurance plan, based on a shared set of criteria that was put into a common base segment. Use the ‘Use Last Published Membership’ option that lets you embed the output of a complex segment.
Prior to this release, nested segments were supported only for standard batch scheduling; nesting is now supported in rapid segments, so segments can be encapsulated with one another to be reused, for efficiency and organizational consistency. Additionally, a big advantage of Nested Segments is that it handles large amounts of data, getting around limits that regular Rapid segments have. This makes it possible to manage complex groups of customers without the limitations of a regular Rapid segment. So Safeguard can finalize their audience within their tight one-hour window, focusing only on the people most likely to engage.
Streamline Campaign Activation with Waterfall Segments
Then, the team can use Waterfall Segments Activated as a Single Data Extension to tie it all together. With this new feature, they can activate the entire waterfall subsegments as one Data extension for use in a single journey —no extra processing or adjustments needed afterward. Here’s how this feature helps:
- Combine Segments Dynamically: Bring together young professionals, high-income earners, and repeat customers into one seamless Data Extension.
- Adapt to Changes: If a new sub-segment, like “child_viv2” gets added to the waterfall, it’s automatically included in future activations (as long as “All Segments” is selected).
Marketers can choose to activate all sub-segments or pick specific ones for a campaign. This flexibility means they can balance simplicity with control. If they choose to manually select sub-segments, though, future updates to the waterfall won’t apply unless they explicitly update their choices.
While sub-segment selections can always be updated, the team knows that their destination and membership settings will stay locked in for consistency.
Ensure Accuracy with Segment Membership Verification
Nobody wants to send their big campaign to the wrong people. That’s why the Safeguard insurance team relies on Segment Membership Verification with AgentForce. Before publishing to Marketing cloud, they can:
- Double-Check Profiles: spot checking a few users in the “SecureFuture Launch” segment do match the criteria.
- Avoid Mistakes: Weed out inactive profiles or irrelevant contacts.
With AgentForce, they can quickly confirm that their audience is spot-on, giving them peace of mind that their messaging will land in the right inboxes. The team can ask the agent directly—optionally from the segment page for added context—whether a specific profile ID belongs to the segment; e.g. ‘is profile ABC in this segment?’.
The Results: A Winning Campaign
By combining these three features, the Safeguard campaign delivers outstanding results:
- Time Saved: The team quickly narrows their audience and avoids delays.
- Accuracy Boost: Membership verification keeps their campaign on target.
- Better Engagement: Waterfall segmentation helps them prioritize messaging, leading to stronger connections with customers.
These features give SafeGuard Insurance the tools they need to launch a data-driven campaign that’s effective and efficient.
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