How to segment shoppers by mailbox provider

What is the Mailbox provider filter?

The Mailbox provider filter finds shoppers by the company that hosts their email address: Gmail, Microsoft, Yahoo or Apple. Create warm-up segment uses this filter to save a segment of one provider’s engaged shoppers in one step.

Why you need one

  • Inbox placement can be poor at one provider and fine at the others. To fix it, you send first to that provider’s engaged shoppers.
  • Each provider uses many domains. A filter such as “Email ends with @hotmail.com” misses about one third of Microsoft addresses.
  • Without this filter, you must type each domain yourself and keep the list up to date.

How to set it up

Filtering shoppers by mailbox provider

  1. Go to Shoppers in your Instant AI dashboard
  2. Click the filter icon next to Search for an email
  3. Select Mailbox provider
  4. Select Is or Is not
  5. Select one or more of Gmail, Microsoft, Yahoo and Apple
  6. Click Apply
  7. Click Save if you want to keep the result as a segment

You do not type any domains. Instant knows which domains belong to each provider.

The filter is also in the Advanced builder, so you can combine it with any other condition.

Creating a warm-up segment

  1. Go to Shoppers in your Instant AI dashboard
  2. Click ⋮ in the top right corner
  3. Select Create warm-up segment
  4. Under Mailbox provider, select a provider
  5. Under Shoppers, select Opened in the last 30 days, Opened in the last 60 days, Opened in the last 90 days or All shoppers
  6. Click Create segment

Instant saves the segment with a name such as “Engaged Gmail (30 days)”. To send to it, select it as the audience of a campaign. See How to Use Segments in Campaigns.

Editing a warm-up segment

A warm-up segment is a normal saved segment with two conditions: Mailbox provider and Email activity. Open it from your saved segments on the Shoppers page to change either condition.

How it works

Which addresses each provider includes

The filter uses the domain of the email address, which is the part after the @ symbol.

  • Microsoft includes hotmail.com, outlook.com, live.com and msn.com, and the country versions of these domains.
  • Yahoo includes yahoo domains, aol.com, ymail.com, and AT&T and Verizon addresses.
  • An address on a company domain, such as [email protected], does not match any provider. This is true even when the company uses Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.

Note: A segment changes only the campaigns that use it. Your other campaigns and your flows send as normal.

Warming up your domain with one provider

A warm-up sends to a small, engaged group first, then to more shoppers each week. For each week, create a new warm-up segment with a longer window:

  1. Opened in the last 30 days
  2. Opened in the last 60 days
  3. Opened in the last 90 days
  4. All shoppers

Use each new segment as the audience for that week’s campaigns to the provider.

Tip: If a segment with the same name already exists, the dialog shows a message. Open and edit that segment instead of creating a new one.

FAQ

Why is a shopper with a Gmail inbox not in my Gmail segment? Their address is probably on a company domain that uses Google Workspace. The filter uses the domain of the address, so it cannot see which company hosts the inbox.

Can I select more than one provider? Yes. Select two or more providers in the Mailbox provider filter. A shopper who matches any of them is included.

Can I exclude one provider from a campaign? Yes. Select Is not and the provider you want to leave out.

Does a warm-up segment change my flows? No. Flows do not use the segment. Only campaigns that have the segment as their audience change.

Does a warm-up segment update by itself? Yes. Like all segments, it is dynamic. A campaign checks the audience again when it sends.

My “Email ends with” filter did not match capital letters before. Is that fixed? Yes. The Email filter now saves the value in lower case, so “ends with @Gmail.com” matches the same shoppers as “ends with @gmail.com”.

For more on segments, see How to Create and Save Segments. For more on inbox placement, see How to get the best email deliverability with Instant AI.