Creating a Dynamic Search

Using advanced search, you can target audience members based on their groups, their member information, their response history, their signup history or any combination thereof. The more information you collect and store, the more options you'll have when segmenting your audience. We'll start with an overview (how to use the advanced search) and then outline a few search examples (popular searches), including video tutorials for those popular searches.

How to use the advanced search:

  1. On the main audience screen, click on the Searches tab next to Groups, or choose 'Advanced Search' from the options menu to the right of the search bar at the top of any audience screen.
  2. Create a new search and begin building your search using the menu that appears. There are four categories you can search by: Audience Groups, Member Information, Response History and Signup/Manage Prefs History.
  3. Once you select a category, click Add. Then you may add criteria underneath it. To add multiple search criteria to any single category, just return to the drop down menu, select another item and hit Add (instead of hitting Done). You'll also choose whether you'd like the search to match all those criteria or any of them.
  4. When you're done adding criteria, you may choose another category to further refine your search, or give it a name and save it if you're done.
  5. You can access (and edit) your saved searches any time from the main audience screen. Your searches will also appear in a drop down menu when you get ready to send a campaign. To send to a search set, simply choose the appropriate search (instead of a regular group) when you select your campaign's recipients.

Remember that, unlike groups, searches are entirely dynamic: the search is re-run each time you view it.

Putting Search & Segment to Work. How can searches be helpful to you? Ask Emma presents eight practical ideas.

Popular Searches

Audience Group Searches

Finding people *in* one group and *not in* another
Let's imagine that you sent a large mailing to your “All Members” group yesterday, and today imported an updated spreadsheet to that group, thus adding new people to the "All Members" group. You want new additions to receive yesterday's campaign, but you don’t want to send the campaign to everyone.

Or, let's say you want to test separate subject lines of the same campaign to two of your audience groups, "Group A" and "Group B," but you know that some of the same folks exist in both groups. Since you're not sending the campaign simultaneously, Emma won't recognize duplicates, and you want to make sure the folks in both groups don't receive two versions of the campaign.

In both of these examples, search for people who are *in* one group and *not in* another:

  1. On the main audience screen, click on the Searches tab next to Groups.
  2. Click the Create a new search button.
  3. Choose 'Audience Groups' from the drop down menu and click Add.
  4. Search for people who are in (select appropriate group) and click Add.
  5. Search for people who are not in (select appropriate group) and click Add.
  6. Select to match all of the above and click Done.
  7. Name and save the search.

You can create a new audience group and copy this search group to the new audience group, or you can simply send to the search group directly.

Finding people in LIMBO (not in any group)
You may have members in your audience who are not assigned to any group. This could happen if you added people one-at-a-time without choosing a group, if a member was part of group that has since been deleted or if your Emma signup form is was not assigned to any group.

  1. On the main audience screen, click on the Searches tab next to Groups.
  2. Click the Create a new search button.
  3. Choose 'Audience Groups' from the drop down menu and click Add.
  4. Search for people who are in LIMBO (not in any group) and click Add.
  5. Click Done.
  6. Name and save the search.

Once you find the people in limbo, you can rescue them using the gray toolbar at the top: choose 'select all members' and copy them to other groups. Select the group(s) where they should be added, and Emma will move them out of Limbo and into their new group(s).

Member Information Searches

Use variations of this search type to segment your audience based upon data that’s stored in audience records. Any information imported or collected -- name, address, postal code, etc -- may be used for this search. You may also use this search to find members based on their 'member since' date and to find folks who've confirmed their opt-in status. (Confirming opt-in is not required of your members.) Here are some examples of member information searches:

Finding people with a particular email domain
There are times you may want to isolate members with a particular email program. For example, Gmail recently began to embed video clips at the bottom of emails, if you include a link to a video within your content. Let's say you want to send a targeted video clip to your Gmail users.

  1. On the main audience screen, click on the Searches tab next to Groups.
  2. Click the Create a new search button.
  3. Choose 'Member Information' from the drop down menu and click Add.
  4. Search for people by the field 'email' and click Add.
  5. Choose email 'contains' @gmail.com and click Done.
  6. Name and save the search.

Finding members in a particular location
If you’ve collected postal codes, you can use the radius feature to narrow down your search and further target your audience.

  1. On the main audience screen, click on the Searches tab next to Groups.
  2. Click the Create a new search button.
  3. Choose 'Member Information' from the drop down menu and click Add.
  4. Search for people by the field 'postal code' and click Add.
  5. Choose any of these options from the drop down menu -- is/is not equal to, does no contain, is/is not empty, is less/greater than, is within (select a radius range of 5 to 50 miles) -- and then enter the zip code of interest. Click Done.
  6. Name and save the search.

Finding members who have confirmed opt-in
When someone signs up, they'll receive a confirmation email, where they can click a link to confirm their opt-in. (You can view and edit the 'confirm it' message by clicking on your signup form from the main audience page and then selecting the 'confirm it' tab.)

It's not required for an audience member to have confirmed their opt-in status in order for you to send to them, but Emma offers that second layer of opting in for a couple of reasons. First, it allows you to see who your most interested audience members are, and second, it allows you to create a search of people who have confirmed their opt-in status should you feel that you only want to target those individuals with your campaigns.

  1. On the main audience screen, click on the Searches tab next to Groups.
  2. Click the Create a new search button.
  3. Choose 'Member Information' from the drop down menu and click Add.
  4. Search for people by the field 'opt-in confirmed' and click Add.
  5. Choose to find people whose opt-in status is 'confirmed' or 'unconfirmed' and click Done.
  6. Name and save the search.

Response History Searches

You can search based upon response history to find your most or least active members. Exactly who you consider most active is up to you. For example, it might be everyone who has opened one of your campaigns in the past three months. Or anyone who has clicked on a link at any time.

  1. On the main audience screen, click on the Searches tab next to Groups.
  2. Click the Create a new search button.
  3. Choose 'Response History' from the drop down menu and click Add.
  4. From the drop down menus, choose have or have not received, opened or clicked. Then choose the radio button for 'at any time' or enter a date range of your choice. Click Add and then Done.
  5. Name and save the search.

Signed Up/Manage Prefs Searches

Emma's recent activity feature at the top of the main audience page will show you who has signed up via an Emma signup form or managed their preferences in the last 7 days or 30 days, but let's say you have a more specific date range in mind. You'll want to run an advanced search.

  1. On the main audience screen, click on the Searches tab next to Groups.
  2. Click the Create a new search button.
  3. Choose 'Signups/Manage Prefs History' from the drop down menu and click Add.
  4. From the drop down menu, select a signup action, such as 'signed up' or 'managed their preferences.' Then choose the radio button for 'at any point,' 'within the last x days' or between a date range of your choice. Make sure to choose a particular signup form, and then click Add and then Done.
  5. Name and save the search.

Searches with Multiple Criteria

Interested in more complex searches? You also have the flexibility to create searches based on multiple criteria. For example, find people in your Marketing Group who also clicked on a campaign in the last month. Or, find people in Arizona that have managed their preferences. View the below video for an example of a search based upon multiple criteria.


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