Today, having the best product or service is no longer enough to ensure sales. Focusing on the wrong market segment can prevent conversions altogether. That’s why defining a solid marketing targeting strategy is essential for successful prospecting—it drives the efficiency of your lead generation process. Whether in B2B or B2C, segmentation and targeting are powerful tools to convert at scale. In this article, we break down everything you need to know about these two strategic steps.
What are segmentation and targeting?
Definition of segmentation
Segmentation involves dividing a target market into distinct groups of customers. To create these homogeneous groups, marketers rely on quantitative or qualitative criteria.
Each segment includes clients or prospects with similar traits, such as:
- Socio-demographic characteristics
- Buying habits
- Pain points
- Needs
- Purchase behavior
Segmentation helps you:
- Understand motivations and consumer behavior
- Measure your total addressable market
- Identify different types of customers
- Align your marketing mix with the market structure
To segment effectively:
- The differences between groups must be large enough to justify targeted actions
- Segment size must be significant enough to justify targeting
Good to know: the 3 main segmentation approaches
- By needs: what clients expect from your business
- By profitability: the revenue potential each client segment represents
- By channel: preferred communication channels based on customer types
Definition of targeting
Targeting involves selecting the most relevant market segment(s) and focusing your marketing efforts on them. It happens after segmentation and before positioning.
Targeting helps you:
- Focus marketing efforts strategically
- Avoid investing in low-potential segments
Best practice: conduct market research to identify the right customer profiles and gather as much data as possible. Consider factors such as segment attractiveness, competition, and required investment.
Also create buyer personas, which should represent your ideal customer. Persona sheets typically include:
- Key customer data
- Segmentation criteria: values, personality, habits, job, gender, age, etc.
Segmentation vs. targeting: what's the difference?
These terms are often used interchangeably but represent two distinct strategies.
Segmentation comes first. It's a stable, strategic process that splits the market into groups based on shared traits. It's used to build tailored offers for each group.
Targeting is more operational. It applies to specific campaigns and involves selecting customers from a database. Targeting decisions depend on variables like past performance, product type, and messaging frequency.
Segmentation can act as a filter to define your targeting criteria.
Different segmentation methods
Geographic segmentation
Consumer responses vary based on location. This method tailors your strategy according to a person’s geographic data—city, region, country, etc.
You can also use criteria like climate, culture, traditions, urban density, or population. Ask yourself: where is my customer located?
Demographic segmentation
This relies on factual, descriptive information about lifestyle. Common criteria include gender, age, income level, education, family status, marital status, etc.
Here, you're asking: who is the customer?
Psychographic segmentation
This focuses on lifestyle, values, and attitudes. Common criteria:
- Personality
- Social status
- Interests
- Activities
- Beliefs
- Values
- Habits
Good to know: What makes a segmentation criterion effective?
It should be:
- Relevant to your product (e.g. age for cars, income for appliances)
- Measurable and quantifiable
- Actionable—you must be able to act on it through targeted campaigns
Behavioral segmentation
Behavioral segmentation asks: what is the customer’s buying journey?
It includes:
- Purchase patterns and frequency
- Channels used
- Site visits
- Email engagement
- Product preferences
Note: The CNIL (France’s data protection authority) ensures behavioral segmentation doesn’t breach privacy.
Types of marketing targeting strategies
Undifferentiated (mass) marketing
This strategy targets everyone in the market with a single message or offer. It assumes that all customers have similar needs. It’s common in mass-market products like food or household goods.
Advantages:
- Streamlined production
- Lower communication costs
- Economies of scale
- Broad audience reach
Disadvantages:
- Can’t meet all customer needs
- Risk of specialized competitors taking market share
- Vulnerable to market changes
Differentiated marketing
You target multiple segments with customized offers and strategies for each. Ideal for mature markets.
Advantages:
- Competitive edge
- Stronger market position
Disadvantages:
- Higher production and marketing costs
Concentrated (niche) marketing
You target a single segment with a specialized offer. Perfect for companies with expertise in one area.
Advantages:
- Focused resources
- Deep understanding of the target
- Strong brand credibility
Disadvantages:
- Limited market size
- Risk if the segment declines or competitors enter
Why segment and target?
Segmentation and targeting allow you to focus your marketing efforts on high-value customers and improve the ROI of your campaigns.
With Dataventure, you can segment with over 40 criteria and access a pool of 30 million qualified opt-in profiles, distributed across a network of 1,000 publisher partners.
Examples of available segments:
- 1,242,866 fashion profiles
- 1,836,941 travel & leisure
- 256,991 job seekers
- 425,733 dating
- 126,428 newlyweds
- 388,412 home & décor
Dataventure, a Cardata Group brand, ensures legal compliance, email marketing best practices, and high deliverability.
A specialist in targeted data rental and data enrichment, Dataventure uses predictive scoring models to evaluate a prospect’s likelihood of becoming a customer. This scoring ensures the profitability of your campaigns, including:
- Lead generation
- Performance-based emailing
- Opt-in profile collection
- Contests
- Behavioral surveys
- SMS marketing
Once you’ve segmented and targeted your market, the final step is positioning your offer.
Based on product features, customer motivations, group belonging, price, and quality, your positioning strategy helps you stand out and connect with your audience—leading to a more effective, coherent marketing approach.
