The Segmentation Explorer lets you explore your customer base by segment — how many customers are in each group, how those numbers change over time, the key characteristics of each segment, and how segments retain customers and generate revenue over their lifetime.

It's where segment data becomes CRM decisions: see at a glance which segments are growing or shrinking, which are most valuable over their lifetime, and where retention or acquisition effort will pay off — so you can focus your campaigns and budget where they'll have the most impact.

In this article, you will learn who the report is for, how to access it, how to control what you see, and how to read each of its three sections.

Who it's for

CRM managers, analysts, and marketing teams who plan and evaluate segment-level strategy and want to understand how groups of customers compare, trend, and evolve. This is a segment-level report; to drill into a single customer's full history, use The Customer 360 Report instead.

When to use it

• Sizing and tracking segments — spotting groups that are growing or shrinking.
• Comparing segments on the attributes that matter to your business.
• Understanding long-term value: how well a segment retains customers and how much revenue it generates over time.

Before you start

The report draws on your existing Optimove configuration. To see meaningful data you need:

• Lifecycle stages, segmentation layers, customer attributes, and value segments configured for your tenant — these populate the View By grouping options.
• Access to the Explore area (report visibility is permission-based).
• Enough customer history for Cohort Analysis to be meaningful — cohorts are tracked across the periods that follow the start date you choose.

Accessing the Segmentation Explorer

Open the Explore area and select Segmentation Explorer. The report loads with a default grouping and period range, which you can change at any time using the controls at the top of the page.

Choosing what to view

The controls at the top of the page decide what you see, and it helps to know how they relate:

• View By sets how customers are grouped.
• The Segments dropdown sets which of those groups appear in the charts and tables.
• The Filters panel narrows the underlying population and re-runs the report when you click Apply.

Within any chart, the legend lets you toggle individual segments on or off to focus the view, without changing the underlying selection.

View By

The View By selector controls how the whole report groups your customers. Choose one of:

• Lifecycle Stages — group customers by their current lifecycle stage.
• Segmentation Layer — group by a segmentation layer. First choose the Lifecycle Stage the layer belongs to, then choose the Layer.
• Categorical Attributes — group by a categorical customer attribute; choose the Attribute to view.
• Value Segments — group by value segment.

Every section below updates to reflect the grouping you choose, and each section title shows it (for example, Number of Customers by Lifecycle Stages).

Segments

The Segments dropdown, in the same row as View By, lets you choose exactly which segments appear across the report. Search for segments, use Select All, and toggle individual segments on or off. Toggling updates the charts and tables instantly, without re-running the report. The dropdown appears when the chosen grouping produces more than a handful of segments; with only a few, all are shown and the dropdown is hidden. When you narrow the segments shown, it counts toward the active-filter badge on the Filters button.

Filters

Click Filters to open the filter panel and refine the report. The button shows a badge with the number of active filters. The available filters depend on what you're viewing:

• Longevity — always available. Choose an event from the Time since dropdown, then select which longevity values to include. The available event types are determined by your tenant's configuration.
• Lifecycle Stages — available when viewing by Categorical Attributes or Value Segments; limits the report to specific lifecycle stages.
• Minimum Group Size — available when viewing by Categorical Attributes; shows only segments containing at least a chosen number of customers, to hide very small groups.

Click Apply to run the report with your filters, or Reset to clear them. Each list supports search and Select All / Deselect All.

The report is organized into three sections, shown one below the other, all driven by the View By selector, Segments dropdown, and filters above.

Number of Customers

Compare the size of each segment group.

• Current Number of Customers — a bar chart comparing the current size of each segment.
• Number of Customers Over Time — a line chart showing how each segment's size changes across periods (the reporting periods set by your tenant's calendar). Use the From and To selectors on the chart to set the period range.

Click a segment in the chart legend to toggle it on or off and focus on the segments you care about.

Average Attribute Values

Compare average attribute values for the different segments.

This section compares segments across the attributes you choose, so you can see how groups differ on the metrics that matter to your business.

• A table shows one row per segment and one column per attribute, plus a Total row giving the overall value for each attribute across all customers. Columns are sortable.
• Click Select Attributes to choose which attribute columns appear (up to 20). Number of Customers is always included and can't be removed. Use Apply to confirm your selection or Reset to revert.
• Click View Trend on any attribute column to reveal a chart row for that attribute:
  • an Over Time line chart, titled with the attribute's name, showing its average value across periods, with its own From / To period selectors.
  • a Current Snapshot bar chart, also titled with the attribute's name, comparing the attribute's current value across segments.

Cohort Analysis

Explore how different segments retain customers and generate revenue over time.

Cohort Analysis follows the customers who were in each segment at a chosen starting point and tracks them over the following periods. It's how you catch a high-value segment that's quietly decaying — and act on it before it shows up in your churn numbers. For a primer on the method itself, see Understanding Cohort Analysis.

Select a Cohort Start Date to generate the analysis. Two charts then appear:

• Survival Rate — the proportion of customers from the selected cohort who are still active through each subsequent period.
• Cumulative Gross Revenue — the aggregated gross revenue generated by the cohort's customers through each subsequent period.

Each chart includes an info tooltip explaining the metric, and the per-segment legend lets you toggle segments on or off.

How the cohort metrics are calculated

What do the two cohort charts measure? These definitions match the in-product tooltips.

• Survival Rate: the proportion of customers in the selected cohort who are still active through the selected period.
• Cumulative Gross Revenue: the aggregated gross revenue generated by the customers in the selected cohort through the selected period.

Related articles

• How Optimove Segments Your Customers — how Optimove builds the segments this report explores.
• Understanding Cohort Analysis — the concept behind the Cohort Analysis section.
• The Migration Explorer Report — how customers move between lifecycle stages over time.
• The Customer 360 Report — drill into an individual customer's full history.