Segmentation divides a messaging audience into groups by attribute or behaviour, so each group receives a campaign that is relevant to it instead of everyone receiving the same message.
Common segments in messaging
By relationship: new customers, active, lapsed. By behaviour: opened but did not tap, abandoned a cart, booked but did not confirm. By attribute: location and time zone, plan or product owned, language. By channel capability: whether the handset can receive RCS, which decides whether a rich card or a plain text goes out, though the capability check handles that per message without a manual segment.
Why segment at all
Relevance is the strongest predictor of not being opted out. A customer who receives one useful message a month stays subscribed; one who receives four generic ones sends STOP, and on a shared sender that STOP also silences the messages that mattered. Segmentation is also how quiet hours are honoured across time zones and how a drip sequence knows who has already converted.
Segmentation and consent
A segment can only include people who consented to that kind of message. A transactional opt-in does not put a customer in a promotional segment; how RCS consent works explains the distinction. In SimplyRCS, segments are built from list attributes and past campaign events, and a suppression list of opt-outs applies to every segment automatically. See also personalization.