Marketing Lists vs. Marketing Segments in Dynamics 365 Marketing

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing is a robust digital marketing application that provides multiple ways for marketers to engage with individual leads and contacts. D365 Marketing used different marketing list types to target specific groups of contacts through email marketing campaigns called customer journeys. These list types allow the marketer to target contacts based on demographic information, list subscription, or even behavior with content delivered through Dynamics 365 Marketing.

The variety of list types can be confusing, so it’s important to understand the difference. There are two main list types: the marketing segment and the marketing list. Marketing segments are designed to be paired with customer journeys so a marketer can guide members of a selected subset of contacts through a journey of content that can include marketing emails, marketing forms & pages, events, and more.

There are five types of marketing segments: dynamic, static, compound, profile, and behavioral. This chart from Microsoft documentation shows each list type and it’s uses in Dynamics 365 Marketing.

If a marketer targets all contacts from New York, or all contacts who are interested in a specific line of business, they can use a marketing segment to help separate these two groups of contacts and target them with a different marketing strategy depending on their traits. This kind of diversity allows for quick and effective marketing strategies. Finally, marketing segments can crunch very large volumes of data without affecting performance.

Segments can further be divided into dynamic or static types. A dynamic segment is setup using logical expressions where D365 Marketing automatically groups contacts into the segment. In the above example, if the logical expression was all contacts from New York and someone were to create a contact later who was from New York, the system would automatically recognize their location and add them to the New York segment and associated, active customer journeys.

A static marketing segment, on the other hand, requires manual association. If there is a specific subgroup of people that couldn’t be reached through a dynamic segment, or if a marketer wanted to group these contacts together by specific knowledge they have about the contact which wouldn’t be covered in a normal query, a static segment makes this possible. It’s important to note that a dynamic segment does not allow for manually modifying which contacts are associated with it. If manual changes to the list are necessary, a static segment must be used instead. There are also compound segments which combine multiple segments to create a single segment to be used in customer journeys.

Segments can also be based on profiles or interactions that the contact has had with the contact. Profile segments search through the profile records that are stored in marketing-insights. These profiles sync across any Dynamics 365 accounts and include many different entities in Dynamics 365. Entities like contacts, accounts, leads, and any other custom or system entities can be synced with these segments across the Dynamics 365 ecosystem.

Finally, behavioral segments sort through interaction records that have been stored in marketing-insights. Any interaction that a contact has had with marketing efforts in Dynamics 365 Marketing tracked and related to a contact record. This allows a marketer to see if a contact has opened an email, for example, or submitted a form to the website which helps gauge involvement and interest level that the customer may be at. These different types of segments are useful in their own way and provide a very flexible solution to create contact lists to be used in marketing campaigns.

The other type of list in Dynamics 365 Marketing is a marketing list. There are three types of marketing lists: dynamic, static, and subscription. Just like marketing segments there are both static and dynamic marketing lists. Unlike marketing segments, a dynamic marketing list is significantly more limited in function.

The primary marketing list type that is most likely to be used is a special type of static list called a subscription list. A subscription list enables a contact to sign up to join a mailing list in a customer journey created in Dynamics 365 Marketing. This is the primary way in which email marketing contacts are organized. Unlike traditional static and dynamic marketing lists, a subscription list is able to be used on its own within customer journeys.

Dynamics 365 Marketing users evaluate what belongs in a marketing list by using logical expressions, but they can only focus on campaigns. In comparison, dynamic segments support querying from marketing-insights to check interactions. Just like dynamic segments, dynamic marketing lists cannot be manually modified. To manually modify a marketing list, a static list must be used.

These tend to have more uses than dynamic lists because a static list can be included into a segment used in a customer journey. A dynamic segment can also query into static marketing lists which allows for a segment to work in conjunction with a list.

While marketing segments operate using marketing-insights, marketing lists operate entirely within Dynamics 365 Marketing. Rather than targeting contacts with specific demographics or behaviors, marketing lists are designed to work with campaigns and quick campaigns in much the same way. Marketing lists can work with more than just contacts - if a marketer wants to focus on leads or accounts, they need to use a marketing list. Marketing lists do not need to sync with marketing-insights to run.

This can be a disadvantage since marketing-insights provides helpful tracking and performance improvements. Usually, marketing lists are used for the process after a customer journey and should be used sparingly considering the many strengths of segments.