audience-segmentation

name	audience-segmentation
description	Audience segmentation toolkit — RFM, behavioral cohorts, JTBD, ICP for B2B, CDP/CRM integration patterns, persona archetype templates.
user-invocable	true
allowed-tools	["Read","Glob","Grep","Write"]

Audience Segmentation Skill

Owned by audience-persona; consumed by campaign-strategist, lifecycle-crm, contextual-copywriter, and media-buyer-bidder. Four lenses: RFM (transactional), Behavioral cohorts (event-based), JTBD (motivational), ICP (B2B firmographic). Use multiple lenses in combination — no single lens is sufficient.

1. RFM Segmentation (Recency / Frequency / Monetary)

For each customer, compute:

• R = days since most-recent purchase (lower = better)
• F = count of purchases over window (e.g. last 365 days)
• M = sum of monetary value over window

Bin each into 1-5 quintiles (5 = best). Concatenate to RFM score (e.g. "545").

Standard RFM Segments

Segment	RFM pattern	Action
Champions	4-5, 4-5, 4-5	Loyalty, referrals, early access
Loyal	3-5, 4-5, 3-5	Upsell, advocacy ask
Potential loyalist	4-5, 1-2, 1-3	Onboarding deepening, second purchase
New customers	4-5, 1, 1	Welcome series, expectation setting
Promising	3-4, 1, 1-2	Activation triggers
Needs attention	2-3, 2-3, 2-3	Targeted re-engagement
About to sleep	2-3, 1-2, 1-2	Re-engagement campaign
At risk	1-2, 2-5, 2-5	Winback before churn
Can't lose them	1, 4-5, 4-5	High-touch, possible HITL
Hibernating	1-2, 1-2, 1-2	Low-cost reactivation
Lost	1, 1, 1	Suppress or sunset

Cutoff Guidance by Industry

Industry	R quintile window	F window
DTC fast-moving (beauty, food)	30/60/90/180/365 days	365 days
DTC durable (apparel, home)	60/120/180/365/730 days	730 days
B2B SaaS (subscription)	Use active/churn lifecycle instead
Pro Services	180/365/730/1095 days	1095 days

2. Behavioral Cohorts

Define cohorts by event sequence, not demographics. Standard funnel:

signed_up -> activated -> engaged -> power_user -> at_risk -> churned

Threshold Reference

State	Trigger	Typical threshold
signed_up	account created	t = 0
activated	first meaningful action	within D1-D3, varies by product
engaged	recurring meaningful action	>=3 sessions in 7 days
power_user	top-decile usage	top 10% by frequency or depth
at_risk	usage decay	50% drop in 14-day rolling avg
dormant	no activity	no event in 30 days
churned	cancellation or 90-day dormant	explicit cancel or no event 90d

Cohort Retention Curve Template

Day	D0	D1	D7	D14	D30	D60	D90
% active	100%	x	x	x	x	x	x

Compare cohorts week-over-week to detect activation regressions.

3. Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD)

Frame the customer's underlying motivation, not features.

JTBD Template

When [situation],
I want to [motivation / desired progress],
So I can [desired outcome / emotional or social payoff].

Example (B2B observability SaaS):

When a production incident wakes my on-call at 3am, I want to find the root cause in under 10 minutes, so I can restore service before customers notice and protect my team's morale.

Job Statement Validation Checklist

• Solution-agnostic (no feature/product names)
• Includes context (when), motivation (I want to), and outcome (so I can)
• Outcome is emotional/social, not just functional
• Falsifiable — could a customer disagree?
• Verbatim quotes from customer interviews supporting it

4. Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) — B2B

Firmographic + technographic + behavioral.

ICP Template

icp:
  firmographic:
    industry: ["SaaS", "Fintech"]
    revenue_band: "$50M - $500M ARR"
    employee_count: "200 - 2000"
    region: ["North America", "EMEA"]
    funding_stage: "Series B - D"
  technographic:
    must_have: ["Kubernetes", "AWS or GCP"]
    integrations_used: ["PagerDuty", "Slack"]
    excludes: ["mainframe-only", "fully on-prem"]
  behavioral:
    growth_signals: ["hiring SREs", "recent funding"]
    triggers: ["recent outage news", "platform team posted"]
  buying_committee:
    champion: "Sr. SRE / Platform Eng Manager"
    economic_buyer: "VP Engineering / CTO"
    technical_buyer: "Lead SRE"
    blocker: "Security / Compliance"
  disqualifiers:
    - "Hard requirement for on-prem"
    - "Annual contract value < $25k"

ICP Scoring

Score = w1firmographic_match + w2technographic_match + w3*behavioral_signal. Use 0/0.5/1 per field. Score >= 0.7 = Tier-1 ICP.

5. CDP / CRM Integration Patterns

System	Family	Marketing role	Notes
Segment	CDP	Source-of-truth event router	Best for product-led data
mParticle	CDP	Enterprise event router with consent mgmt	Strong for regulated
RudderStack	CDP	Open-source / warehouse-native	Cost-effective at scale
HubSpot	CRM	Mid-market sales+marketing	Native marketing automation
Salesforce + Pardot/MCAE	CRM	Enterprise B2B	Powerful but heavy
Klaviyo	ESP/CRM	DTC ecommerce	Best-in-class for DTC lifecycle
Braze	Cross-channel	Cross-channel orchestration	Mobile-first lifecycle
Customer.io	Cross-channel	Mid-market event-based	Strong for SaaS

Standard Event Schema

{
  "userId": "u_123",
  "anonymousId": "a_456",
  "event": "Product Viewed",
  "properties": {
    "sku": "...",
    "category": "...",
    "price": 39.99
  },
  "context": {
    "campaign": {"name": "...", "source": "...", "medium": "..."},
    "consent": {"marketing": true, "analytics": true}
  },
  "timestamp": "2026-05-19T12:34:56Z"
}

Consent flag must be carried on every event — required for GDPR/CCPA.

6. Persona Archetype Templates

Three example personas across industries (substitute per profile).

Persona A — "Priya the Platform Manager" (B2B SaaS, ICP-aligned)

• Role: Sr. Platform Engineering Manager, 8 yr exp, leads team of 6
• Context: On-call rotation, recent outage led to exec scrutiny
• JTBD: cut MTTR, retain team, justify tooling spend
• Channels: HackerNews, LinkedIn, technical podcasts, peer Slack groups
• Objections: "Yet another agent on our nodes," cost-per-host

Persona B — "Maya the Modern Mom" (DTC home goods)

• Demographics: 32-45, HHI $90-180k, suburban, kid(s) at home
• Psychographics: design-conscious, time-poor, brand-loyal once trust earned
• JTBD: home that feels considered without a designer's budget
• Channels: Instagram (saves > likes), Pinterest, TikTok cleantok, podcast ads
• Objections: returns friction, fit risk, brand authenticity

Persona C — "Daniel the Decisional Director" (Pro Services buyer)

• Role: VP Marketing / Brand Director at a $200M-$1B company
• Context: under-resourced internal team, board pressure on growth
• JTBD: predictable pipeline without a 6-month agency RFP
• Channels: LinkedIn, peer referrals, executive newsletters, podcasts
• Objections: agency churn, opaque pricing, scope creep

References

• marketing-attribution (cohorts feed MTA)
• lifecycle-marketing (cohorts drive cadence)
• experimentation-design (cohorts are randomization units)