Segments

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Topic summary

A user noticed that when creating an email campaign for a segment of 50 customers who purchased a specific product, only 48-49 recipients appear in the email header, despite all customers being subscribed to notifications.

Possible causes identified:

  • Invalid or fake email addresses that have permanently bounced
  • Customers who previously marked emails as spam (suppressed from marketing emails)
  • Email subscription status issues (customers not actually opted in)

How to identify missing recipients:

  1. Navigate to Customers > Segments and verify all customers show ‘subscribed’ status
  2. Create a diagnostic segment using the original product purchase criteria plus filters for bounced emails or spam complaints from the past 12 months
  3. This reveals which customers are automatically excluded from marketing emails

Key point: Shopify automatically filters certain addresses to protect sender reputation and maintain email deliverability compliance, even if customers appear in the segment view. Transactional emails (like order confirmations) still reach these customers.

Summarized with AI on October 30. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Let’s say I have 50 customers that purchase a specific product. And now I create a segment for those 50 customers. Often times, when I go to create an email for that segment, it shows in the email header, that only 48 or 49 people will be receiving the email.

All of my customers are subscribed to email notifications. So why would the number be less than 50?
How do I then find out who is not getting the email because they are somehow not in the segment, even though I see the total 50 customers in the view I create for that product purchased?

2

probably one of those emails are not real ones
that is what happens in most cases

3

Hi there!

Great question - there’s a few reasons why you might see 48 or 49 recipients when sending to a segment of 50 customers.

Even though all customers in your segment purchased the same product, Shopify automatically filters out certain email addresses to maintain your sender reputation and comply with email regulations:

  1. Email subscription status: Ensure that all customers in your segment have opted in to receive marketing emails. Only those who have subscribed will receive your emails.
  2. Invalid Email Addresses: Shopify automatically filters out any customers with invalid email addresses that have permanently bounced in the past.
  3. Spam Complaints: If any customers previously marked your emails as spam, their addresses are suppressed from future marketing emails (though they’ll still receive transactional emails like order confirmations).

This filtering system actually protects your email deliverability by ensuring you’re only sending to engaged, valid addresses.

To identify which customers aren’t receiving your emails:

  1. Go to Customers > Segments

  2. Review the customers in your product purchase segment to confirm they all have the Email subscription status of ‘subscribed’

  3. To find customers who might be suppressed due to bounces or spam complaints, create a new segment with these conditions:
    • Start with your original product purchase criteria
    • Then add this filter condition:

    AND shopify_email.bounced MATCHES (
    date >= -12m
    ) OR shopify_email.marked_as_spam MATCHES (
    date >= -12m
    )

  4. This new segment will show you customers who purchased the product BUT have had an email bounce or marked your emails as spam in the last 12 months. These are the customers who won’t receive your marketing emails.

If you’re still having trouble identifying the discrepancy, Shopify Support can take a closer look at your specific account.

Hope this helps clarify things!

  • Clare
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