What are Segments?
Segments are groups of users defined by logical conditions. Users are automatically grouped into segments based on their attributes (like role, plan type, or location) and behaviors (like actions they've taken in your product or with your Candu content).
For example, you might create:
A segment for users who have logged in after 30 days
A segment for enterprise customers in the US
A segment for admins who completed onboarding
A segment for users who clicked a specific button in your product tour
By default, Candu provides an "Everyone" segment that includes all users. You don't need to create segments to use Candu, but segmentation unlocks powerful personalization capabilities.
Common use cases
By plan type: Enterprise customers see advanced features and white-glove support options, while free trial users see upgrade prompts and core feature highlights.
By role: Admins see settings and configuration guides. End users see task-focused tutorials. Developers see API documentation while marketers see campaign management tools.
By journey stage: Meet users where they are. New users see onboarding checklists and welcome tours. Activated users see advanced features and optimization tips.
By location: Show region-specific compliance information, language-appropriate content, or features available in specific markets.
By behavior: Users who clicked "Start Tour" see follow-up content. Users who completed setup see next-step recommendations.
Before you get started
Segments rely on data about your users. Before creating segments, make sure:
User data is flowing to Candu
Relevant traits are being sent such as role, plan type, email, or whatever you want to segment by
Not set up yet? → Setting Up Personalization Data
Quick check: Go to Settings > Traits in Candu and view all connected traits. You can also check by individual users in Analytics > Users > Traits. If you see your user properties under the Value column (name, email, role, etc.), your data is flowing correctly.
Creating Your First Segment
Go to Segments in the Candu dashboard
Click Create Segment
Name your segment descriptively (e.g., "Enterprise Admins" not "Segment 1")
Add a description to help your team understand who's included
Add conditions
Start simple with one condition, then add complexity as needed.
Choose a property from the dropdown menu
Click +Add to add more conditions
Use AND to require all conditions to be met or OR to require any conditions
Click Add Condition to nest conditions
Click Save
Apply segment to content
Go to your content in the Candu Editor
Click the ➕ icon
Click the three dots in the “Everyone” tab and select Retarget to assign a new segment
Segment Conditions & Logic
Properties | Description | Operators |
User ID | Target specific users by their unique identifier. | Is one of, equal to, not equal to, contains, does not have, ends with, starts with |
User Properties | Target based on user traits like role, plan, email, company. The available properties depend on what data you send to Candu. | Is one of, equal to, not equal to, contains, does not have, ends with, starts with |
User Events | Target based on actions users have taken in your product or with Candu content. Learn more. | Occurred in the last, not occurred in the last, occurred after, not occurred after |
First Visit | Target based on when users first visited your site after Candu was installed. | Occurred in the last, not occurred in the last, occurred after, not occurred after |
Schedule Content | Schedule content to appear during specific time periods. | Show after, show until |
Segments | Use existing segments as conditions when building new segments. | Users are in [segment name] |
User Group ID | Target specific groups by their unique identifier. Use this to identify different organizations, accounts, or teams. | Is one of, equal to, not equal to, contains, does not have, ends with, starts with |
Group Property | Target based on group-level traits like company domain. The available properties depend on what group data you send to Candu. | Is one of, equal to, not equal to, contains, does not have, ends with, starts with |
Combining conditions
AND Logic
Requires all conditions to be met. Narrows your audience.
Example: Role = "Admin" AND Plan = "Enterprise" AND Location = "US"
Result: Only enterprise admins in the US
OR Logic
Requires any condition to be met. Broadens your audience.
Example: Role = "Admin" OR Role = "Manager"
Result: All admins and managers
⚠️ Excluding multiple values? Use AND, not OR.
When using "does not" conditions to exclude users, use AND logic. Example: To exclude users from three different plan types:
Plan does not equal "Starter" AND
Plan does not equal "Basic" AND
Plan does not equal "Free"
Why OR doesn't work: With OR logic, a user on the "Starter" plan would still match because their plan doesn't equal "Basic" or "Free", so they pass the condition and get included.
With AND logic, all three "does not" conditions must be true, which correctly excludes anyone on those plan types.
Nesting Conditions
Click Add Condition to nest conditions for complex logic.
Example: (Role = "Admin" OR Role = "Manager") AND (Plan = "Enterprise" OR Plan = "Pro")
Result: Admins and managers who are on paid plans
Segment Hierarchy & Priority
Users can belong to many segments at once. For example, a new admin might match:
"New Users" segment (first visit in last 30 days)
"Admins" segment (role = admin)
"Everyone" segment (default)
When you have content targeted to multiple segments that a user matches, Candu uses segment order to determine which content they see.
How segment order works
When a user matches multiple segments:
Candu evaluates segments from left-to-right
The user sees content from the first segment they match
Content from other matching segments won't appear
Example: You have a banner with two segments:
"New Users" (first in order)
"Admins" (second in order)
A new admin matches both segments, but they'll see the "New Users" banner because it's evaluated first.
When publishing content to multiple segments:
In the Editor, select which segments can see this content
Rearrange the priority order by drag and dropping the tabs
Tip: If the content is very similar with small variations, use one piece of content with conditional blocks instead of separate segments.
Managing & Updating Segments
Reviewing your segments
Each segment has three main tabs that help you understand and manage it:
User Feed
See which users currently match your segment conditions. You can search for users by email or user ID.
Match Status: Next to each user, you'll see whether they match the segment criteria. This helps you verify that your segment logic is working as expected.
Active Users: Under Analytics, see which users matching the segment were active in the last 7 days. This shows you a count of active users who meet all segment criteria and who have viewed pages where Candu is installed.
Important: User counts reset when a segment is created or modified. Users will match segment conditions when they log in again after changes are made.
Editing segments
You can edit segment names, descriptions, and conditions at any time. Go to your Segments and click into any segment you want to edit, under Settings you can:
Edit name & description: Edit the segment name and description to keep your segments organized and clear for your team.
See usage overview: See where this segment is currently being used: in content, other segments, or experiments.
Clone and delete segments
Important: If you significantly change segment conditions, update the name and description so your team knows what changed. User counts will reset, and users may suddenly see different content.
Cloning segments
Open the segment you want to copy
Click Clone Segment
Note: Cloning does NOT copy analytics data or content connections. The new segment starts with fresh analytics.
Deleting segments
⚠️ Warning: Deleting a segment is irreversible and:
All analytics for that segment are permanently deleted
You can only delete a segment if it's not connected to any content
Go to Segment Settings
Click Delete Segment
Click Confirm in the popup
Previewing content for multiple segments
You can use the Candu Chrome Extension or the Share Link to visualize experiences for different segments.
Understanding Segment Membership
Candu doesn't receive a complete list of all your users when you start sending data. Instead, users are tracked only after they access a page where Candu is installed.
Example:
You install Candu on your product homepage
You have 1,000 total users
Only 100 users have logged in since you installed Candu
Candu has tracked only those 100 users
When you create a segment, Candu shows you how many of those 100 tracked users match the segment, not all 1,000 users, because we don't yet have profiles for the others.
What this means for segments:
User counts are based on tracked users only. As more users log in to pages with Candu installed, your segment counts will grow.
Updated segments evaluate when users return. If you updated a segment, users must visit a page where Candu is installed again to be evaluated against the new segment conditions.
Segment counts reset when conditions change. When you modify a segment's conditions, the count resets and rebuilds as users access pages again.