Why someone isn't in a segment

You went looking for somebody in a segment and they weren't there — or somebody turned up you didn't expect. It's nearly always one of three things, and each sends you somewhere different.

Your rules don't say what you meant

Open the segment and read the rules back.

• Every rule or any rule. A group set to *every rule* only takes people who match all of it. One extra rule can empty an audience.
• More than one group. Groups are combined by the choice at the top — Must match all conditions or Can match any condition. Two groups joined by *all* is stricter than most people expect.
• A blank field. A rule about age never matches somebody with no birthday on file, and the same goes for any fact you haven't recorded. An unknown value isn't a low one.
• A rolling period. *In the last 30 days* moves with the clock, so people leave on their own without anything happening to them.

Change a rule and Who matches so far previews it. On a saved segment, Update count requests another evaluation. If it is queued, wait for completion before comparing the refreshed size.

Nothing's wrong — they can't be in it

Bulk sending audiences exclude some contacts even when they match the rules. A contact-matching or saved-membership view can still include them:

• They unsubscribed, or reported one of your messages as spam. They stay in your records but are excluded from bulk sending audiences. Do not remove their preference to make a campaign count increase.
• They're held back at your plan's contact limit. They're kept out of bulk audiences until you free up room or move to a bigger plan.

They were deleted or merged. The old profile is excluded from active contacts, including contact-matching views. Check the current profile if the person was merged into another contact.

And two mix-ups worth ruling out. A contact isn't necessarily a customer — messaging alone is not evidence of a payment, completed order or membership. And in a hand-picked group nobody arrives by matching rules; they're in it only if someone added them.

Qcom hasn't caught up yet

Segments read facts from other parts of Qcom, such as a payment settling, an order completing or a lead moving stage. Stored membership can lag behind those facts. There is no fixed completion time for every rule.

If a business-event rule shows *Event data: pending*, some events are still being matched to people. Check again after evaluation or request Update count. If information remains incomplete or unavailable, ask an admin to check access and source coverage; it is not proof of zero matches.

They're in it but didn't get the campaign

Check the campaign's channel eligibility, contact preferences, bounced addresses, Do not send to segments and tag filters. Then inspect the recipient's result: a pending send is not a confirmed failure. Do not copy and resend the campaign blindly. Continue with Why a campaign didn't send.

Related

• How segments work
• Build a segment rule
• Where you can use a segment
• Leads, contacts and customers
• View a contact profile