Read this guide online at: http://mailchimp.com/resources/guides/how-to-use-hairball/ Hairball is an Adobe AIR app that allows you to segment your MailChimp lists as much as you'd like, and store those segments on your own computer. This guide explains how to use Hairball, and offers some creative ways to segment your MailChimp lists within Hairball. What’s inside: An overview of MailChimp's Hairball app, including: Creating segments Nesting segments within Hairball Segmentation ideas

2. How to Use
Hairball
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3. Hello.
Hairball is an Adobe AIR app that allows you to segment your MailChimp
lists as much as you’d like, and store those segments on your own com-
puter. If MailChimp’s segmentation limits are the only thing preventing
you from running really complex segmentation criteria, then Hairball is
your solution. We put those limits in place for your benefit—if too many
customers started running extremely complex queries, it would destroy our
servers (and create a hairball of a mess). But we understand the need for
more complex segmentation, and that’s why Hairball exists.
This guide will explain how to use Hairball. We’ll even give you some ideas
for creative segmentation with the app.
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4. Segmenting with Hairball
Back in Hairball, you’ll see all your MailChimp lists. Choose the one you
To get started, download Hairball at http://mailchimp.com/labs. want to segment, and click Fetch. You’ll need to fetch your lists individu-
ally, and downloading the data for large lists might take a minute.
Click Connect account at the top-right of the screen. Tell us which account
you’d like to connect.
Now for the fun part. Segment to your heart’s content. To create a seg-
ment, click New segment. Name your segment, and choose your criteria,
just like you’d segment a list within MailChimp. Create conditions by
clicking Add condition.
You’ll need your API key, which you can find by logging in to MailChimp:
Click Account > API keys and info.
If you want to create a segment of Gmail addresses, choose “Email ad-
dress contains gmail.” You might even add another condition that says
“Email address contains googlemail.”
You can choose to match any or all of your conditions. Your condition op-
tions are based on the information you gather from your signup forms.
Here’s an example of a very…specific segment called “Ball bearing indus-
try CEOs w/ funny names whose birthdays are in October.”
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5. And here’s a segment based on engagement. The most engaged subscrib-
ers named Ben:
Add as many conditions and segments as you’d like. The possibilities are
endless. When you’re finished segmenting and you’ve saved your hard
work, click Upload to MailChimp.
Your segment will be available in MailChimp as a static segment. (You’ll
now see “static segment” as an option on the segmentation screen.)
When you create a campaign, click Send to segment, select the segment
you created in Hairball, and send your campaign as you would any other
MailChimp campaign.
See? That wasn’t so hard. If you’re interested in nesting segments or using
Hairball more creatively, keep reading.
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6. Nesting Segments
Maybe you like using Hairball for extensive segmentation, but you want
to create segments within segments in Hairball, and then import it as one
segment in MailChimp. No problem—Hairball allows nesting. All you have
to do is build two segments and combine them.
After you finish creating one of your segments, start another segment. As
one of the conditions, select Hairball segment > member is part of > the
segment you just created.
Here are some creative ways to nest segments within Hairball:
• Create a segment of subscribers in particular locations who open and
click your campaigns, so you can invite them to events. Build a seg-
ment based on activity (because you’re looking for people who open
and click). From there, narrow down the segment based on address
(because you’re looking for people who are located near your event’s
location).
• Create a segment of inactive subscribers who recently signed up for
your list, so you can reach out. Build a segment based on activity.
From there, narrow down the segment by date added.
• Create percentage-based segments for DIY testing. Build a segment
within one of those groups of people who didn’t open or click, to see
if new content can entice them to open your email.
• Segment by email-address domain for delivery testing. If you think
certain domains are causing a delivery problem, create a segment of
email addresses that contain suspected bad domains, and narrow it
down to people who haven’t opened any of your emails. Then send a
campaign to everyone else (member > is not a part of > your new seg-
ment) to see if your deliverability improves. If it does, you’ve found
the problem.
We hope Hairball takes the headache out of segmentation for you—and we
hope you got some ideas for creative ways to use the app. Keep an eye on
MailChimp Labs for updates and new features.
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