Activate the Community Segments feature in the Apps tab!
Attract new and existing customers in your community with targeted discounts, scholarships, memberships, early access to eligible activities and more!
Identifying residents with Community Segments makes it easy to:
Key in on residents in need to promote activities and offer targeted discounts.
Trigger an eligible price range in the store for activities with discounts.
Validate resident addresses with Google's API to guarantee accuracy.
Verify admissibility to scholarships, grants and sponsorship programs that are based on resident status.
Provide early registration to residents, ensuring they get that coveted spot!
How it Works
2. Manage your Imported Community Segments
- Add, edit or remove an address in the segment
- Export, import, archive or delete the segment
- Search for participants by segment
- View the map
3. How to use Community Segments
- Discounts
- Restrict access to a membership and/or activity
- Display a price range on offers eligible for a discount
1. What is a Segment
A segment is a group of addresses that are deemed eligible for specific benefits, such as discounts, memberships, early program access, etc. You can create segments for specific cities, boroughs, streets, etc. Clients that have validated their address with Google’s API and share an address within a segment are referred to as ‘residents’.
There are 3 types of community segments available in SmartRec:
Imported segments: Import or manually add addresses to create segments.
Bounded segments: Define boundaries on a virtual map to create segments.
Live segments: Use a GeoJSON formatted URL from ArcGIS to create segments with boundaries that are automatically updated when changes occur in your GIS location.
This article explains how to create and manage imported segments, but also provides insight on how any type of community segment can be used in the store.
📄 Import your Address List(s)
Create a new segment in the Community Segments>Residents subtab:
Download our snazzy template.
After completing the template, name your segment and click Import.
If an address on your template cannot be found in Google's database, it will not be imported.
Click on the 'x addresses that were not imported' to export and then refer to the list of faulty addresses to make corrections to your original template. Once finished, re-import your template. Duplicate entries are discarded.
You can enter an address manually even if it doesn't exist in Google's database.
Import and/or manually add addresses to the same segment, at any time.
To add additional segments, click on the drop-down arrow (next to the title of your existing segment) and select + Add a segment. An address can be included in multiple segments.
2. Manage your Imported Community Segments
After importing a segment, you will see the table below:
Imported Addresses shows the current number of imported and/or manually added addresses within the segment.
Current Residents are the number of residents in the Clients tab that reside at an address within your segment. A client becomes a resident once they have validated their address with Google's API, while residing at an address within the applicable segment.
✏️ Add, Remove or Edit an Address
The Address Search bar can be used to check if an address is already in your segment. It is also used to add, remove or edit an address. Changes you make only affect the segment you're working on.
Add: Write the address in the search bar. When the address auto-populates, click on it and choose to ‘add it now’. You can enter an address manually by typing it in completely by hand. This is suggested if the address does not auto-populate when typed in the search bar (which means it isn't in Google's database).
Remove: Type the address in the search bar and then click Remove address.
Edit: To modify an address in your segment, search for it and then click edit.
🔄 Export, Import, Archive and/or Delete the Segment
Click the … icon for options to:
Export a list of all or a selection of the segment's addresses.
Import additional addresses into your segment. This will not remove existing addresses already in the segment. The tool identifies duplicates and discards them. You can also rename your segment.
Delete a segment if it's never been used.
Archive a segment if you no longer need it. It turns gray in your list of segments. Click on the grayed-out segment and then the … icon to unarchive.
Before you archive a segment, make sure it isn't associated to active memberships, registration periods and/or discounts. If you archive a segment that is linked to a discount, the segment will no longer be attached to the discount.
🔍 Search for Participants by Segment
In the Clients>People subtab, you can filter for participants within a community segment to send them an email or apply a batch fee. When performing any of these tasks, repeat for each page of results.
🗺️ View the Map
The Community Segments>Maps subtab provides a high-level view of your community segments. You can display one or more segments simultaneously. This allows you to pinpoint where residents are on the map and focus on areas of interest.
3. How to use Community Segments
Community Segments can be leveraged in several ways across your store!
💸 Create a Discount
You can create a ‘By Community Segment’ discount that applies when the address of a participant has been validated by Google and matches a record within the applicable community segment.
Community Segments can also be added as a criterion for Multi-Person and Combo type discounts.
🔴 Restrict Access to an Activity and/or Membership
You can select the community segment(s) that clients must be a part of to purchase a membership and/or enroll in an activity.
When configuring an individual or subscription membership, complete the Community Segments section if you wish to add those restrictions.
When configuring an activity, add a community segment restriction.
💵 Display a Price Range on your Offers
Price Range shows clients the lowest price they could pay if they are eligible for an item's discounts. Upon activating Community Segments, this feature is automatically enabled in your store and can be toggled on/off in the Store>Customize subtab.
Instead of seeing the price at $150, the client also sees the potential lowest price at $52.50. If multiple discounts are linked to an item, the client sees the lowest potential price if all discounts were applied. Click here to see which discounts support the price range feature.
4. How do you Validate an Address?
A resident is a client whose address is included in the community segment and has been validated with Google's API. An address can be validated by the client in their personal account, by an admin in the client's account, and/or in the store.
If you enter an address manually to a segment, Google may not find it in its database to validate. Don't worry; if a client's address is written exactly as it is in the segment, they'll be counted as a resident after confirming their address.
Validation in the personal account
Validation in the personal account
In the Members tab, clients will select an account member, scroll to the Address section, click ✏️ Edit and start typing in the address field. Google will auto-populate the whole address if it's found in its database. Clients must check 'I confirm this is my address'.
Validation by an admin in the client's account
Validation by an admin in the client's account
In the Clients tab, admins must search for the account and then go to the Account Members subtab to click on the member's name. In the Address section, start typing in the address field. Google will auto-populate the whole address if it's found in its database.
Validation in the store
Validation in the store
When adding an eligible activity in the cart or when filling the address form at checkout, everyone's address must be validated if it wasn't confirmed previously by the client or an admin (this could be the case if the participant doesn't have their address in their profile). If the Community Segments feature isn't activated, there's no prompt to validate an address when adding an item to the cart.
What is Address Verification?
While Google API validates addresses, there's another tool in SmartRec that requires residents to have a verified address. Address validation and address verification are not the same thing. Stay with us 😉.
Does your organization need residents to provide physical proof of their address? If so, check out the Community Segments > Settings to use the Address verification tool. This setting means that residents in the selected community segment(s) may only benefit from being in the segment if their address has been manually verified by an admin.
Check one or more community segments that require verification. You can change your selection at any time.
An admin must go in the client’s account and manually check the box under their Address to confirm they've seen visual proof. Only then will the resident be eligible for items/perks designated to the community segment.
❗ If a resident tries adding an item eligible by community segment to their cart and sees a pop-up window that says their address needs to be verified, they can't add the item to their cart until an admin checks the 'Address verified' box in their file.
Alternatively, an admin can disable the address verification tool in the Community Segments > Settings subtab.
5. What Clients can Expect in the Store
To be eligible for a community segment benefit, the client must attempt to validate their address with Google either prior to shopping in an organization's store or at one point during the checkout process.
Below, a client selects an offer eligible for a Community Segment discount and must validate their address prior to checkout:
The discount is displayed, and its details are shown when hovering over it.
Two participants are chosen for enrollment:
Sam had previously validated her address in her user account. She won't be prompted to confirm it again.
Korektor's address is not recorded in his profile (or was never validated), so SmartRec requests to confirm his address.
If the address is validated by Google and matches an address in the segment, the discount will appear on the invoice. If the address is not found in Google's database but matches an address in the segment, the discount will still appear on the invoice.
If the address cannot be validated and does not match the segment, it is not eligible.
At checkout, the discount is visible for each participant to which it was applied.
If a participant has a validated address in their profile that does not match the segment, no option to provide a new one will appear. If the participant's address has not been validated, they will be prompted to confirm it even if it doesn't match the segment. In both cases they won't be eligible to receive the discount.