Segment Review 2024: Features, Pros & Cons

• Segment ranks as Forbes Advisors’ number one best customer data platform.
• It is an industry-leading customer data platform known for its vast integration capabilities.
• In addition to unifying data, Segment is a top-rated data debugging tool.
• Segment is headquartered in San Francisco and launched in 2012 as Segment.io

Pros

Segment is an industry-leading customer data platform that enables businesses to connect, collect and compile customer data. It connects with most major platforms, websites, tools and apps, which makes it helpful in organizing and understanding customer data. For example, users can create real-time product personalizations, leading to improved user experience and increased sales. Another feature that Segment stands out for is its debugging tool, which helps users troubleshoot potential issues during the data transfer process.

Cons

As many great features as there are with Segment, that’s not to say there aren’t some downsides to be aware of. To start, it has a steep learning curve–as complex platforms often do. It can be cumbersome to set up, even though it does a decent job of walking new users through the setup process. In terms of cost, its paid plans are not cheap tools and as with any customer data platform, be prepared to invest in the long run as it takes time to collect meaningful data.

Segment works by unifying all websites, apps and tools to give users one centralized source of data. In turn, this helps make the process of collecting and analyzing data much more efficient and enabling a much more effective optimization process―whether that means building better ads, writing improved email copy, creating better sales and offers or better positioning products to consumers.

Users can connect to many different types of data sources, such as their website or online store, email marketing campaigns, customer relationship management (CRM) platforms, mobile platforms (iOS and Android) and more. With connections in place, users can view all data across all platforms, including all data by customer. For example, a business could see that a customer opened an email, clicked a Facebook ad and made a purchase via their Shopify website. All of this data is then sent to designated “destinations” such as Google Analytics, Mixpanel or the Facebook Pixel.

First, Segment is a customer data platform that is designed to enhance the collection, unification and optimization of customer data. At its core, it simplifies the process of collecting and managing data across a wide range of sources. It also has cross-channel engagement, customizable customer data pipelines, reverse extract, transform, loads (ETLs) and more.

Cross-channel Engagement

Segment’s cross-channel engagement feature helps users create personalized customer journeys across your various touchpoints seamlessly, such as your website, app, social media and email. Using this unified data, savvy marketing teams can develop targeted messages, which can be deployed across your channels to speak to your customers and their unique needs more effectively. In turn, it helps to drive more sales and increase brand loyalty.

Customizable Customer Data Pipelines

What’s unique about Segment’s customizable customer data pipelines is that they enable users to route their data to specified destinations, such as Mixpanel or Google Analytics. In addition to routing data, it also enables users to customize how data is collected, filtered and sent. Users can create custom rules and set specific controls to further customize which types of data are collected and where data sets go. This helps enable real-time data processing, giving users the ability to gain deeper insights quickly.

Reverse ETL

Another key feature of Segment is reverse ETL. This is the process of moving data from a data warehouse to a designated third-party software. This aims to help make data much more operational so businesses can use it to leverage day-to-day insights more effectively. This bidirectional data can be employed in a number of ways but some of the most common examples include improved decision-making, optimized marketing strategies and campaigns, improved customer service or even enhanced product development.

A unique aspect of Segment is that it can be used in conjunction with Mixpanel. Together, the two supercharge a business’s data analytics capabilities. The reason it is highly beneficial to use the two together is that while Segment offers a tremendous amount of data, Mixpanel helps users gain more in-depth and actionable insights. This is very helpful, even for businesses that have marketing teams managing customer data because it helps uncover key information and trends quickly, enabling teams to optimize and deploy improved content fast.

	Free	Team
Pricing	$0	$120 per month
Data sources	Two	Unlimited
Maximum visitors	1,000 per month	10,000 per month ($10 per month per 1,000 extra visitors)
Reverse ETL records	500,000	1 million
Integrations	450-plus	450-plus
Public API access	No	Yes

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Free Plan

Segment’s free plan is available at no cost and gives users the ability to connect up to two connections, such as your website and your email marketing platform, and up to 1,000 visitors per month. Users on the free plan also get up to 500,000 reverse ETL records and full access to Segment’s catalog of over 450 integrations. Although it’s very limited in terms of both connections and monthly visitors, it is a great way for new users to familiarize themselves with Segment.

Team Plan

For those that are looking to connect numerous data sources and supercharge their data collection, there’s the Team plan. It costs $120 per month and includes unlimited connections, up to 10,000 monthly visitors, 1 million reverse ETL records and public API access. Although its monthly visitor limit is still fairly low for businesses with high traffic volumes, users can increase their visitor limit to $10 per month per 1,000 visitors.

Most users will find that they need to use the Team plan to obtain meaningful data across channels. However, it is a good idea to start with the Free plan if you are new to Segment. Alternatively, it doesn’t advertise a free trial, but it does offer a two-week free trial of the Team plan upon request.

What’s nice is that Segment offers a free version where users can create a new account and connect to two data sources. To do so, navigate to the Segment site and click the option to “Create a free account.” From there, you will be asked to provide your name, email address and password. Note that Segment will automatically pull your business info based on your email address, so be sure to use your business email as opposed to a personal one. Next, you must verify your email address

After verifying your email, you will be able to access your account. There, you will be prompted to “Get started” and connect data sources and “destinations,” which is where you wish to send your data to. To connect to a data source, click the “Add sources” button, select your source from the source catalog. For example, to connect your website, select Shopify if your site is built with Shopify or JavaScript for every other content management system (CMS). If connecting Segment to your website via JavaScript, you will need to input your URL and then copy and paste the code into your site.

When it comes to ease of use, Segment is pretty easy to set up. Creating a new account is straightforward, and it does a good job of making the process of connecting data sources and adding data destinations straightforward with its intuitive prompts. However, where the learning curve comes in is that it’s not necessarily easy to learn how to use. While it offers a large learning library, new users should plan to take the time to read through it as it’s not overly self-explanatory from within the user dashboard.

It’s also worth mentioning that while it unifies data, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it helps users disseminate and use data to optimize efforts. So, yes, it is tremendously useful in terms of collecting and organizing data in one place, businesses will need to then draw their insights and ideas as to how to use this data to improve upon their processes. That said, it will be important for businesses that are using Segment to have a designated person to manage it and use the information, such as an in-house marketing team.

Segment offers a myriad of security features, including a Privacy Portal in all Segment workplaces. Upon creating a new account, one of the first steps upon accessing the user dashboards is to configure security settings, such as enabling multifactor authentication (MFA). Within the Privacy Portal, users can control which data is allowed to enter Segment and block data at the source level. For example, you can block credit card numbers, passwords, birthdates or anything else that you do not want to enter Segment.

To access technical support, users will need to log into their accounts, click to expand the dropdown menu from the upper right-hand corner and select “Contact Support.” From there, users will be prompted to complete the support questionnaire. While support is highly rated amongst users and is generally prompt, it does not specify how quickly support will get back to you. So, while providers often note that it will, say, support will respond within 24 business hours, Segment does not advertise a turnaround time. This isn’t ideal in general, but its lack of live, immediate support could prove troublesome for users who face large issues that they want to be resolved quickly.

	Segment	Optimove	Totango	ActionIQ
Forbes Advisor Ratings
Starting price	Free; $120 per month	Must contact for a quote	$249 per month (billed annually)	Does not disclose
Free trial	Two weeks	Not available	14 days	Not available
Single customer view	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Real-time data	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Customizable customer data pipelines and journeys	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Reverse ETLs	Yes	No	Traditional ETL via Redshift integration	Available via a third-party integration
Mixpanel integration	Yes	No	Yes	No

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Segment vs. Optimove

Both Segment and Optimove are top-rated customer data platforms, though they are not without their differences. While Segment stands out for its advanced integrations and data collection capabilities, Optimove stands out for its combination of customer data and relationship marketing. Unlike Segment, it comes out of the box with features that are designed to help users gain actionable insights and automate targeted marketing communications. Granted, this is something that Segment is also capable of―it does require integrations to support this functionality.

Segment vs. Totango

Another top Segment alternative is Totango. It’s also a leading customer data platform, but it does have a key difference: it focuses on customer success. It does this by homing in on customer behavior data with the goal of improving engagement with customers. In a sense, it’s not all that different from what Segment is capable of, but it does help make it easier for users to achieve this goal as it is already geared towards this. Another difference is that Totango costs substantially more at $249 per month. So, again, it may help further make the process easier, although this does come at a literal cost.

Segment vs ActionIQ

When comparing Segment to ActionIQ, the two are very similar and yet, similar to Optimove and Totango, ActionIQ has a more specific focus area than Segment’s broad customer data platform (CDP) focus on data integration and routing. Instead, ActionIQ zeros in on helping users create personalized marketing campaigns. One major downfall of ActionIQ in comparison to Segment is that it does not offer a free plan or a free trial. Instead, it only offers users a demo, which does not give users hands-on experience.

Segment is ideal for businesses with extensive data who are looking for a more effective way of routing and analyzing data to enhance their marketing, customer service and sales. Although it’s not necessarily a difficult tool, it does involve a fairly steep learning curve and a good amount of time to collect meaningful data, so it’s best for businesses that are looking to invest in both time and money. Because it doesn’t offer as many marketing-related insights as some of its competitors, it’s best suited for businesses with savvy in-house marketing teams that can handle and leverage the data and insights it provides.

Segment is an industry-leading customer data platform and for good reason. It’s one of the most flexible CDPs on the market thanks to its vast number of connections and integrations. With a free plan for up to two connections and transparent pricing as low as $120 per month for unlimited connections, it’s one of the best values in the market–on top of being one of the most comprehensive data collection and routing platforms.