How can I segment based on website activity? (e.g., pages visited, content downloaded)

Website visits tell you what someone's actually interested in before they hit send or fill out a form. Pricing page browsers. Whitepaper downloaders. Blog lurkers who read the same category three times. That's intent-rich data you can't get from demographics or email behavior alone.

Here's the technical foundation. You need three things: a tracking source, a data pipeline, and segment rules in your ESP.

Step 1: Install tracking. Use Google Analytics, Segment, or your ESP's native tracking script. These tools fire events when someone visits a specific page, downloads content, or spends time in a section. You're not tracking PII at this stage. Just the actions.

Step 2: Map activity to your ESP. Connect your tracking source to your email platform via API, webhook, or native integration. Create custom fields or properties for each activity type: "pricing_page_visits", "ebook_downloads", "feature_guide_reads". Most ESPs let you update these fields automatically when activities occur.

Step 3: Build segments. In your ESP's segment builder, create rules like "pricing_page_visits = 3 in last 7 days" or "downloaded_template_2_ebooks". Now you've got a real audience of pricing shoppers or content hoarders. You can trigger a nurture series automatically when someone enters the segment.

Layer recency and frequency. Someone who visited your pricing page yesterday has hotter intent than someone who visited six months ago. Segment by last activity date to focus on warm leads. If someone browses weekly, they're more engaged than a one time visitor. Time your emails accordingly.

Start simple. Pick one behavior you want to capture. Get that working end-to-end, measure conversion, then add more segments. Learn trigger-based automation to send emails right after intent signals occur.