Customer segmentation is more than a marketing tactic—it’s a strategic approach that drives revenue, improves customer experience, and enhances operational efficiency. However, many companies struggle with knowing which customers to prioritize and how to act on segmentation insights. This is where 180ops changes the game.
WHY SEGMENTATION SHOULDN’T BE UNDERESTIMATED
Not all customers contribute equally to revenue. A well-structured segmentation strategy enables companies to focus on high-value accounts, tailor messaging to different customer needs, and allocate resources efficiently. But without the right data, businesses often waste time on accounts that won’t move the needle.
According to McKinsey, 71% of consumers expect personalization–but it is impossible to do well without effective segmentation tailored to your business and customers.
Toni Keskinen, co-founder and CPO at 180ops, explains:
"Too often, companies think segmentation means just grouping customers by industry or company size. That’s not enough. You need a system that tells you exactly which customers to focus on, and more importantly, what actions to take. That’s what 180ops does—removes the guesswork from segmentation and turns it into a revenue-driving strategy."
SEGMENTING BASED ON CURRENT VALUE
One of the most used segmentation practices is founded on current value, Annual Revenue Per Account (ARPA).
This approach feels intuitively correct, which explains its widespread use. In this model, customer relationship resourcing is based on the idea of investing the most resources into customers delivering the highest revenue today.
- A-customers represent strategic accounts with Key Account Managers (KAMs) or account directors leading dedicated client teams.
- B-customers have a named account manager but receive less attention than A-customers.
- C- and D-customers are handled through contact centers and digital channels, with some companies prohibiting salespeople from personally serving these segments.
While intuitive, this model focuses solely on past revenue and creates a blind spot that can prevent companies from identifying future growth opportunities. Relying on historical data alone can introduce a dangerous bias into management decisions. Financial reporting often reinforces this bias by only reflecting available past performance data, rather than forecasting potential growth.
Consider two customers that both generate €1M ARPA:
Even though both customers appear similar in revenue contribution, they require entirely different strategic approaches. Without visibility into growth potential, companies risk misallocating resources.
SEGMENTATION ECONOMICS: BALANCING REVENUE POTENTIAL & COST OF SALES
Many B2B companies default to segmentation based on company size—SMB, mid-market, enterprise—assuming that revenue brackets alone define customer behavior. But this approach is dangerously simplistic. Businesses within the same size category can have vastly different sales cycles, decision-making structures, and product needs.
For example:
- SMBs tend to have shorter buying cycles and prioritize cost-effectiveness. They’re often more agile but expect solutions that deliver immediate impact with minimal friction.
- Mid-market companies require more tailored solutions than SMBs but expect speed and flexibility that large enterprises struggle to match.
- Enterprises bring in higher-value deals but have longer sales cycles, more stakeholders, and complex procurement processes, making the cost of acquisition and retention significantly higher.
While enterprise accounts bring in substantial revenue, they are often resource-intensive, requiring extensive pre-sales work, custom implementations, and dedicated account teams. If these customers don’t have a high enough lifetime value (LTV) to offset these costs, they may ultimately be less profitable than smaller, more efficient accounts.
On the other hand, SMBs are easier to close but may have lower deal sizes, requiring a high-volume, low-touch sales model to make them viable. Companies that understand this dynamic can optimize their segmentation strategies to prioritize accounts that offer both high revenue potential and an efficient cost-to-serve ratio.
PREDICTIVE SEGMENTATION: THE FUTURE OF REVENUE GROWTH
Traditional segmentation—firmographics, industry, and company size—only scratches the surface. The next evolution is predictive segmentation, which integrates real-time data and behavioral insights to forecast which accounts are most likely to expand, churn, or require additional support.
180ops takes segmentation a step further by providing actionable insights rather than just static categories. Most segmentation tools stop at categorization, leaving businesses uncertain about next steps. 180ops, in contrast, offers:
- Dynamic segmentation: Real-time updates that adjust based on customer behaviors and market changes.
- Offering penetration clarity: Identifying gaps in product or service adoption so businesses can drive expansion within existing accounts.
- Revenue impact forecasting: Predicting which customer segments will deliver the highest long-term value.
As a McKinsey report puts it:
AI coupled with company-specific data and context has enabled consumer insights at the most granular level…Winning B2B companies go beyond account-based marketing and disproportionately use hyper-personalization in their outreach.
THE BUSINESS IMPACT OF SMARTER SEGMENTATION
According to McKinsey, organizations that leverage customer behavioral insights outperform peers by 85% in sales growth and more than 25% in gross margin.
However, segmentation alone isn’t enough—without actionable insights, businesses risk making assumptions rather than informed decisions. With 180ops, the segmentation problem is solved in the following ways:
- Pinpointing High-Value Accounts – 180ops analyzes firmographic, behavioral, and value-based data to identify the most profitable customers.
- Clarifying Sales vs. Customer Success Roles – One of the biggest inefficiencies in B2B sales is sales teams spending too much time on existing customers instead of focusing on new business.
- Providing Actionable Insights – Many segmentation tools give broad categories but fail to tell companies what to do next. 180ops provides real-time insights that dictate specific actions, ensuring teams know when to engage, what to offer, and how to maximize revenue.
Your business will reduce wasted sales efforts, knowing exactly which accounts to direct teams to. As a result, revenue efficiency increases, further boosted by assigning the correct tasks to sales and customer success. Finally, your business can scale with confidence knowing its decisions are data-driven, not based on outdated models.
"Sales should be acquiring new customers, not managing offering penetration in existing accounts—that's a customer success role. 180ops makes this clear by identifying which accounts need customer success intervention and which should be the focus for sales."
–Toni Keskinen, 180ops
CONCLUSION
Customer segmentation isn’t just about organizing data—it’s about making smarter business decisions. 180ops removes the uncertainty and provides a clear, actionable approach to segmentation. By focusing on the right customers with the right message at the right time, businesses can optimize revenue, enhance engagement, and build long-term loyalty.
