Access
Segmentation isn't a self-serve toggle, it's enabled per organization. If you don't see it in your account, ask a manager to reach out to [email protected].
Step 1: Open Segmentation
There's no longer a dedicated Segmentation item in the left-hand menu. The most direct way in today is from Context studio: click the + next to Segmentations in the list on the left to start one, or open an existing segmentation from its list there.
If you have not yet setup the Segmentation, you can also go to 'Discovery' and click 'New segmentation' to start one.
Step 2: Create a new segment
Starting a new segmentation takes you to the "Let's find your best-fit segments" screen: "Segmentation groups your companies into clusters based on what they actually do. You can see who fits, how many of them exist, and where to focus."
Choose how you want to start:
Paste domains
Paste your company domains directly into the text box, one per line, or comma/space-separated. You'll need a minimum of 50 domains. A requirements checklist confirms this as you type. Click Confirm once met.
Upload a CSV
Drop your CSV file, or click Select file to choose one. Requirements: the file needs headers, and you'll need a minimum of 50 company domains. An example format is shown on-screen (e.g. a "Domain" column listing novonordisk.dk, walmart.com, costco.com).
Connect a CRM
Connect HubSpot, Salesforce, or Pipedrive to segment your already-synced companies. Once connected, confirm to use your synced companies, or pick a different source instead. You'll then be asked: "Which pipelines should we segment? Pick one or more to focus the segmentation, or leave it on all pipelines." Each pipeline is listed with its company count (e.g., "All pipelines, 100 companies," "Sales Pipeline, 56 companies"), select one, several, or leave it on all, then click Continue.
At any stage, click the pencil/edit icon under one of your earlier answers in the conversation to go back and choose a different starting method. This works until the preview starts.
Refine and finalize: Segmentation Preview mode
Once your data's in, you land in Preview mode, a two-panel view.
Right panel: your segments, each showing its company count, a cohesion percentage, and a few sample domains. At the top, you'll see overall totals (e.g., "4 segments, 637 companies"). Each segment has Split and Drop actions available directly.
Important, what "cohesion" actually means: cohesion is not a success or win rate. It reflects how tightly clustered and keyword-confident a segment is, how similar the companies within it look to each other. A high cohesion score (like 93%) just means the companies in that segment are more uniform; it says nothing about whether that segment actually converts or performs well. A segment's real performance only shows once closed deals feed CRM data back into it, until then, win rate shows as 0%, not because the segment is bad, but because there's no signal yet.
The AI conversation (left panel): the assistant proactively reviews your segments and suggests actions, with reasoning attached, for example, suggesting a merge because two segments "describe the same buyer type with near-identical overlap." Each suggestion appears as its own confirmable action.
You can also just ask it questions, for example, "where lies my best success rate and why is there 93% on the second segment?" gets you a plain-language explanation distinguishing cohesion (keyword-match confidence) from actual conversion performance, and tells you honestly when there isn't yet enough closed-deal data to answer that at all.
There's also a free-text box, "Or give a custom instruction...", to type your own request instead of relying on the AI's suggestions.
Doing it manually instead: in the right-hand panel, check the box next to any segment(s) you want to act on, Deselect all and Merge buttons then appear, letting you combine selected segments directly without typing anything.
Once you're happy, click "Approve segments." This brings you to the final step:
Pick a scoring model. Choose an existing lead-scoring model (built in Context) to score this segmentation with, or choose No model to continue without one. New segmentations no longer get a fresh, editable model built from scratch during setup, they're scored by whichever model you pick here.
Once you've made your selection, click Run segmentation.
Finalizing: Segmentation then runs lead scoring and post-processing on your approved segments. This is the final step and can take a few minutes, feel free to navigate away, you'll be notified when it's ready.
This entire Preview and finalization flow is free to use, refining and scoring doesn't cost credits.
When it's ready
Once finalization completes, you'll get a notification in Activities. From there, click View results to open your segments in Discovery. If you stay on the page while it finishes, you're taken to Discovery automatically.
Segmentation overview
Note: this overview, the Buying committee section and View model, further down, describe the older segmentation pages. They are not in the left-hand menu any more. You only reach them through some links inside Ocean.io or by their direct address. Discovery is where you work with your segments today.
At the top, you'll see the segmentation's name (e.g. "HubSpot"), when it was created and last updated, and its source (e.g. "HubSpot").
You can scroll to see all the Segments and then click on each segment to see the Companies inside that segment along with their Score and CRM Status.
Sorting segments
In the Segments view (open Discovery from the left-hand sidebar), you can see all your segments, ordered by segment score from highest to lowest.
Reviewing each segment
Each segment in the list shows a summary Card and Table:
Card:
Name and description: a plain-language summary (e.g. "AI- and data-led marketing and sales solutions that plug into existing stacks...")
Win rate, all time: the percentage of closed deals (won vs. lost) that were won
Revenue won, all time: total closed deal value (e.g. "$13M closed")
New deals, last 12 weeks: how many deals were opened in that time
Recommended companies: graded by fit, includes segment's own fit and also net new recommendations prioritized by score
Table:
Companies: total companies included (e.g. 6.9K)
Segments: a list of all the segments that were identified (e.g. 11)
Win Rate: a percentage of won deals across the whole segmentation
Closed: number of companies with won deals (e.g. 18)
Similar: total number of lookalikes companies that look like this segment
Note: 'Recommended companies' are the segment's own accounts and net new suggested accounts, graded by fit and score; whereas 'Similar companies' are outside accounts that resemble the segment.
All of this data comes directly from your own CRM, the wins, losses, and open deals you've actually had or your data in case you've uploaded a CSV or pasted companies, combined with Ocean's lookalike algorithm, which finds how many similar companies exist in Ocean's database beyond what's already in your CRM.
Actions available per segment:
Once you click on a segment, it opens up the segment details in a side panel. From there, you can:
View companies: opens the full segment detail view
Open N similar companies in search (with magnifying glass icon): sends this segment straight into the general search tab with showing you the suggested lookalikes, along with all standard filters available, so you can search within/around it directly
Edit scoring: in the Tiers card, takes you to the Models tab in Discovery, where you can see the scoring criteria
Inside a segment: the detail view
Clicking 'View companies' on any segment takes you to a dedicated detail page showing all your segment's companies along with few other details:
The segment page shows the segment's companies on the left and an overview panel on the right.
Company list (left)
Company: each company in the segment.
Score: the company's fit score with its tier badge (e.g. T1 · 100), sortable.
CRM status: Won, Lost, Open or No deal.
Segment overview (right panel)
Header: segment name and total number of companies (e.g. "Segment · 39 companies").
With a deal / No deal: how many companies in the segment have a deal in your CRM and how many don't.
Tiers: how the segment's companies are distributed across tiers T1–T4, with a link to Edit scoring.
Similar companies: the number of lookalike companies that match this segment, with a button to open them in Search, pre-filtered to the segment.
Outcomes:
Win rate: shown against the average across all segments. When a segment has few closed deals, its win rate is pulled toward that overall average so a small sample doesn't skew it.
Deal outcome breakdown: a bar showing won, lost, open and no-deal counts.
Closed won: total value of won deals, and its share of all revenue won.
Open pipeline: total value of open deals and how many there are.
Average deal: compared with the average across segments.
Average time to close: compared with the average across segments.
A note on how many closed deals and companies the figures are based on.
If this segment repeats: a funnel (Similar companies Engaged Opportunities Win rate Wins) that projects the potential revenue if the segment's historical conversion rates apply to similar companies. It ends in an estimated revenue figure and is labeled as a direction, not a forecast.
Similar Companies are basically Lookalikes: companies in Ocean's database that resemble this segment but aren't in your CRM yet, shown with the same scoring detail as the Companies tab.
Buying committee (older view): The people most worth talking to at companies in this segment's total addressable market (TAM) - including lookalike companies not yet in your CRM, not just the segment's labeled member companies - based on the actual pattern of who you've successfully closed deals with (seniority and department). Shows matched contacts across that wider pool, ranked by fit to your won-deal pattern, with quick actions to access email/phone and see CRM status (Net new vs. In CRM). You can control how many people are shown per company.
(If there isn't yet a won-deal pattern for a segment, e.g. no closed deals yet, this tab will say so plainly rather than guessing.)
Under "Matched contacts," you'll see contacts across the segment, ordered by fit to your won-deal pattern, with:
Name and LinkedIn link
Job title
Seniority (e.g. Founder, C-level, Manager, Director, sometimes multiple tags per contact)
Company they work at, with a link
Quick actions: a row of icons for common actions
Access email and Access phone: separate reveal buttons for that contact's direct contact details
CRM status: whether they're already In CRM or Net new
Bulk actions: select several contacts to reveal email/phone, add to leads, add to a sequence, or export to CSV, your CRM, or a webhook, using the same selection toolbar as search results.
You can control how many people are shown per company using the "People / company" count selector (e.g. set to 3).
(If there isn't yet a won-deal pattern for a segment, e.g. no closed deals yet, this tab will say so plainly rather than guessing.)
View model: how a segment is scored (older view)
Click View model (top-right of the segment detail view) to see the signals and weights behind the model scoring this segment. This view is read-only, models are built and edited in Context, not from inside a segmentation.
The view shows rule groups like Company Size or Industries (Ocean.io), each listing specific value ranges (e.g. "11-50 employees," "51-200 employees") with a weight per range, positive weights boost that range's importance, negative weights suppress it. Scores are grouped into four tiers (T1 highest, T4 lowest), scoped to this specific segment, not the whole segmentation or any other segment's list.
This view doesn't link out to edit the model directly, models are built and managed from Context. To send this segment's lookalike companies to Ocean's general search tab, use Open N similar companies in search in the segment's side panel in Discovery, where N is the number of similar companies. There you can refine them further with all standard filters.
Creating a new Model
You can create a new model (Rank companies by the signals that matter to your sales team) by going to:
1. Context studio > the + next to Models (choose Build from scratch or Build from your CRM)
2. Discovery > Models > Create model
Managing multiple segmentations
The list on the left side of Context studio, under Segmentations, shows every segmentation you've created. From here you can:
Switch between different segmentations you've created
Open an existing segmentation
Rename a segmentation, make a finished one the active segmentation with Make active, or remove a draft you have not finished with Discard draft (all from the three-dot menu ••• next to each segmentation)
You can also create a new one from Context by clicking New segmentation.
Exporting
Wherever you're viewing companies or contacts, inside a segment, in the Companies view, or in a lookalike search result, exporting is simple: just select what you need and export it. No separate setup or extra steps required.
Cost
Viewing results uses standard search credits
Exporting can use credits, depending on your plan. The export window shows the cost before you confirm
Segmentation limit: your organization has a limit on how many segmentations it can create. Archived, failed and discarded segmentations still count toward it. If you reach the limit, contact [email protected] to raise it
Tips for best results
Use at least 100 companies
Prioritize real customers over prospects
Separate different segments (e.g. enterprise vs. mid-market)
Re-run regularly as your data grows
Ensure inputs are clean, valid domains only
Have a connected CRM or a larger customer base? Segmentation gets significantly stronger with more real win/loss history to learn from, reach out to [email protected] and we'll help you get set up for the best possible results.
FAQ
Can I use Segmentation via API?
Yes, with some limitations, API-created segments are fully accessible, but UI-created segments (via CSV/CRM upload) aren't yet available through the API.
Is my data shared?
No. Your data is private and used only to build your segmentation model. It's not shared, and it's not used to train any global models.
Need help?
Use the in-app chat, or reach out to us at [email protected].












