Contact fields are used to store information about your subscribers, such as birth dates, age, location, email preferences, and more. You can create a variety of contact fields using several different field types, as explained below. You can then use the data collected in these fields to create segments or personalize email content. After you’ve created contact fields, they can be added to your signup forms and Subscription Center.
Contact field types
Field type | Description |
---|---|
Short answer | Entries can be up to 255 characters long; accepts numbers, letters, spaces, and symbols. |
Long answer | Entries can be up to 2,500 characters; accepts numbers, letters, spaces, and symbols. |
Numeric answer | This field accepts numbers and decimal points only. If a number is entered without a decimal point, our system will add a .0 by default. To make a numeric value negative, include “-” in front and it will import and render properly in the contact field. |
Use this field to store numeric values intended for use in segments or integrations requiring math. For numeric values such as phone numbers or age, use the Short answer field type. | |
Radio button menu | A short list of options, where only one option can be selected. |
Select multiple | A list of options, where one or more options can be selected. |
Dropdown menu | A dropdown list, where only one option can be selected. |
Checkbox menu | A list of checkboxes, where one or more options can be selected. |
Date picker | Select a date from a calendar. |
Postal code | Accepts numbers and text; intended for 5-digit US postal codes. Numbers are preferred for radius calculations. For international postal codes, use the Short answer field type. |
State | An alphabetized list of all the states within the US. The full state name is necessary for segmentation purposes and they are displayed in a dropdown menu. |
Country | An alphabetized list of widely recognized countries, displayed as a dropdown menu. |
How to create new contact fields
To create a new contact field, simply follow these steps:
- Navigate to your Audience tab.
- Click on the Contact fields section in the panel on the left.
- Click on the Create contact field button on the right.
- In the pop-up window that appears, give your new field a name, then click on the Field type dropdown menu to select the type of field that you want.
- If you chose a radio button menu, select multiple, dropdown menu, or checkbox menu, enter the options in the box provided. Options are limited to 255 characters each.
- Click on the Save button.
If you’re having trouble saving a new field, please refer to the section below about contact field names.
You can also create a new contact field while importing a spreadsheet. During step 2 of the import process, you’ll need to map the contact fields on your sheet. To create a new field, click on the dropdown menu that corresponds to the desired column and choose the Add field option at the bottom of the menu.
Helpful tips for creating contact fields
Once a contact field has been created, its field type cannot be changed. The options for a radio button menu, select multiple, dropdown menu, or checkbox menu can be edited, but the field type itself will remain the same.
Due to caching, new contact fields can take up to 24 hours to appear in the editor’s personalization tag list. However, you can still type it in manually and it will work without any trouble.
Numeric fields should only be used for fields that you intend to do math with. In most cases, it’s best to choose the short answer field type instead of the numeric field type, even if the data that will be going in that field will be all numerals. Numeric fields only accept decimal points and numerals; they do not accept dashes (unless the dash is indicating a negative number), dollar signs, or any other characters. This is a common source of error when importing, so we strongly recommend that you use the short answer field type when possible.
Contact field names
Contact fields have two types of names: a display name and a shortcut name. The shortcut name is how our system identifies the field at a code level. When a field is created, the name that you enter is used to generate the shortcut name. Due to the nature of shortcut names, each field’s shortcut name must be unique.
Shortcut names cannot be reused, even if the original contact field has been archived.
When you create a new field, the name that you give it must be unique, since that’s used to generate the shortcut name. Once the field has been created, you can change the display name to whatever you’d like. For example, if you create a numeric type contact field named Customer Code, that will generate the shortcut name customer-code. However, once the field is created, you realize that this field would be better off as a short answer field type, since you don’t want the “.0” that our system adds at the end of data in numeric fields. It’s not possible to change a field type, so here are the steps that you can take to fix this:
- Click on your original Customer Code field and change the display name to Customer Code (numeric).
- Save the updated name and return to the Manage contact fields page.
- Click on the Create contact field button on the right.
- In the pop-up window that appears, choose the short answer field type and name this field Customer Code Text.
- Click on the Save button.
- Once the Customer Code Text field has saved, click on it to open it.
- Change the display name so that it’s just Customer Code.
Once these steps are complete, you will have a new short answer contact field with the shortcut name customer-code-text and the display name Customer Code. Your original numeric type field will have the shortcut name customer-code and the display name Customer Code (numeric). You can either archive your original numeric field or keep it active, whichever you prefer.
Certain field names are also reserved for code reasons and cannot be used. For example, you cannot create a field named Account, since this has the potential to cause processing trouble.
How to edit a contact field
As noted above, once a contact field has been created, you can’t change the field type or the shortcut name. However, you can change the display name and edit the options for multiple-option contact fields, by following the instructions below:
- Navigate to your Audience tab.
- Click on the Contact fields section in the panel on the left.
- To edit a field, click on the field name. You can also click on the corresponding dropdown arrow and select Edit field.
If you need to change the name of a contact field to display it on your signup form, you can also edit the display name on the form itself, instead of changing the contact field name.
Notes on making multiple-option field changes
You can edit the list of options available for multiple-option contact fields — like the “Radio button menu” or “Checkbox menu” — however, it’s important to understand the possible outcomes of any changes you make.
When contact field values are used to create segments, the values are case sensitive. To use the “Color preference” example pictured above, let’s say your original option values were lowercase, “yellow, blue, green”, but you later changed them to title case, “Yellow, Blue, Green”. A segment created to group contacts who selected “yellow” as their color preference, would not include contacts with a value of “Yellow”. You can get around this by adding another rule to the segment so that both “yellow” and “Yellow” are included, but the person creating the segment would need to know that the option values were originally lowercase.
How to archive or restore fields
As previously mentioned, contact fields cannot be deleted, but they can be archived. To do this, click on the dropdown arrow that corresponds to the desired contact field and select Archive field from the menu.
After you have archived at least one contact field, a list of the archived fields will appear at the bottom of the page. To reactivate a field, simply click on the corresponding dropdown arrow and select Restore field from the menu.
How to reorder fields
You can customize the order of your contact fields on the Manage contact fields page. To do this, click on the dots to the left of the contact field name, then drag and drop it into a new location.
The display order of your contact fields can also be changed through your signup form. However, any changes made to the signup form will overwrite the order set on the Manage contact fields page.