Overview Custom Fields MailBlue

For storing information about your contacts, MailBlue offers standard fields. You can also use custom contact fields to collect additional information about contacts that are important to your business.

All custom contact fields that are created will be displayed on the 'Manage fields' page, contact profile pages, CSV import page, the segment builder, and when creating forms (inline forms only).

This article covers the following topics:

  1. How to create a custom contact field?

  2. What types of custom contact fields are available?

  3. How to update the field value of a custom contact field?

  4. How to edit a custom contact field?

  5. Personalisation tags

  6. How to use custom contact fields?

How to Create a Custom Contact Field?

You can create an unlimited number of custom contact fields and organise them by field group. Custom contact fields can be created from the 'Manage fields' page, each contact profile page, each inline form, and the 'Contacts' page import in your MailBlue account.
In this section, we will show you how to create a field group and the different ways to create a custom contact field.

 

Create a Field Group

Field groups are created on the 'Manage fields' page in your account. You can use this feature to group similar custom contact fields together, making it easy to find relevant information and get a clear overview of the page and all contact profile pages.

With field groups, you can:

  1. Select which group a custom contact field belongs to when creating a field from the Manage fields page or a contact profile page.

  2. Drag a custom contact field from one group to another.

  3. Use the bulk actions dropdown menu on the 'Manage fields' page to delete a selection of custom contact fields, create a new field group from selected fields, or move the selected fields to another field group.

Custom fields created based on forms, CSV imports, and integrations are automatically added to the 'General details' field group. Standard fields such as 'First name', 'Last name', 'Email', and 'Phone' cannot be removed from the 'General details' field group.

You can create a custom contact field group by following these steps:

  1. Click on 'Contacts' > 'Manage fields' in the left menu. 
  2. Click on the 'Contacts' tab.
  3. Click on 'Add group'.

    Screenshot 2024-05-02 at 10.21.41.png

  4. A window will appear. Type the name in the designated field.
  5. Click on the 'Create' button.

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The group will be displayed on the 'Manage fields' page and all contact profile pages. You can change the name of the field group at any time. To do this, hover over the name of the field group and click on the pencil icon.

To delete a group, hover over the group you want to delete and click on the trash can icon. A window will appear, asking you to move fields to another group. Once you have selected a group to move existing fields to, click on 'Delete'.

 

Create a custom contact field on the 'Manage fields' page

  1. Click on 'Contacts' > 'Manage fields' in the left menu.
  2. Click on the 'Add field' button on the right side.
  3. Type the name of the field in the field.
  4. Select the group to which the field should be added by clicking on 'Group'.
  5. Click on 'Field type' and select the type of field you want to create. You can also add answer options for checkbox, dropdown menus, choice lists, and checkboxes fields.
  6. Click on the 'Add' button.

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The new custom contact field will appear on both the 'Manage fields' page and on the contact person's profile pages under the field group you selected. The field is also available on the CSV import page, segment builder, and when creating forms (only inline forms).

 

Create a custom contact field from an inline form

  1. Click on 'Website' and then 'Forms'.
  2. Select the form where you want to add the custom field.
  3. Click on the plus sign next to 'Custom fields'.
    Screenshot 2024-05-02 at 10.38.48.png
  4. Give the field a name and click on 'Field type'. Then select the type of field you want to create.
  5. Then click on 'Add'.

Any new custom contact field you create from the form builder will be added by default to the 'General details' field group. To change the group for this field, go to the 'Manage fields' page and drag it to another group.

The new custom contact field will be displayed on the 'Manage fields' page, contact person's profile pages, CSV import page, segment builder, and when creating forms under 'Custom fields' (only inline forms).

 

Create a custom contact field from the 'Import Contacts' page

When importing contacts from a CSV file, you can create new custom contact fields directly from the import page.

  1. Click on the 'Import' button from the contacts page.

  2. Click on the 'Import from file' button.

  3. Select the CSV file you want to import.

  4. When mapping CSV columns to fields, you can create a new field by clicking on the dropdown list "Map into field" > "[Add new field]."

 

What types of custom contact fields are available?

You can create different types of custom fields:

  1. Text input
    This is a traditional text input field that collects a small piece of data a contact would type. You can use this to gather short, typed responses from contacts when they submit a form, such as a name or phone number.

  2. Text area
    With this field type, contacts can type multiple lines of text, allowing you to collect more data from contacts. You can use this to gather longer typed responses from contacts when they submit a form, such as multi-sentence answers to a question on a form, notes, and so on.

  3. Date
    This is used to specify a date and includes month, day, and year, and can be used to collect birthdates, anniversaries, events, and more. The date field in a form uses the following format: DD-MM-YYYY. When submitting the form, the date is converted to the date format you have set up in your account. If you do not want to use this date format, you should use a text input field to collect date information. When importing a CSV file, date fields must also use the format DD-MM-YYYY.

  4. Dropdown
    This utilises a pre-made set of options that contacts can select when submitting a form. This field type is recommended if you have ten or more options for contacts to choose from. If you have fewer than ten options, use a Radio Button instead.

  5. List box
    This field type displays a list of pre-made options for contacts to choose from. Contacts must shift-click to select more than one answer option for this field.

  6. Radio Button
    This custom field type functions similarly to the dropdown field type; contacts can only choose one answer from a list of pre-made answers. However, the visual representation is different.

  7. Checkbox
    With this custom field type, contacts can choose one or more answer options from a pre-made list of options.

  8. Hidden field
    This custom field type is a text field and is not visible to contacts. You can use this to assign pieces of information to contacts when they submit a form.

 

How do you update the field value of a custom contact field?

Custom field values for contacts can be updated in the following ways:

  • Manually on the contact profile page

  • When a contact submits a form

  • CSV import

  • Bulk actions

  • The automation action 'Update contact'

  • Through an integration or API

 

How do you customise a contact field?

You can use the configuration options to edit any custom contact field you create in your MailBlue account. To do this, go to 'Contacts' > 'Manage' > 'Fields'. Click on the 'Pen' icon next to a custom contact field on the page to display additional configuration options.

You can edit the following:

  • Field name
    This is the name of the field you have created. Once updated, the change will be reflected on the 'Manage fields' page, contact profile pages, any automations referring to this field, and the segment builder. The field name will not be updated on forms referring to this field.

  • Edit or add value options (if applicable)
    This only applies to dropdowns, checkboxes, radio buttons, or multi-select field types. Here you can edit existing value options, add new value options, remove a value option, or change the order in which the value options appear.

  • Set a default value for your field
    Some of your contacts may not have a value for a field you create and will display as empty. With the default value, you can select which value should be displayed in that custom field for the contact instead of no value.

By clicking on the 'Visible on forms' checkbox, you can use this field on inline forms. This box is checked by default for all fields.

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To assign a custom field to specific list(s), click on the 'Show advanced' option. By default, all fields are set to 'All lists'. This means that the custom field will be displayed on all contact profile pages, regardless of which list the contact is linked to.

 

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Personalisation tags

We generate personalisation tags for each custom contact field you create. You can use personalisation tags to dynamically add the value of a field to your emails.

 

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To use a personalisation tag in a campaign or automation email, click on the 'Merge tags' button that appears when you click on a block:

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Then click on the personalisation tag you want to add to your email.

 

How to use custom contact fields?

Custom contact fields can be used for more than just storing contact information. For example, you can use these fields to:

  1. Trigger automations
    Activate an automation based on a date-based field or when the value of a field changes.

  2. Use custom contact fields in the segment builder
    All custom contact fields you create are available in the segment builder. You can use these conditions to create list segments for email campaigns, 'if/else' steps in automations, set up "Split-test" automations, update a deal or contact score, create goal actions in automations, and more.

  3. Collect information from contacts (inline forms only)
    Use custom fields to gather additional information from contacts when they submit a form.

  4. Personalise communication
    Increase engagement with your campaigns and automation emails using personalisation tags. When a personalisation tag is used in a campaign or automation email, the value of that tag is automatically inserted once the communication is sent to a contact. When the contact opens the communication, they will see the value for that tag and not the tag itself.

 

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