In the world of marketing automation, the power of Groups cannot be overstated. In many ways, they're the foundation for successful message outreach. Why? Because groups enable you to logically organize your contacts based on organizational need, interest, activity, and even engagement level.

This results in a more targeted outreach approach that greatly increases their relevancy to their contacts, which in turn greatly increases the chances for engagement. In addition, Groups help streamline contact management and message-tracking statistics.

To manage your Groups:

1. Access the Admin interface.
2. Navigate to Contacts > Groups.

TIP: On list pages, click a column header to sort on that column. Click the columns count below the list to add and remove columns in the current view.

Watch the video

NOTE: This video is a comprehensive contact management overview. Manual contact uploading is discussed starting at 00:22:55.

Create a Group

1. Click the plus sign to the right of the page title.
2. In the dialog:

1. Give the Group an appropriate name.
2. Optionally, click select... to open the Select Folder dialog and place the Group into a folder.
3. By default, you'll be the Owner of the Group. If you'd like it to be someone else, click the link, select the user in the dialog, and click Select.
4. Click Create to add it to the list.

Manage folders

You can organize your groups by grouping similar or related groups into folders. Because the Groups list displays all of your groups by default, organizing them into folders enables you to isolate a group of groups to more easily work with and manage them.

TIP: Create folders and organize your groups from the beginning; otherwise, it will be a more time consuming and difficult task doing so after dozens of groups have been created. See Folders to learn more.

To manage your folders:

1. Click the folder icon in the upper right.
2. Click a folder's ellipsis icon to access the following options:

TIP: In the dialog, you can click the plus (+) and minus (—) symbols to expand and collapse the folder structure.

• View - View the contents of a folder on its own list page with the groups that it contains. When a folder is selected, Viewing: All in the upper left becomes a View All button which, when clicked, displays the original full list of groups.

NOTE: When you're viewing a folder, its name displays above the list and the folder icon is solid orange.



To restore the original full list of groups, click the folder icon and then click the View All button.

• New Folder - Create a sub-folder in this folder.
• Rename - Rename this folder.

NOTE: You cannot rename Main Folder.

• Delete - Delete this folder.

NOTE: You cannot delete Main Folder, a folder that has sub-folders, or a folder that was created by a different user.

3. Click Close.

Bulk-upload Contacts to a Group

In addition to adding individual contacts, you can save time by batch uploading a large number of contacts via a tab-delimited .txt or .csv file, or a .zip file that contains either of these.

To batch upload contacts:

1. Click the upload icon above the list to access the upload configuration page.

2. In section 1:

WARNING: If your data file does not have a Custom Member ID field, the upload will fail.

1. Click Browse to locate and select your data file.
2. Click the link below to select whether your list using normal or special characters. See Upload Contacts to learn more about special characters.

3. In section 2, configure any field mapping as needed. See Upload Contacts to learn more about field mapping.
4. In section 3, select whether to upload this batch of contacts to a new group or an existing group. For more information on these options, see Upload Contacts.
5. After configuring the chosen upload method, click Next.
6. After reviewing your upload selections on the next page, click Upload List on the confirmation page; an "upload processing" message will display.

NOTE: When the upload has finished, you can email the results to another user, manage the group, and queue up another upload. You can also download a "rejected records" file, if any records are rejected.

7. Return to the Groups List and verify that the contacts have been added to the Group.

TIP: If any of your groups are used in a campaign, you can use a saved search to automatically add new recipients to their assigned group. Learn more in the Group updates section of Marketing Automation Search.

Add individual Contacts to a Group

While batch uploading contacts is possible on this page, you manage an individual contact's Group memberships on the Contacts List.

See the Manage a Contact's Group Membership section of the Manage Contacts article to learn more.

Copy Contacts to another Group

Select the Group and click Contacts to view all of the Group's contacts.

At this point, you can either:

• copy ALL of the group's contacts or
• multi-select contacts to copy two or more.

Copy all Contacts

1. Click the Copy Contacts icon at the top right.

2. In the dialog, you can:

1. Add the contacts to a new group. All you need to do is provide a name for the new group and click Add to complete the copy action.
2. Add the contacts to an existing group. Select this option to display all existing Groups in the dialog; select the desired group and click Add to complete the copy action.

3. Return to the Groups List and verify the contacts were added to the selected Group.

Copy multiple Contacts

The button used to multi-select rows is device-dependent. To select more than one row, hold the Ctrl (Windows) or command (Mac) key and select each of the other rows you want to manage. To select a continuous list on PC and Mac, click one row, then hold the Shift key and click the last row.

TIP: After multi-selecting BUT before acting on the selected contacts, you can add and deselect contacts via the check boxes to their left.

1. Using the button appropriate for your device, select the contacts you want to copy.

2. Click Add to Group in the Preview Panel.
3. In the dialog, you can:

1. Add the contacts to a new group. All you need to do is provide a name for the new group and click Add to complete the copy action.
2. Add the contacts to an existing group. Select this option to display all existing Groups in the dialog; then select the desired group and click Add to complete the copy action.

4. Return to the Groups List and verify the contacts were added to the selected Group.

Remove Contacts from a Group

Select the Group and click Contacts to view all of the Group's contacts.

At this point, you can either:

• remove one or more contacts individually or
• multi-select contacts to simultaneously remove multiple contacts.

Remove a single Contact

1. Select a contact and click Remove.

2. Click Remove in the confirmation dialog to remove the contact from the group.

Remove multiple Contacts

The button used to multi-select rows is device-dependent. To select more than one row, hold the Ctrl (Windows) or command (Mac) key and select each of the other rows you want to manage. To select a continuous list on PC and Mac, click one row, then hold the Shift key and click the last row.

TIP: After multi-selecting BUT before acting on the selected contacts, you can add and deselect contacts via the check boxes to their left.

1. Using the button appropriate for your device, select the contacts you want to remove.

2. Click Remove from Group in the Preview Panel.
3. Click Remove in the confirmation dialog to remove the contacts from the group.

Group message-tracking statistics

The Group Results page displays message-tracking statistics for:

• all messages that have been sent to this Group and
• the actions that were taken on those messages by contacts in this group.

NOTE: The page filters for send jobs that contain the group ID in the record.

To see a Group's message-tracking statistics:

1. Select a Group to enable the Track button at the top right.

2. Click Track to access Group Results page.

The page displays the following message-activity statistics, which are based in the number of messages sent to this Group.

• Sent - The number of messages sent to this Group.
• Delivered - The number of messages successfully delivered.
• Opened - The number of messages that were opened.
• Links - The number of contacts who clicked links.
• Unsubscribed - The number of contacts who clicked the Unsubscribe link.
• Bounces - The number of messages that could not be delivered.

TIP: You can click the pie chart icon for an activity to view more details.

Message details & statistics

You can also click the buttons at the top right to (discussed from left to right):

• display/hide a list of the messages (refer to Messages list, below)
• export message statistics at the Group level, and
• export message statistics at the message level.

Messages list

When you click the filter icon, the list of messages opens in the upper part of the page and displays details such as message name and the send date and time.

• To see the activity statistics for one of these messages, click its filter icon.

The selected message's statistics now populate the table in the Group Results section.

It's the same activity data, but filtered to the selected message.

Search for Groups

Here at the top right, you can use the search feature to quickly find Groups:

1. Click the magnifying glass icon to expand a search field.
2. Enter alphanumeric and/or special characters to query the Name and Created By fields of all records.

The list will automatically update with each typed character and display all records (visible and hidden) that contain a match. Click the X to clear the search field to restore the original list.

Use the Preview Panel

Select a Group to view additional details about it in its Preview Panel. (Click the Group again to deselect it and close the Preview Panel.)

In the Preview Panel, you can:

• Edit the Group's name by clicking it (editable items are indicated by a dashed underline).

TIP: You cannot click to "place" the cursor in this field; it defaults to the right side. Use the arrow keys to move left and right. If you click while the field is activated, it will close.

• See the number of contacts in the Group, how many are available to receive messages, and how many are suppressed. Click a count link to view the contact list.
• See how many campaigns in which the Group is used.
• Select a Message Category to see how many contacts within the Group would receive a message tagged with that category. This is a great way to quickly check the viability of messages from your Message Categories. For example, if the group has 1000 contacts but 50 of them have unsubscribed from the selected category and 10 are suppressed, the count would show 950 (940 subscribed and 10 suppressed). (You can use Message Categories to group email and social messages for tracking, and they're an unsubscribe type that enable your contacts to opt themselves out of specific content.)

NOTE: The Cancel and Save buttons will only appear at the bottom of the Preview Panel if you make changes in the panel.

Perform management actions

Select a Group to enable the More menu at the top right. Click this menu to:

• Add notes about the Group, which is a helpful way to store important information about it.
• Change the Group's owner.
• Copy all of the Group's contacts to another group. Refer to Copy Contacts to Another Group above to learn more.
• Move the Group to a different folder (not shown in image).
• Delete the Group. The Group's contacts are disassociated and messages can no longer be sent to it. Refer to Implications of Group Deletion, below, to learn more about the impact of deleting Groups.

Implications of Group deletion

Before deleting a Group, understand that doing so can cause some unintended consequences. Read on to learn more, but a best practice is to instead hide any Groups you no longer need.

See Hide/Show Assets to learn how to hide and restore assets.

What does deleting a group do?

• It deletes the group name
• It disassociates all contacts from that group

What does this mean in the long term for my account?

A group is subset of recipients in your database. When a recipient is uploaded to your account they exist as independent entities. That recipient is tied to any other recipients who were uploaded with them at the time of upload via a group. A group is nothing more than a container for a targeted group of contact records that are tied to several areas in your account that are related to tracking.

What happens when I delete a group?

When you delete a group the entire group tracking history is lost; this has rippling effects that are most apparent in:

Message and social tracking

You won't be able to view the messages that have been associated with a group. This will be most noticeable on your Track Messages page. Your groups will be replaced with [deleted group], and you'll no longer be able to view the subject line that was associated with that group.

NOTE: You'll still be able to create a filter based on the group, but you'll still no longer know what the purpose of that group was.

Google Analytics

When Google Analytics was configured, whatever previous information that was pushed over to the Google Analytic account will remain the same, if your campaigns in Google were associated with a group. However, if your account’s profiles are still based on the Group name, that will have to be updated in your account.

Historical reporting metrics

If there are any future reports that are compiled based on a group, these will not be able to be composed. You will still be able to view some reports, but note that any metric that may have been recorded there based on groups, like the Track by Group feature, will be rendered obsolete.

It is for these reasons that we typically recommend hiding groups instead of deleting them. Hiding a group will make it virtually invisible: Users will not be able to send to the group or search for contacts based on their group assignment using the advanced search tool; however, their association and tracking information will remain intact.