In this article...

This article offers a high-level look at how to manage the people who have subscribed to your organization's messages: your Contacts. You manage (create, edit, suppress, delete) your Contacts on the Contacts List page.

NOTE: Contacts can be -- but aren't necessarily -- members of your organization. Contacts could be, for example, people who have subscribed to your newsletter to stay informed of your organization's activities.

People who are associated with your organization (e.g., admins and other staff members) are Users and are managed separately due to permissions, assignments, etc. See Manage Users to learn more.

Access your Contacts list

To access the Contacts List page:

Access the Admin interface.
Navigate to Contacts > List.

This page has two lists, Subscribed and Suppressed, that display Contacts alphabetically (by email address), as well as their names and Custom ID (if your organization uses one).

Click the down arrow to the right of the page title to toggle between lists.

NOTE: The Custom ID column will not display in the Contacts list if the Custom ID field has not been enabled in your account.

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

Create a Contact

Click the plus sign to the right of the page title.

On the Standard Fields tab, specify the Contact's details. Use the Custom ID field to assign a unique identifier, if applicable to your organization.

NOTE: If the Custom ID field has been enabled in your account, this field is required when creating a Contact.

Complete the Custom Fields and Enhanced Fields tabs as required by your organization.
Click Create to save the Contact record.

Custom Fields & Enhanced Fields

Custom Fields are created on the Contacts > Tools > Custom Fields page. See Custom Fields & Custom Date Fields and Personalization Keywords to learn more.
Enhanced Fields are created on the Contacts > Tools > Enhanced Personalization page. See Enhanced Personalization Fields to learn more.

Manage your Contacts

In addition to creating Contacts, you can manage their records as described in this section.

TIP: See Manage Contacts for information on using the Preview Panel, managing multiple Contacts with multi-select actions, and exporting the Contacts lists.

Edit

You can edit Contact records on the Subscribed and Suppressed list pages; the edit dialog is the same.

Select a Contact and click Edit. The Edit dialog is the same as the Create dialog.

Make your edits and click Save to apply your changes.

View History

You can see information about a Contact's activity, such as participation in surveys, which events they've attended, and their subscriptions.

Select a Contact and click History.

The Contact's History page opens and displays details about the Contact's activity.

See Manage Contact History for information about this page.

Group membership

Groups simplify sending messages to multiple recipients. When you populate a Group with Contacts, any messages that are sent to the Group are sent to all the Contacts in the Group.

NOTE: You can add Subscribed and Suppressed Contacts to a group, however, Suppressed Contacts will have to be unsuppressed in order to receive the Group messages.

Select a Contact and click Groups.

The dialog indicates which Groups the Contact belongs to. (If the Contact does not belong to any Groups, the right pane will not display.)

Click the checkboxes to add and/or remove Groups for the Contact.
Click Save at the bottom of the dialog to apply your changes.

To learn more about working with Groups, see Manage Groups.

Other management actions

When you select a Contact, additional actions are available from the More menu.

Select a Contact and click More.
Then click:

Suppress to suppress the Contact. The Contact will no longer receive communications from your organization. To learn more about suppression, see:

NOTE: Suppressed Contacts will remain in any Groups they belong to and they can be added to Groups, but they will not be listed on the Group's Group Contacts page.

Subscriptions to manage the Contact's subscriptions on the Subscribe/Unsubscribe page. See Manage Contact subscriptions in Manage Contacts to learn more.
Compliance to manage the Contact's compliance options. For information on using these options, see Manage compliance options in Manage Contacts.
Delete to remove the Contact's record from your database.

Now that you have a basic understanding of Contacts and how to manage them, learn more with the following articles.

Getting Started with Contacts