Contacts overview and management

The contacts overview is where you manage all your relationships. For each contact you see the lists, tags and status, you search and filter there, and you run actions on many contacts at once, for example adding all your contacts to a list. This article walks you through the screen from top to bottom.

Opening the overview #

In the menu, go to CRM & Emails and click Contacts in the bar below it. You land on the All contacts tab. At the top, the number of contacts you have is shown in brackets.

1. CRM & Emails: the menu the CRM sits under.
2. Contacts: opens the overview. The tabs below it take you to Lists, Tags, Companies and Segments.
3. Search contacts: type a name or email address; the list filters as you type.
4. Advanced filter: switch for filtering on status, tags, lists, fields and more (see below).
5. Columns button: choose which columns you see in the table.
6. More actions: export and reset the table preferences. The bulk actions are not here; you’ll find them at the bottom of the screen as soon as you tick contacts.

Choosing columns #

By default you see the columns Contact, Lists, Tags and Status. You can sort on the Contact and Status columns with the arrows next to the column name. Want other details in view, for example the date a contact was added or their last activity?

1. Click the columns button at the top right of the table (the icon with two columns). A list opens with all the columns, including your custom fields.
2. Tick the columns you want to see and click Save at the bottom.

To go back to the default view, click More actions → Reset table preferences.

The status of a contact #

The Status column shows whether you can email a contact:

• Subscribed: receives your campaigns and automations.
• Pending: has signed up but has not confirmed yet, and does not receive anything yet.
• Unsubscribed: has unsubscribed and no longer receives marketing email, even if the contact is in a list.
• Transactional: only receives emails that belong to an order or action, no campaigns.
• Bounced: the email address cannot be reached.
• Complained: the contact has marked your email as spam.

The status changes automatically after an unsubscribe, a bounce or a complaint. You can also change it yourself, on the contact page or in bulk with the action Change contact status. If you open a contact with the status Bounced or Complained, you see the reason and the date at the top of the page. It is best to clean up contacts that keep bouncing regularly; see Deleting contacts in bulk.

Filtering and saving segments #

With the advanced filter you find a specific group, for example all subscribed contacts with a certain tag, or everyone who was added in the past month.

1. Switch on Advanced filter.
2. Click Add property and choose what you want to filter on: status, list, tag, a contact field, a date or activity. A second property in the same block creates an AND condition; + OR adds an alternative.
3. Want to use this selection more often? Click Save as segment. You’ll find the segment on the Segments tab, and you can choose it straight away as the recipients of a campaign.
4. Click Apply filters. The table now only shows the contacts that meet the conditions.

You can read more about filtering in Segmenting and filtering contacts.

Bulk actions: editing many contacts at once #

You only see the bulk actions once you tick contacts. A black bar then slides into view at the bottom of the screen. This is how you add all your contacts to a list in one go, for example:

1. Tick the checkbox in the header row, to the left of Contact. This selects all the contacts on the page you are looking at. If you only want a few contacts, tick them one by one.
2. The bar at the bottom shows how many contacts you have selected. Click Select all … to really include all your contacts, including those on the next pages. If you filtered first, this applies to all the contacts in the filter.
3. Click Select action and choose what should happen.
4. Export in the same bar exports only the selected contacts.

Under Select action you’ll find, among others: Add to tags, Add to lists (1), Remove from tags, Remove from lists, Change contact status, Change contact type, Add to email sequence and Add to automation funnel. If you use the community, the actions for spaces, courses and badges are there too. Delete contacts is at the bottom of the list. When you choose an action, the system asks for the list, tag or status, and you confirm your choice.

Good to know: if you add unsubscribed contacts to a list, they do end up in the list, but they keep their Unsubscribed status. So they don’t receive any campaigns. Large bulk actions are processed in the background, which can take a few minutes. Don’t run the action a second time.

Exporting contacts #

1. If you like, first filter the contacts you want to export.
2. Click More actions at the top right and choose Export.
3. In the window, tick the columns you want in the file, including your custom fields, and start the export. You get a CSV file that you open in a spreadsheet.

If you only want to export a number of ticked contacts, use the Export button in the black bar at the bottom.

Opening a contact #

Click the name or email address of a contact to open the contact page.

1. Actions: this is where you delete the contact or send them a one-off email.
2. Tabs: under Overview you edit the details and custom fields; the other tabs show the emails sent, purchases, form submissions, tickets, notes, community, bookings and boards of this contact.

At the top of the page you change the lists, tags, contact type and status directly. On the right you see the additional information, such as orders and subscriptions. You can read more about this in Viewing and editing an individual contact.

Related articles #

• Managing and adding contacts
• Segmenting and filtering contacts
• Deleting contacts in bulk (FluentCRM)
• Setting up contact status management