ActiveCampaign Custom Fields vs Tags | What’s the Difference?

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Fields vs Tags in ActiveCampaign

In ActiveCampaign, custom fields and tags are two different ways of categorizing and organizing contacts within your account.

Fields are used to store specific information about a contact, such as their name, email address, phone number, or any custom information you collect. They are typically used to track and manage contact details and can be used for segmentation and personalization purposes.

Conversely, tags label and group contacts based on shared characteristics or behaviors. Tags are more flexible than fields because you can assign multiple tags to a single contact. You can use them to track information that may change over time, such as a contact’s interests, preferences, or purchase history.

Fields are generally best suited for storing static information, such as contact details, that doesn’t often change. At the same time, tags are ideal for tracking dynamic information that may frequently change, such as a contact’s behavior or interests.

In this article, we will learn what fields and tags are in ActiveCampaign. We will also discuss the difference between fields and tags and the pros and cons of using fields and tags. And we will also learn when to use fields and tags with examples. At the end of the article, we will discuss how to segment contacts using lists and tags in ActiveCampaign.

Article Highlights

• In ActiveCampaign, we use custom fields to store specific information about a contact, such as their name, email, and demographic data, and are best for segmentation and personalization purposes.
• In ActiveCampaign, we use tags to categorize and organize contacts based on shared characteristics or behaviors, such as interests, preferences, and engagement with the brand.
• Custom Fields are best for storing static information, while tags are best for tracking dynamic pointers that may change over time.
• We can also use fields and tags to create targeted and personalized campaigns that engage and convert the audience.

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Table of Contents

In this article, we will cover the following sections.

1. What are Fields in ActiveCampaign?
2. What are Tags in ActiveCampaign?
3. Using Fields vs Tags For Managing Contacts in ActiveCampaign.
4. When Should You Use Fields vs Tags?
5. ActiveCampaign Contact Segment into Fields and Tags Examples.
6. The Difference Between Tags and Fields in ActiveCampaign Summary.

What are Custom Fields in ActiveCampaign?

In ActiveCampaign, we use custom fields to store specific information about a contact. Fields can store standard contact information such as name, email address, phone number, and other custom information you choose to collect.

Fields are essential because they allow you to gather and store important data about your contacts, which you can use to segment your list, create targeted email campaigns, and personalize your communication with your audience.

ActiveCampaign offers several custom fields, including text fields, dropdown fields, date fields, checkbox fields, and more. You can create custom fields to capture information specific to your business or industry.

In addition to storing information about your contacts, fields can also be used to trigger automation workflows based on specific criteria. For example, you could create a workflow triggered when a contact fills out a form and populates a particular field with a specific value.

Custom Fields are a fundamental component of ActiveCampaign and essential for effectively managing and organizing your contacts.

What are Tags in ActiveCampaign

In ActiveCampaign, a tag is a label or keyword used to identify specific characteristics or behaviors of a contact. Tags can be used to segment contacts based on their interests, actions they have taken, or other determining factors.

ActiveCampaign Tags can be added to contacts manually or automatically through automation rules. For example, you might create a tag for contacts who have clicked on a particular link in an email or for contacts who have attended a specific event.

Tags are a powerful tool in ActiveCampaign because they allow you to personalize your communication based on a contact’s interests or behaviors. For example, you might create an automation rule that sends a targeted email campaign to contacts who have been tagged with a particular interest, promoting a product or service that is relevant to that interest.

Tags can also exclude specific contacts from receiving a particular message. For example, create a rule that excludes contacts who have already purchased a product from receiving a promotional email about that product.

Tags are a flexible and effective way to segment your contacts in ActiveCampaign and deliver more personalized and targeted marketing messages.

Click here to learn more about tags at ActiveCampaign

Using Custom Fields vs. Tags For Managing Contacts in ActiveCampaign

Both fields and tags are essential tools for managing contacts in ActiveCampaign, and when used effectively, they can help you keep your contacts organized and engaged with your brand.

Fields are best used for storing specific information about a contact that is unlikely to change frequently, such as their name, email address, phone number, and other demographic information. Fields can be used for segmentation and personalization, allowing you to create targeted email campaigns based on specific criteria.

Conversely, tags are best used for categorizing and organizing contacts based on shared characteristics or behaviors. Tags are more flexible than fields because you can assign multiple tags to a single contact. You can use them to track information that may change over time, such as a contact’s interests, preferences, or purchase history. Tags can create dynamic segments based on behavior and preferences, allowing you to personalize your communication with your audience based on their engagement with your brand.

So, when deciding whether to use multiple fields or tags to manage your contacts in ActiveCampaign, it’s important to consider the type of information you want to track and how you plan to use that information to segment and personalize your communication with your audience. Fields are generally best for storing static information, while tags are best for tracking dynamic information that may change over time.

Sometimes, you may use fields and tags to manage your contacts, depending on the specific information you want to track and how you plan to use that information to engage with your audience. For example, you might use fields to capture demographic information about your contacts, such as their age, gender, and location, while using tags to track their interests, behaviors, and engagement with your brand over time.

Pros / Cons of Fields

Fields in ActiveCampaign have several pros and cons, which are essential when managing contacts and designing email marketing campaigns.

Pros of Using Fields in ActiveCampaign:

1. Personalization: Fields allow you to personalize your communication with your audience by using data to create targeted and relevant campaigns.
2. Segmentation: We can use fields to segment your list based on specific criteria, such as demographics, interests, and behavior.
3. Automation: Fields can trigger automation workflows based on specific criteria, such as when a contact fills out a form or takes a particular action.
4. Flexibility: ActiveCampaign offers a variety of field types, including text, dropdown, date, checkbox, and more, allowing you to capture and store a wide range of data.

Cons of using Fields in ActiveCampaign:

1. Data Overload: Too many fields can make managing and organizing your contacts difficult, leading to data overload and confusion.
2. Data Quality: If fields are not set up correctly or managed effectively, the data captured may not be accurate or reliable, leading to poor segmentation and personalization.
3. Limited Dynamic Information: Fields are best suited for storing static information and may not be ideal for tracking dynamic information, such as a contact’s behavior or interests, which is better suited for tags.

Pros / Cons of Tags

Pros of using tags in ActiveCampaign:

• Granular segmentation: Tags allow for more granular segmentation of contacts based on specific behaviors, interests, or other characteristics, resulting in more targeted messaging and higher engagement rates.
• Personalization: Tags enable personalized communication based on a contact’s interests and behaviors, which can help build stronger relationships and drive more conversions.
• Automation rules: Tags can trigger automation rules and actions based on specific behaviors or interests, streamlining your marketing workflow and saving time.
• Easy to manage: Tags are easy to operate and can be added or removed from contacts with just a few clicks, making it simple to update and adjust your segmentation strategy as needed.

Cons of using tags in ActiveCampaign:

• Tag proliferation: Managing tags can become overwhelming and complicated when you have too many. This can lead to confusion and potential errors in your marketing campaigns.
• Inconsistent tagging: Without a clear tagging strategy, it can be easy to apply tags inconsistently, leading to incorrect segmentation and personalized messaging.
• Limited visibility: While tags help track specific behaviors or interests, they may provide a partial picture of a contact’s engagement with your brand.

When Should You Use Fields vs. Tags

Fields and tags are helpful features in ActiveCampaign that can help you organize and segment your contacts. However, there are some critical differences between fields and tags that you should consider when deciding which one to use in different situations.

The followings are some scenarios for when to use fields vs tags in ActiveCampaign:

Use ActiveCampaign Custom Fields When:

• Segmentation: Use fields when you need to segment your contacts based on their interests, behaviors, and demographics. For example, you can create fields for location, industry, job title, interests, and more to group your contacts based on their needs and preferences.
• Personalization: Use fields when you need to personalize your email campaigns and automation workflows. You can use fields to insert personalized information, such as the recipient’s name, company name, or other relevant data, to make your emails more engaging and relevant.
• Lead Scoring: Use fields when you need to track and score your leads based on their interactions with your campaigns. You can create fields to track email opens, clicks, form submissions, and other actions to assign scores to each lead and identify the most engaged and likely to convert.
• Custom Data: Use fields when you need to store custom data about your contacts, such as their purchase history, preferences, and more. You can also use this information to create targeted campaigns and personalize your communication with each contact.
• Dynamic Content: Use fields to create dynamic content within your emails and landing pages. By using fields, you can display content specific to each contact based on their interests, behavior, and demographics, making your campaigns more relevant and engaging.

Use ActiveCampaign Tags When:

• Behavioral Segmentation: Use tags when you want to segment your contacts based on their behavior, such as email opens, clicks, website visits, or any other action that you want to monitor. This can help you identify highly engaged contacts and create targeted campaigns to drive conversions.
• Lead Scoring: Use tags when you want to score your leads based on their behavior and engagement level. For example, you can assign a high score to contacts who open every email and a low score to those who haven’t engaged in a while. This can help you prioritize your outreach efforts and focus on the most promising leads.
• Interest-Based Campaigns: Use tags when you want to create interest-based campaigns that are tailored to each contact’s specific preferences. For example, you can tag contacts interested in a particular product or service and send them targeted offers or content.
• Automation Workflows: Use tags to trigger automation workflows based on your contacts’ actions or behaviors. For example, you can set up an automation workflow to send a follow-up email to contacts who clicked on a particular link in your previous email.
• Event Tracking: Use tags to track attendance or participation in webinars, workshops, or other events. This can help you identify highly engaged contacts and follow up with them after the event to drive conversions.

ActiveCampaign Contacts Segment into Fields and Tags Examples

We can use fields and tags to create highly targeted and personalized marketing campaigns in ActiveCampaign. By segmenting your contacts into specific groups, you can deliver more relevant and engaging messages to your audience, leading to higher engagement rates and conversions.

The following examples will discuss segmenting ActiveCampaign contacts using custom fields, tags, and both together.

Segment ActiveCampaign Contacts with Fields Example

The following is an example of how you can segment your ActiveCampaign contacts with fields:

Let’s say you have a list of contacts who have subscribed to your newsletter and want to segment them based on their location. You can create a custom field for location and use it to segment your contacts. 

Here are the 3 steps how you can do it:

1. Create the custom field:

• Go to the “Contacts” tab in your ActiveCampaign account.
• Click on “Custom fields” in the left-hand menu.
• Click on the “Add” button to create a new custom field.
• Enter “Location” as the field name and choose “Dropdown” as the field type.
• Enter the different location options you want to include in the dropdown menu.
• Save the field.

2. Add the custom field to each contact’s profile:

• Go to the “Contacts” tab in your ActiveCampaign account.
• Click on a contact’s name to open their profile.
• Click on the “Edit” button to edit their profile.
• Select the appropriate location from the “Location” dropdown menu.
• Save the changes.

3. Segment your contacts based on the custom field:

• Go to the “Contacts” tab in your ActiveCampaign account.
• Click on the “Segments” tab in the left-hand menu.
• Click on the “New Segment” button to create a new segment.
• Choose “Custom Field” as the segment type and select “Location” as the field.
• Choose the location option(s) you want to include in the segment.
• Save the segment.

Now you have a segment of contacts who have subscribed to your newsletter and are in the selected locations. You can use this segment for targeted marketing and communication.

Segment ActiveCampaign Contacts with Tags Example

The following is an example of how you can segment your ActiveCampaign contacts with tags:

Let’s say you have a list of contacts who have shown interest in a particular product on your website and want to segment them based on their behavior. You can create tags for each behavior you want to track and assign them to contacts based on their activity. 

Here are 3 quick steps of how you can do it:

1. Create the tags:

• Go to the “Contacts” tab in your ActiveCampaign account.
• Click on “Tags” in the left-hand menu.
• Click on the “Add” button to create a new tag.
• Enter the tag name, “Product Interest,” and a tag color for easy recognition.
• Repeat this process for each tag you want to create.

2. Assign tags to contacts based on their behavior:

• Go to the “Contacts” tab in your ActiveCampaign account.
• Click on a contact’s name to open their profile.
• Click on the “Tags” tab.
• Select the appropriate tags from the dropdown menu and click “Add” based on their behavior, such as clicking on a product link or adding a product to their cart.

3. Segment your contacts based on the tags:

• Go to the “Contacts” tab in your ActiveCampaign account.
• Click on the “Segments” tab in the left-hand menu.
• Click on the “New Segment” button to create a new segment.
• Choose “Tag” as the segment type and select the tag(s) you want to include in the segment.
• Save the segment.

By following the above steps, you now have a segment of contacts who have shown interest in the selected products. You can use this segment for targeted marketing and communication related to the products they are interested in.

Segment ActiveCampaign Contacts Using Both Fields and Tags Example

Example of using both fields and tags:

Let’s say you have an online store and want to segment your customers based on their purchase history and location. You can use a combination of custom fields and tags to create targeted segments. Here are the steps of how you can do it:

1. Create the custom fields:

• Go to the “Contacts” tab in your ActiveCampaign account.
• Click on “Custom fields” in the left-hand menu.
• Click on the “Add” button to create a new custom field.
• Enter “Location” as the field name and choose “Dropdown” as the field type.
• Enter the different location options you want to include in the dropdown menu.
• Save the field.
• Create another custom field named “Purchase History” and choose “Text” as the field type.

2. Add the custom fields and tags to each contact’s profile:

• Go to the “Contacts” tab in your ActiveCampaign account.
• Click on a contact’s name to open their profile.
• Click on the “Edit” button to edit their profile.
• Select the appropriate location from the “Location” dropdown menu.
• Enter the customer’s purchase history in the “Purchase History” text field.
• Assign relevant tags to the contact based on their behavior, such as “High Spender” for customers who have made large purchases.

3. Segment your contacts based on the custom fields and tags:

• Go to the “Contacts” tab in your ActiveCampaign account.
• Click on the “Segments” tab in the left-hand menu.
• Click on the “New Segment” button to create a new segment.
• Choose “Custom Field” as the segment type and select “Location” as the field.
• Choose the location option(s) you want to include in the segment.
• Add another segment condition using “Tag” as the segment type and select the relevant tag(s) for the customer’s purchase behavior.
• Save the segment.

Using both fields and tags, now you have a segment of contacts who have purchased a certain amount of products, are located in the selected locations, and have relevant tags assigned to them. You can use this segment for targeted marketing and communication to promote products or services based on their interests and behavior.

The Difference Between Tags and Custom Fields in ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is a powerful email marketing and automation tool that allows you to manage your contacts, automate your campaigns, and personalize your communication with your audience. Fields and tags are two important tools for managing contacts in ActiveCampaign.

Fields are best used for storing specific information about a contact that is unlikely to change frequently, such as their name, email address, phone number, and other demographic information. They can be used for segmentation and personalization purposes, allowing you to create targeted email campaigns based on specific criteria.

Conversely, tags are best used for categorizing and organizing contacts based on shared characteristics or behaviors. Tags are more flexible than fields because you can assign multiple tags to a single contact. You can use them to track information that may change over time, such as a contact’s interests, preferences, or engagement with your brand.

When deciding whether to use fields or tags, it’s important to consider the type of information you want to track and how you plan to use it to segment and personalize your communication with your audience. 

Fields are generally best for storing static information, while tags are best for tracking dynamic information that may change over time.

Use fields and tags to effectively manage your contacts in ActiveCampaign, depending on your specific needs and goals. By using these tools effectively, you can create targeted and personalized campaigns that engage and convert your audience.

Our ActiveCampaign Article Series

This is one of many articles in our series on the ActiveCampaign email marketing software. Feel free to check out the entire series below to dig deeper into ActiveCampaign.

• What is the ActiveCampaign Email Marketing Service
• Using Lists in ActiveCampaign
• ActiveCampaign Tags vs Lists
• ActiveCampaign Custom Fields vs Tags
• Integrate ActiveCampaign with Laravel
• 3 Ways to Bulk Import ActiveCampaign Contacts
• Get Contacts by Email API Example

Get Started at ActiveCampaign

• Personalization in ActiveCampaign
• Using ActiveCampaign in SaaS Products
• ActiveCampaign Email Deliverability
• ActiveCampaign Pricing