# Contacts

> Everyone you can email — browsing, searching, filtering, saved segments, custom fields, CSV import, and what's on a contact's record.

Source: https://knowledge.estage.com/crm/contacts/
Part of the ESTAGE knowledge base (https://knowledge.estage.com). Full corpus: https://knowledge.estage.com/llms-full.txt

---
**Contacts** is your audience: members, buyers and leads attached to the project. It's the list
every [broadcast](/email/broadcasts/) and [automation](/email/automations/) draws from, and the
place to answer "who are these people".

Open it from **Contacts** in the sidebar. The count under the heading is your whole audience.

## Finding people

Three tools, and they stack:

| Tool | Use it for |
| --- | --- |
| **Search** | A name or an email you already know |
| **Filters** (slider icon) | Building a rule — "has this tag, on this list" |
| **Segments** | Saving a filter you'll want again |

The filter icon carries a badge with how many rules are active, and your search and filters are
**remembered for the session** — open a contact, come back, and the same view is waiting.

### Filters

Click the slider icon and add rules. Each rule is a field, a condition (**Contains** / **Does not
contain**) and one or more values; rules combine with AND.

| Field | Matches on |
| --- | --- |
| **Product** | Something they bought or were given |
| **Tag** | A [tag](/crm/catalog/#tags) on the contact |
| **List** | Membership of a [list](/crm/lists/) |
| **Custom field** | One of your own fields |
| **Traffic source** | Where they came from |
| **Affiliate program / status** | Their role in your affiliate programs |
| **Engagement segment** | Core, Regular, At risk, Dormant, New & inactive |
| **Last active** | Last 7 days · 8–30 days · 31–90 days · 90+ days · Never |
| **Onboarding** | Completed or not |

**Apply** filters the list; **Clear** empties the rules.

### Saved segments

A segment is a filter with a name. Open the **Segments** dropdown:

- **New segment** — build the rules, name it, save. The list immediately shows its members.
- **Click a saved segment** — applies its rules. The badge next to each name is its current size,
  loaded when the menu opens.
- **Trash icon** — deletes the segment. Contacts are untouched.

Segments are **live**: they re-run every time. A "Dormant customers" segment always means whoever
is dormant today, which is why broadcasts can target one directly.

## Adding contacts

### One at a time

**New contact** asks for an **email** (the only required field), first and last name, phone, and
optionally tags and lists to put them on straight away.

### From a CSV

The upload icon opens **Import contacts (CSV)**:

1. Tick **First row is a header** if your file has one.
2. Drop in a `.csv`. It needs an email column.
3. **Map columns** — point each one at Email, First name, Last name, Full name, Phone, or one of
   your custom fields. Anything you don't need, set to *skip*. A column literally called `email`
   is mapped for you.
4. Optionally **add tags** and **add to lists** for everyone in the file.
5. Tick the confirmation that these contacts opted in. The Import button stays disabled until you
   do.

When it finishes you get the numbers: total rows, created, already existing, and skipped — with
the reasons broken out:

| Skipped because | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| **not a valid address** | Malformed email |
| **reserved for mail admins** | `postmaster@`, `abuse@` and similar |
| **repeated in the file** | The same address twice |
| **domain doesn't accept email** | The domain has no mail server |

:::caution
Importing **fires your active automations**. Anything triggered by *contact created* or *list
subscribed* runs for every imported contact — so pause those flows first if you don't want a
thousand welcome emails going out at once.
:::

:::caution
Import only people who opted in. Purchased, scraped and long-stale lists are the fastest way to
bounce and complaint rates that get your sending paused — see
[Deliverability](/email/deliverability/).
:::

## Acting on a selection

Tick rows and an **Actions** button appears with the count:

| Action | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| **Email** | Opens the [broadcast composer](/email/broadcasts/) with these contacts as the audience |
| **Tags** | Add or remove tags in bulk |
| **Add to list** | Adds to a list, keeping existing memberships |
| **Move to list** | Moves from one list to another |
| **Add to automation** | Enrols them in an [automation](/email/automations/) |
| **Add to suppressions** | Stops emailing them — [they stay in your list](/crm/suppressions/) |
| **Delete** | Removes them from the project. Can't be undone |

The same actions, minus the bulk ones, are on each row's **⋯** menu.

## The contact record

Click a row to open it. Five tabs:

**Overview** — the summary. Lifespan, purchases, payments and products across the top; **Email
engagement** (delivered, opened, clicked, bounced, with open and click rates); their details,
tags and enrolled automations; and recent activity.

**User Info** — the editable record: contact information and details, **custom fields**, tags,
enrolled automations, and the products they have. **Manage fields** here is where you add,
rename and remove the custom fields available across all contacts.

**Activity** — the full history: **email activity** (every message, its status and subject, with
clicked links) and the **automation log**.

**Payments / Invoices** — what they've paid.

**Notes** — your own notes on this person.

## Arriving from somewhere else

Click a number on a [message](/email/messages/), [broadcast](/email/broadcasts/) or
[automation](/email/automations/) and you land here pre-filtered — *"Filtered by contacts who
opened 'March newsletter'"* in a banner at the top. The **×** clears it and leaves you with the
full list.

That's the fastest route from "the open rate was low" to "here's exactly who didn't open it".