Using custom fields with your subscribers

One of the best ways to ensure that you’re delivering content that resonates with your audience is to personalize your newsletter with subscriber information. To do this, you can create custom fields to store data about your subscribers and then use merge tags to place those custom fields as personalized content. 

This can be as simple as starting your newsletter off by greeting subscribers with their first name to more sophisticated implementations.

How to create custom fields

1. From the left panel Dashboard, go to Audience > Subscribers.
   
   
2. Your Subscribers dashboard will open on the Subscribers tab, switch over to the Custom Fields tab. To add a new one, click on Create Custom Field.
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Give the new field a Name (required) and then choose the Data Type; choose from Text, Number, True/False, Date, Date & Time, or List (Multi-Select). Click Save.
   
   Custom fields can be anything you'd like, for example:

• first name
• last name
• favorite color
• birthday
• subscriber rating
• location
  
  
  

4. Once saved, you’ll be taken back to your Subscribers dashboard where the new custom field will be listed.
   
   
   

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Importing custom fields

We've made it easy to import any previous custom fields you have created for your subscribers.

When going through the import process, you'll be able to choose from existing custom fields you've already created, or create new ones on the fly.

This unlocks the ability to import metadata collected on a previous platform, or continue to bulk update additional subscriber data whenever you'd like.

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How to bulk update custom fields

You can bulk update custom fields using a CSV file. To do so, import your CSV to your account at Settings > Publication > Import Subscribers.

During the import process, when in the Choose Columns to Import step, check the option to Overwrite existing custom field data on import. Enabling this option will allow you to update the custom field data for your existing subscribers using data from the CSV file. 

 

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Using custom fields as merge tags

Once you've set up custom fields in your account, you can use them to personalize your posts or automation emails. Merge tags allow you to dynamically insert this custom data into your content, like greeting each subscriber by their first name. For instructions on how to use merge tags to customize your posts, refer to this article.

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Using surveys with custom fields 

One of the many beehiiv platform perks is our fully integrated surveys that allow you to create custom surveys and collect information about your subscribers.

For example, if you create a survey form with the first_name field then it'll set that value as a custom field for each subscriber that fills out the form.