Cleaning up existing contact lists - Segments or tags?

[JacquelineS165]

We have over 50 contact lists. I want to combine multiple lists, but still be able to identify the individual lists - I'm thinking with segments or tags?

Right now we have all of our tradeshow leads separated by show. I want to combine them all into one list, but still be able to identify which show each contact came from. However, since the contacts are already in Constant Contact, they were not entered with a column type identifying the show name. Am I able to add a column to a list in Constant Contact to label the title of the show before I merge all the lists together? Or am I going to have to export each list individually, add the column, then import back, just so I can segment it out??

Or is this were tagging comes into play? I can just tag each list with the show title and then merge. BUT then what is the best way to import lists moving forward?

[John_M · Accepted solution]

Hello @JacquelineS165 ,

Couple of solutions would work for you here.

If you would like you can use the current list membership as that identifying show piece detail and just select all contacts to add them to a master list. This will allows them to be a members of the show list and the master contact list, still leaving you that segmentation by list membership. This way when you import a new list from the next upcoming show during the import you would add that file to two total lists; one the master list and the second one you can create for that specific show and add them to it as well during the import.

Secondly you could use tags as the event identifier. To do it this way you would need to create all your tags prior to labeling everyone. Once the tags have been created you could go into each list do a select all contacts and select ‘add tags’ from the actions dropdown menu. This will apply the show tag to all the selected contacts within that list. This way you don’t have to do an export of the list to reimport them with an additional contact detail column added to that file.

Lastly, if you are wanting to have the show detail as a contact custom field you will need to do an export of each list. Apply a custom field call something like, “event source” and then name appropriately. Reimport that list and during that import all the contacts will be updated to now have that custom field of “event source” data added to their contact details.

[JacquelineS165]

Thank you, @John_M - this helps tremendously!