Overview

Use your custom fields to personalize email content with customer-specific data and target precise audiences when building segments. By leveraging the unique data you already collect, you can ensure your marketing campaigns are highly relevant to each recipient's service history and needs.

Things to know

• Custom fields must be enabled for marketing use before they appear in the email editor or segment builder. For more, see Configure custom fields for marketing.

• Custom field merge tags and segment filters are organized by entity type — for example, Calls and Jobs. Only fields enabled in your Fields Settings appear in the list.

• If a merge tag resolves to an empty value for a given contact — for example, because the custom field was not filled in on their record — that tag will appear blank in the email that contact receives.

Best practices

• Before inserting a custom field merge tag into an email template, check that the field has complete data for the audience you plan to send to. Incomplete data leads to blank spots in personalized content.

• When building a segment that uses a custom field filter, preview the resulting segment size before adding it to a campaign. A very narrow filter may produce a segment too small to be effective.

• Use custom field merge tags alongside standard merge tags — such as customer name or company name — to make emails feel specifically relevant to each recipient's service history or situation.

Use cases

• A marketing manager wants to follow up with customers who answered a specific intake question. They use the custom How did you hear about us? Job field as a segment filter to build a targeted audience for a referral campaign.

• An administrator wants to personalize an email with the type of equipment serviced on a customer's last visit. They insert the Equipment Type custom field as a merge tag in the email body so each recipient sees details specific to their job.

• A marketer is running a reactivation campaign. They use a custom Last Service Category field both as a segment filter — to target customers whose last job matched a specific service type — and as a merge tag — to reference that service type in the email subject line.

Add a custom field merge tag to an email template

After a custom field is enabled as a merge tag in Settings, it becomes available in the merge tag menu in the email template editor.

1. In the navigation bar, go to Marketing .

2. In the side menu, click Email Templates.

3. Open an existing email template, or click Create New.

4. In the email editor, place your cursor where you want to insert the custom field value and click Add Merge Tag.
   

5. Select the field’s source in the Select Field Location dropdown. For example, Customer Record or Job Record.

6. Select the custom field you want to add as a merge tag in the Select Merge Tag dropdown.

   Note: If a custom field merge tag resolves to an empty value for a given contact, that tag will appear blank in their email. Review data completeness for your target audience before sending.

   

7. Click Add.

8. When you are finished editing, click Save.

Filter a segment by a customer field

After a custom field is enabled as a segment filter in Settings, it becomes available as a filter option in the segment builder.

Note: You can only use custom fields as filters for retention segments.

1. In the navigation bar, go to Marketing .

2. In the side menu, click Retention Segments.

3. Open an existing segment, or click Create Segment.

4. In the segment builder, edit an existing filter or add a new one.

5. In the filter list, find your custom field under its entity category — for example, Customer or Location — and select it.

6. Set the filter criteria for the field. For example, select a specific value or define a range.

7. Review the resulting segment size to confirm the filter is returning the expected audience.

8. When finished, click Save.

Want to learn more?

• See Configure custom fields for marketing

• See Create Marketing Pro Segments

• See Create email templates