Contacts are the people whose information you store in your account.
You can store all sorts of data for a contact, for example:
communications channels, like email address and mobile number
personal details like name, address, and date of birth
interests and preferences
purchase history, web browsing behaviour, and consent data.
We provide a flexible range of options for storing data about your contacts, as well as different ways to manage all of that data.
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Channels and contact identifiers
To add a contact to your account, all you need is at least one way to contact them - an email address or a mobile number. We call these channel identifiers.
Each channel has it’s own independent subscription status in Dotdigital. The Contacts master list displays this status for each channel, for each contact. Icons indicate whether a contact is subscribed on the channel, and hovering over the icon displays the exact status for that channel.
Each contact in Dotdigital is assigned a unique numerical ID at the point of creation. This ID is fixed, which means that a contact can update any of their other details; their email address, mobile number, or name, for example, and all of their associated historical data is still linked to their record.
Types of contact data
The types of data you can store for your contacts can be split into three main categories:
Personal details
Contact data fields
Insight data
Personal details
The core information you can store about a contact is their personal details – also known as default data fields. This is the most basic information you might keep for a contact:
First name
Last name
Full name
Email
Mobile number
Gender
Postcode
Notes
Data fields
With contact data fields, you can store customised information about a contact in fields that you create. Custom data fields can be Text, Numeric, Date, or Yes/No format.
Learn more in Create, delete, and edit custom data fields.
Any additional data that you can store about your contacts allows you to more effectively target and personalise your communications.
Personalisation
When you create campaigns or landing pages, you can add personalisation to display some contact details fields and custom data fields.
Insight data
Insight data is made up of collections of structured data you can store against your contacts - in basic terms, you can store any data that is serialisable to JSON as Insight data. Some common uses for Insight data are:
Purchase history, stored in an
orderscollection.Browsing behaviour, stored in a
WebInsightcollection.Consent data, stored in a
ConsentInsightcollection.Abandoned cart data, stored in a
cartInsightcollection.
For general information about Insight data, check out our Non-developer’s guide. For a more technical overview, you want the Developer’s guide.
Single customer view
You can view all of a contact’s data through the Single customer view (SCV). This is where you can gain oversight into your contacts’ data, engagement, and behaviour all in one place.
Learn more about the Single customer view.
Where to go from here
These articles can guide you through the fundamental steps you need to take to start making the most of your contact data in Dotdigital.
Add or import contacts into Dotdigital
Additional methods to add contacts:
Manage your contacts
Other contact related tasks you might want to complete:
Do more with contacts
Other related features you might want to explore:
Marketing preferences
Marketing preferences and categories are used to organise your contacts based on their likes and interests.Contact scoring
Contact scoring allows you to score and rank your contacts against a scale that you create, based on their engagement with you and the data you hold on them.