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Customer Tags

A tag gives a group of customers a name so it is already assembled when you need it. This article covers where tags are set, one record at a time or in bulk from the list, what a tag is actually good for once it exists, and the one thing it will not do, which is answer the search box.

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A customer tag is a short label you put on a customer record so that a group you care about has a name. One tag can sit on many customers, which is what makes it useful later: the group is already assembled by the time you need it.

This article is about what to tag and how to keep a tag set worth having. Tag a Customer covers the controls themselves, the selector, the search-or-create field and the list of existing tags.

Where tags are set

Tags live in two places, and which one you use depends on how many customers you are labelling.

Where Use it for
The Tags card on a customer's record One person, while you are already looking at them
The customer list Many at once. Tick the rows, then take Actions, which holds Add Tags and Remove Tags

The bulk route is the one worth remembering, since it puts the same tag on every row you ticked in one action rather than one record at a time.

What a tag is actually good for

A tag on its own is only a label on the record. What makes it useful is that a segment can act on it.

A segment can select everyone carrying a tag. A segment is a saved rule that picks out part of your customer list, and one of the rules it can hold is tags CONTAINS followed by the tag name. That gathers every customer wearing the label, and keeps gathering them as you tag more people, which is the route from a label to a list you can email or export. Customer Segments covers building one.

The customer list does not show tags. A tagged customer looks like every other row: there is no Tags column among the twenty Manage columns offers, and no chip under the name. Plan around that rather than around tags being visible at a glance.

The search box does not find them either. Search customers by name, email, or phone matches those three fields, so typing a tag name returns nothing. A segment is the way to pull up the group.

Keeping a tag set worth having

Tags are free text, so nothing stops the same idea being spelled three ways. A few habits keep the set usable.

  • Pick one naming style and hold to it. Singular or plural, hyphens or spaces, upper case or lower: the choice matters less than making the same idea produce the same tag every time.
  • Reuse before you create. The selector lists the tags the store already has, with a search field above them. Look there before typing something new, since that field creates as readily as it finds.
  • Say what a tag means somewhere your team can read it. A tag whose meaning lives in one person's head stops being useful the week they are away.
  • Date the temporary ones. A campaign tag with its season or year in the name can be found and cleared when the campaign is over. One without a date never gets cleared.
  • Treat a new tag as permanent. There is nowhere in the admin to delete one, so the list only ever grows, and every name you invent is a name your team will scroll past from now on.

If something goes wrong

  • A tag will not save. Your role may lack the Edit customer tags permission.
  • A tagged customer is missing from a segment. Check that the segment's filter names the same tag, spelled the same way.
  • A group looks smaller than it should. Look for a near-duplicate tag holding the rest of it.

Next steps

Still stuck?

More in Customers

  • Adding a Customer

    Creating a customer record by hand, from the Add Customer button to the saved record. Three fields are required and everything else can wait, the three marketing consents start unticked and are a record of what the customer agreed to rather than a way to opt them in, and the Save bar is on the form from the moment it opens.

  • Search the Customer List

    Finding one customer and finding a group are different jobs with different tools. The search box matches name, email and phone and nothing else, it searches inside the tab you are standing on rather than the whole store, and the thing people most often type into it, a tag, comes back as No customers found rather than as an error.

  • Edit a Customer Record

    The Edit control on the Customer panel opens five things, not four: contact information, addresses, marketing consent across three channels, tax details, and adding the customer to a company. This walks each dialog, what it asks for, which fields are required, and which of them the store acts on without asking you again.

  • Customer Privacy

    Customer privacy is spread across three places in the admin: a settings page for what applies to everybody, the actions on one customer for what one person has asked, and a queue of requests waiting to be approved or rejected. This article maps the settings page row by row and says which of the three you want.

All 49 articles in Customers

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