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Create and manage custom contact attributes

Creating custom contact attributes can greatly enhance the effectiveness of your marketing and communication efforts. By defining and tracking specific attributes of your contacts, such as their personal information and interests, you can tailor your messaging to resonate better with them.

Good to know

  • To learn more about contact attributes and how you can use them to create personalized experiences for your contacts, check our dedicated article About contact attributes.
  • You can create up to 200 contact attributes per Brevo account. 
  • Attribute names should not be longer than 50 characters.
  • Attribute names should only contain alphanumeric and underscore characters. They cannot start with a number or a special character.
  • By default, newly created custom attributes are not shown on the details page. To learn how to display them, check our dedicated article Manage the attributes displayed on a contact, deal, or company details page.

What type of contact attributes can I create?

7 types of contact attributes can be created in Brevo: text, date, number, category, multiple-choice, boolean, and user. Expand the corresponding accordions to learn more about the different types of contact attributes:

Text

Text-type attributes store simple textual or numerical values that are non-computable, like an email address, a contact's last name, a phone number, or a zip code. Text-type attributes can contain up to 50,000 characters.

Date

Date-type attributes store date values, such as the date of birth of a contact.

Contact attributes support the following date formats:

  • DD-MM-YYYY
  • MM-DD-YYYY
  • YYYY-MM-DD

The date format selected in the default settings of your Brevo account determines the correct date format to use. Note that YYYY-MM-DD will be accepted regardless of the date format selected in your account settings.

💡 Good to know
Hyphens - and slashes / are interchangeable. For example, 13-03-2022 and 13/03/2022 are considered the same.

Number

Number-type attributes store computable number values, such as an order amount or a score. They can contain up to 15 digits.

Category

Category-type attributes store values from a set of possible values, such as a list of countries, where each value corresponds to a number. Each value's name can be up to 200 characters long.

For example, if you want to store information about the country your contacts live in, you can create a category-type attribute named COUNTRY and define possible values as "France", "Spain", "Germany", etc. The attribute COUNTRY of each contact will then only contain one value among the ones you specified.

Multiple-choice
❗️ Important
For now, multiple-choice-type attributes can be used to store information about your contacts, to collect information in forms, and to segment your contacts. They cannot be used to personalize content in emails, SMS, WhatsApp messages, or email notifications.

Multiple-choice-type attributes store values from a set of possible values, such as a list of sports, where each value corresponds to a number.

For example, if you want to store information about the sports your contacts play, you can create a multiple-choice-type attribute named SPORTS and define possible values as "Baseball", "Football", "Yoga", etc. The attribute SPORTS of each contact will then contain one or more values among the ones you specified.

contacts_create-multiple-choice-attribute_EN-US.png

Boolean

Boolean-type attributes store values with a Yes/No format, such as whether a contact has been assigned an owner.

💡 Good to know
You can use boolean-type attributes in Brevo sign-up forms by adding the Checkbox or GDPR field options into the form design.
User

User-type attributes store user values, such as which sales representative is assigned to a contact.

For example, you can assign a different user to a contact depending on what stage of your sales pipeline your client is currently in.

contacts_user-type-attribute_en-us.png

Create a custom contact attribute

To create a custom contact attribute:

  1. Click the account dropdown and select Settings > Contacts > Contact attributes.
  2. In the Normal Attributes tab, click + Add a new attribute at the bottom of the page.
  3. Give a name to your contact attribute.
  4. Select the type of contact attribute you want to create.
  5. (Optional) For Category or Multiple-choice attributes, click + Add and enter each value next to a number.
  6. Click Create attribute.

Your custom contact attribute has been created.

Edit a contact attribute

Attributes’ names and types cannot be edited.

mceclip0.png

❗️ Important
If you need to edit the name or type of a contact attribute, you have to delete the attribute and create a new one. This will result in the loss of all information stored in the original attribute, which cannot be restored.

However, it is possible to edit the different categories included in a Category or Multiple-choice attribute:

  1. Click the account dropdown and select Settings > Contacts > Contact attributes.
  2. In the Normal Attributes tab, click the gear icon ⚙️ next to a Category or Multiple-choice attribute.edit-category-attribute_en-us.png
     
  3. Rename, add, or delete categories.
  4. Click Update attribute.

Delete a contact attribute

💡 Good to know
Default contact attributes cannot be deleted.

To delete a custom contact attribute:

  1. Click the account dropdown and select Settings > Contacts > Contact attributes.
  2. In the Normal Attributes tab, click the cross icon ✖️ next to the custom contact attribute you want to delete.delete-attribute_en-us.png
❗️ Important
Deleting a contact attribute will result in the loss of all information stored within it, and it cannot be restored.

⏭️ What's next?

🤔 Have a question?

If you have a question, feel free to contact our support team by creating a ticket from your account. If you don't have an account yet, you can contact us here.

If you’re looking for help with a project using Brevo, we can match you with the right certified Brevo Agency partner.

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