Contacts & audiences

Your audience starts in Customers. Use Contacts, Tags, Imports, and Smart Lists to organize people by what they asked for or did—not simply by every email address you have.

Quick answer

Open Customers and use Contacts, Smart Lists, Tags, and Imports to prepare an audience. Only mark someone subscribed when they gave you permission to receive marketing email. Build a Smart List for the group you want to reach; Klixey shows how many contacts match, how many can receive the campaign, and how many will be skipped.

Customers are not automatically subscribers

A customer record can exist because someone bought a product, claimed a free download, booked an appointment, or was added manually. That does not always mean the person agreed to receive marketing.

Each contact has a marketing status:

Status	Meaning
Subscribed	The person gave permission to receive marketing email.
Unsubscribed	The person opted out. You cannot add them back through a tag or import.
Never subscribed	You have the contact, but no marketing permission has been recorded.
Suppressed	Klixey cannot send to this address because of a delivery-safety issue.

The Contacts summary also shows Marketable contacts, Unsubscribed, and Needs attention so you can see the overall health of your list.

Record permission

To subscribe contacts manually:

1. Open Customers → Contacts.
2. Select the contacts.
3. Choose Subscribe.
4. In Confirm marketing permission, check that the selected people gave your business permission.
5. Choose the correct Permission source, then confirm.

Permission sources include Checkout or purchase, Signup form, Event or appointment, Direct request, Imported list, and Other.

Use Unsubscribe when someone asks you to stop. A previous unsubscribe or suppression cannot be bypassed by subscribing in bulk, applying a tag, or importing the same address again.

Permission is your responsibility

Only send marketing to people who asked to hear from your business. A customer purchase, old address book, or third-party list is not automatically permission.

Organize contacts with tags

Tags are labels you can use when building a Smart List—for example Course launch, VIP, or Spring workshop.

• Manual tags are created and managed by you.
• System tags are created by Klixey for imports or product activity and may be Read-only.

From Contacts, select one or more people and choose Tags to apply or remove a manual tag.

A tag used by a Smart List cannot be deleted until you remove it from that Smart List. This prevents an audience from changing unexpectedly.

Build a Smart List

A Smart List is a saved set of audience rules. Open Customers → Smart Lists and click New Smart List.

Use:

• Include contacts who match to define who belongs.
• Exclude contacts who match to remove people from the result.
• All when every rule must match.
• Any when at least one rule can match.

Rules can use:

• Product access
• Purchase history
• Tag
• Marketing status
• Source
• Created date

For example, include contacts tagged Spring workshop, then exclude anyone who already has access to the product you are promoting.

System Smart Lists are read-only. You can use them, but you cannot change their rules. If you edit a Smart List used by scheduled campaigns, Klixey warns you which campaigns may be affected.

Use Recalculate or Recalculate counts when you want the latest audience totals. You can also Duplicate a Smart List when a new audience should start with similar rules.

Import contacts from a CSV

Open Customers → Imports and click Import Contacts.

Your CSV must include an email header. It can also include:

• name
• phone

Before uploading, you must confirm that the people in the file gave your business permission to send them marketing email. Klixey does not provide arbitrary column mapping, so use the recognized header names exactly.

Tag the contacts as they arrive

You can pick one of your manual tags when you start the import, and every contact in that file arrives already carrying it. This saves importing first and then hunting the same people down to tag them.

It's the difference between "the 400 people from the March webinar" and "the 400 people I imported in March and can no longer identify". Tag on the way in.

A tag can start an automation

If the tag you choose is the trigger for a live automation, every contact in the import enters that sequence. Check the tag before you import a large file. See Automation triggers.

After the import, review:

• Rows — every row Klixey read.
• Created — new contacts added.
• Updated — existing contacts updated.
• Skipped — rows that could not or should not be added to the sendable audience.
• Sendable — imported contacts currently eligible for marketing.

An import creates an Import: … System tag. You can then choose Create smart list from import to turn that group into a reusable audience.

Use Download errors or Download skipped when shown. Invalid, duplicate, unsubscribed, or suppressed addresses may be skipped; importing a row does not guarantee it can receive a campaign.

Understand Matching, Sendable, and Skipped

Smart Lists and campaign audiences use three different counts:

Count	What it tells you
Matching	Contacts who fit the Smart List rules.
Sendable	Matching contacts who can receive this marketing email now.
Skipped	Matching contacts Klixey will leave out, such as unsubscribed, suppressed, or invalid addresses.

Use View skipped or Download CSV when you need to understand the difference. Do not try to work around an unsubscribe or safety exclusion.

Export and review contacts

Use Export from Contacts when you need a copy of the selected records. Smart Lists and completed imports also offer downloads for skipped rows where available.

Exports are useful for reviewing and correcting data, but exporting and re-importing does not change a person's marketing permission or suppression status.

Use the audience in a campaign

Each campaign sends to one saved Smart List. During the campaign's Audience step:

1. Select the Smart List.
2. Review Matching, Sendable, and Skipped.
3. Open or download the skipped list when the difference needs attention.
4. Continue only when the sendable audience is the group you intended to reach.

→ Create and send a campaign

Related

• Email marketing overview
• Your customer list
• Create & send campaigns
• Contact limit and grace period
• Email marketing troubleshooting