How do contact tags work?

Contact tags are colored labels you put on people, so you can remember what someone did — bought a course, joined a webinar — and email exactly that group later.

Tags vs. lists

A list is where someone signed up. A tag is something you know about them. A contact can carry as many tags as you like, and adding a tag never moves anyone into a separate list — the tag simply travels with the contact.

That means you no longer need to build a whole new list just to remember one fact. Tag the people who bought your course, and you can email that group without splitting your audience in two.

Tags live under Audience → Tags, alongside Contacts and Lists. They are available on every plan, including Free, and there is no limit on how many tags you can create or how many a contact can have.

"Tag" means three different things in SendFox

Worth knowing before you go looking, because these are separate features:

• Contact tags — labels on people. That is this article.
• Personalization tags — placeholders like a contact's first name that you drop into an email so it reads one-to-one. See Personalization tags.
• Campaign tags — labels on an email, used to choose which past emails appear on a Smart Page feed. See What does the "Enable Feed page" feature do?

Create a tag

1. Go to Audience → Tags.
2. Click Create tag.
3. Give it a name — short and specific works best, for example bought-course-a.
4. Pick a Color. The first swatch is selected by default, so choose a different one if you want your tags easy to tell apart at a glance. (Tags you create inline — from a contact's profile, or while importing — are given a color automatically, cycling through the palette.)
5. Click Create tag.

Tag names can be up to 191 characters and must be unique within your account — you cannot have two tags with the same name.

Four ways to tag contacts

One contact at a time

Open any contact from Audience → Contacts and find the Tags section on their profile. Click + Add a tag and pick one. To make a new tag right there, type a name into the New tag… box — if a tag with that name already exists, SendFox applies the existing one instead of creating a duplicate.

To take a tag off, remove it from the same section.

Several contacts at once

1. Go to Audience → Contacts.
2. Tick the contacts you want — or use the filters first to narrow the list.
3. Choose Add a tag from the bulk actions, pick the tag, and click Tag contacts.

Need a tag that doesn’t exist yet? Type it into Create a new tag… and click Create & tag to make it and apply it in one step. Remove a tag works the same way in reverse.

Automatically when someone signs up

A form can tag everyone who submits it. Open the form in the builder, go to its settings, and use Tag them on signup to choose one or more tags.

This is the tidiest way to record where someone came from. It also applies to existing subscribers who submit the form again, so the tag reliably means "signed up through this form" rather than "was new when they did."

The picker only appears once you have created at least one tag.

Automatically when you import

When you upload contacts, use the Tag them on import panel to tag everyone in that file. You can pick existing tags or type new ones, which are created as part of the import.

Note that this tags everyone in the file, including people who were already in your account — useful when you are importing a list of, say, past customers and want them all labelled.

Find contacts by tag

On Audience → Contacts, use the tag filter (it reads All tags until you pick one). Choose a tag to see only those contacts, and the active filter shows as Tagged "your tag".

The same dropdown has an Untagged option, which shows every contact carrying no tags at all — handy for finding the people you still need to sort.

Send to a tag — or skip one

When you build an email, the To row at the top of the editor has two tabs: Lists and Tags. Pick from either, or both.

• Lists and tags add together. Choosing a list and a tag sends to everyone in either group, and anyone who is in both is counted once — nobody gets two copies.
• Skip wins. Use the Skip row to leave people out. Anyone matching a skip rule is cut from the send even if they also match your To selection — so you can email your whole audience while leaving out, for example, everyone tagged as an existing customer.

The recipient count next to the rows is an estimate, because the same person can belong to several lists and tags at once. For the full walkthrough see How do I create and send an email?

Rename, merge, and delete tags

Everything here happens on Audience → Tags, which lists each tag with its contact count and the date you created it.

• Edit — rename a tag or change its color. Contacts keep the tag.
• Merge — combine two tags that mean the same thing. Click Merge, choose the tag to merge into, and confirm. Everyone carrying the old tag gets the target tag, and the old tag is removed. Merging also updates any forms, imports, and emails that referenced it, so nothing is left pointing at a tag that no longer exists.
• Delete — removes the label only. Your contacts are kept; they simply stop carrying that tag.

Troubleshooting

The Merge button is greyed out

• You need at least two tags before there is anything to merge into. Create a second tag and the button becomes available.

I can't create a tag — it says the name is taken

• Tag names must be unique within your account. Check the list on Audience → Tags for an existing tag with that name, and use it or rename it.
• If you are trying to tag one contact and the name already exists, typing it into the New tag… box applies the existing tag rather than failing.

The contact count on a tag looks wrong

• Counts can take a moment to catch up after a large bulk change or an import. Reload the page shortly after and the number should settle.
• If it still looks off, filter Audience → Contacts by that tag — the filtered view is the reliable answer.

My form isn't tagging new signups

• Confirm the tag is selected under Tag them on signup in that specific form — the setting is per form, not account-wide.
• The picker is hidden until you have created at least one tag, so create the tag first, then reopen the form.

Still stuck? Reach us through the SendFox Help Center.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a paid plan to use tags?

No. Contact tags are included on every plan, including Free, with no limit on how many tags you create.

How many tags can one contact have?

As many as you want. Tags stack, and a contact keeps every tag you apply until you remove it.

If I delete a tag, do I lose those contacts?

No. Deleting a tag removes the label and nothing else — your contacts stay exactly where they are.

Should I use a tag or a new list?

Use a list for where someone signed up, and a tag for something you learned about them afterwards. Tags are usually the lighter choice, because they don't split your audience — see How do I organize and analyze my contacts? for the full set of options.

Can I manage tags through the API?

Not yet — contact tags are managed in the app. Note that the API's existing /tags endpoints refer to lists, which were originally called tags, and not to the contact tags described here.