Although tags and custom properties are two different tools, you may have a good reason to use one instead of the other. This article will explain the differences to help you make a reasonable choice.
Contact Tags
Tags can be added to your customers' profiles using various options, including automation workflows and sync from your store platform. They can be removed and re-added easily to the platform; therefore, they are suited for storing dynamic data.
Here, you may see that 2 out of 3 tags are based on your contacts' engagement. This information is dynamic and changes over time.
Custom Properties
Custom properties can be assigned to your customers' profiles permanently. It is not possible to remove them but only change the value assigned. Therefore, custom properties are suitable for storing data that stays mostly the same. Or when the data can be changed manually by the customer.
Here, we have three different values. If you want to ask your contacts' about the Language they prefer, you should ask for that information in person using the Signup form or Subscriber Preference Center. So, the only way to change this property is to fill in this form again.
The other two properties were passed to Omnisend by third-party apps, Loyalty Lion and MailChimp. If your loyalty points count changes, Loyalty Lion will push a new update value to your contacts' profiles. As for the average click rate collected with MailChimp, this data is helpful for a one-time reference and won't be as necessary later.
Choosing Tag or Custom Property on Manual Import
Tags and custom properties can be used to Segment your contacts, trigger automations, and Segment-based splits. But when it comes to manual import, each plays a different role. And here is why:
you can assign only one tag per your contacts import;
custom properties can be used in the Email message content;
A single custom property can have different values. For example, a custom property named Language can be set to English, French, and German for various contacts.
Therefore, custom properties should be used on manual import to identify unique data pieces. Meanwhile, tags are unique identifiers of your imports.
💡 If you need to import a piece of data having comma-separated values, like Languages: English or German, you may use the contains operator in the Segmenting menu. All of the custom properties can be found at the bottom of segmenting filters marked as Custom properties:
If you have more questions or need assistance, talk to our Support Team via In-app chat or at [email protected].