Tags vs lists: when to use which

You’ll find tags and lists in the side navigation of your dashboard, under More. Mechanically they work the same way, so the difference lies in how you use them.

Tags are labels

A contact can carry many of them, and each one describes a fact about that person: webinar-attendee, vip, refund, interested-in-coaching. Tags are also what automations watch for and apply, so they are the natural currency for behaviour.

Lists are named collections

Use them for deliberate groups that you maintain yourself, for example Newsletter or Beta testers. The description on the page puts it plainly: named, reusable collections.

Neither is limited to contacts. The same tag can sit on files in your media library, on pages, products and blog posts, which is why the usage column counts them all together.

Creating

On either page, click New tag or New list, give it a name and pick a colour. If you don’t pick a colour, one is assigned automatically from the palette, so chips always stay readable.

Attaching

• On a single contact profile, click a chip in the Tags or Lists card, or type a new name in the field below.
• From the contact list, select several rows and use the Add tag action in the bulk bar. Bulk actions support tags only, not lists.
• During a CSV import, where you can tag everyone in the file, add everyone to a list, or use a Tags column for individual rows.
• From automations, with the Add tag and Remove tag actions.

Managing

Each page has a search box, a filter panel (Used on media, Used on contacts, Used on pages, Used on products, Used on posts, Unused) and sorting by name, usage or creation date. Click a tag or list to open its own page with everything currently attached to it, split into Leads, Media, Pages, Products and Blog posts.

Editing and deleting

Editing changes the name and colour everywhere at once. Deleting detaches the tag or list from everything it was attached to. Nothing else disappears: contacts and files stay exactly where they were.

Where it pays off

You can pick both tags and lists as recipients when you send an email, and use them as conditions in segments. See Sending your first campaign.