👋🏽 Introducing Custom Fields

Seamlessly collect, store, and use any subscriber attributes you want.

Hey beehiiv user!

We're thrilled to start the week with the announcement of our newest launch: custom fields.

With custom fields you can now upload and store subscriber metadata, create customized posts, and so much more. In this update we'll cover:

💾 Creating and uploading custom fields✏️ Viewing and updating fields✉️ Using custom fields in posts

...and also a sneak peek of additional functionality to come soon!

💾 Creating and uploading custom fields

Creating Custom Fields

Under the Audience tab, you'll now see the option for Custom Fields.

Selecting Custom Fields will allow you to create individual fields you'd like your subscribers to inherit. You'll just need to create a name and choose a data type (string, number, boolean, date, etc.).

Custom fields can be anything you'd like, for example:

  • first name

  • last name

  • favorite color

  • subscriber rating

  • etc.

Uploading Custom Fields

We have significantly enhanced our subscriber import process so you can now include any fields you'd like when importing.

When going through the import process—you'll be able choose from existing custom fields you've already created, or create new ones on the fly.

This unlocks the ability to import metadata collected on a previous platform, or continue to bulk update additional subscriber data whenever you'd like.

There are select reserved fields that are not able to be used as custom fields, which you can view here.

You can also watch the full video tutorial here.

Note: re-uploading a csv won't create duplicate subscriptions, so you can re-upload and bulk update subscriber attributes whenever.

✏️ Viewing and updating fields

All of your custom fields will be visible on each individual subscriber's page. By clicking into any subscriber—you are able to view, edit, and update the custom attributes associated with that reader.

✉️ Using custom fields in posts

As you may have noticed at the very top of this email, we dropped in your name to greet you. That was made possible by using our handlebar syntax within the post.

It's as simple as what's shown in the screenshot above. Within the handlebars you write the name of the custom field you want to render, and can provide an optional fallback value. The fallback value is what will display if the specific subscriber doesn't have a value for the custom field (also when a reader isn't logged in on web, which is likely most web traffic).

You can watch the full tutorial here:

What's coming next...

There are a few enhancements you should expect to roll out over the next several weeks to make custom fields even more powerful:

  • Using custom fields in segmentation

  • More ways to create custom fields

  • Subscriber generated custom fields

  • and a whole lot more...

If you have any additional feedback about anything, please hit reply and let us know. All of these improvements featured above came from user feedback.

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