Go to Contacts > Contact Types.
Contact types are labelled tags you can attach to your customers, such as VIP Member, Trade Buyer, or Newsletter Subscriber. A customer can hold as many contact types as you like, and each type can hold any number of customers. They sit alongside your clubs and loyalty tiers rather than replacing them.
Contact types give you a flexible way to segment your customer base. Once a customer holds a type, you can target them with a promotion, send them a welcome email, and sync the segment to your email marketing platform. This is especially useful for running offers or campaigns at a specific group without touching their club or loyalty settings.
Creating a Contact Type
To create a contact type, go to Contacts > Contact Types and select Create Contact Type. Fill in the details and select Create to save.
Title
- The name of the contact type, up to 32 characters. This is the label your customers and campaigns are grouped under, for example "VIP Member".
Description
- An optional internal note describing what the type is for. Customers do not see this.
Colour
- Pick a colour for the type from the preset swatches, or choose a custom colour with the picker. The colour is used on the chips that identify the type throughout the Vendor Panel.
Status
- Set the type to Active or Inactive. Only active types can be used for signups and campaigns.
Public (visible to customers)
- When switched on, the type can be used on public signup forms. This is required before you can wire a signup form to the type. Leave it off for internal-only segments.
Send welcome email when a customer is added
- When switched on, a customer added to this type receives a welcome message. See the Welcome Email section below.
Sync to email marketing (Brevo, Mailchimp, Klaviyo)
- When switched on, the type is mirrored to your connected email marketing platforms as a list or tag, and members are kept in sync automatically. See the Email Marketing Sync section below.
Assigning Customers to a Contact Type
There are a few ways a customer can be added to a contact type. Every assignment records how it happened, so you can always see whether a customer was added by hand, by a rule, or through a signup form.
From a customer profile
- Open a customer under Contacts > Customers, then select Add Contact Type and choose the type. You can also add customers from the type itself: open the type, and on the Customers tab select Add Customer.
Automatically with an auto-assign rule
- Set conditions and let Members One add matching customers for you. See the Auto-Assign Rules section below.
Through a signup form
- Point a public signup or newsletter form at a contact type so new subscribers are enrolled automatically. See the Signup Forms section below.
To remove a customer, open the type, and on the Customers tab use the row action to remove them. Removing a customer keeps a record of the assignment for your history.
Auto-Assign Rules
An auto-assign rule adds customers to a contact type automatically when they match the conditions you set. This saves you tagging customers by hand and keeps a segment up to date as your customers' activity changes.
Step 1: Open the rule builder
- Open a contact type, then select the Auto-Assign Rule tab.
Step 2: Add your conditions
- Select Add condition and choose a condition type. You can build rules from total spend, order count, last order date, whether the customer has an active membership, membership of a particular subscription club, membership of a loyalty tier, state or province, country, and when the customer was created.
- Add as many conditions as you need. A customer must match every condition to be assigned.
Step 3: Name the rule and set it active
- Give the rule a name and use the toggle to set it Rule active or Rule paused.
Step 4: Save and check the match
- Select Create Rule to save. Once saved, use Preview to see how many customers match right now, or Run now to evaluate the rule and assign matching customers immediately.
Note: Members One re-checks active rules each day, so customers are added as they start matching and removed as they stop. Customers you assigned by hand are never removed by a rule.
Signup Forms
You can connect a public signup or newsletter form to a contact type so that new subscribers are enrolled automatically. This works with most form builders, including Elementor Forms, Gravity Forms, and Zapier, as well as your WooCommerce store.
Before you start
- The contact type must be set to Active and have Public (visible to customers) switched on. A type that is not public and active cannot be used for signups.
How it works
- When someone submits the form, Members One finds or creates a customer by their email address and adds them to the contact type. If the type has its welcome email switched on, the new subscriber receives it. Submitting the same email again does not create a duplicate customer.
If you would like help wiring a signup form to a contact type, please get in touch with our support team here.
Welcome Email
Send welcome email when a customer is added
- When this toggle is on, a customer added to the type receives a welcome message. It sends when a customer is added from their profile or through a signup form, and only for a genuinely new assignment.
- You can edit the wording of this message under Settings > System Emails, in the Contact Type Welcome template.
Email Marketing Sync
Sync to email marketing (Brevo, Mailchimp, Klaviyo)
- When this toggle is on, the contact type is mirrored to each of your connected email marketing platforms. Brevo and Klaviyo create a list for the type, and Mailchimp adds a tag.
- Every assignment keeps the platform in step: adding a customer to the type adds them to the list or tag, and removing them takes them back out. This works whether the customer was added by hand, by a rule, or through a signup form.
- Switching the toggle off, or deleting the type, removes the members from the list or tag but leaves the now empty list or tag in place, so nothing is deleted on your marketing platform without your say-so.
The Contact Type Page
Selecting a contact type opens its detail page. A summary shows its status, customer count, visibility, and creation date, followed by three tabs.
| Customers | The customers assigned to this type, including when and how each was added. You can add or remove customers here. |
| Auto-Assign Rule | The rule builder, where you set the conditions that add matching customers automatically. |
| Used In Promotions | The promotions that target this contact type, so you can see at a glance where the segment is used. |
Contact Types List Page Table
Below is a table of list page items and their functions.
| Search contact types | Search your contact types by title. |
| Create Contact Type | Opens the form to create a new contact type. |
| Title | The name of the contact type. |
| Customers | How many customers are currently assigned to the type. |
| Auto-Rule | Whether the type has an auto-assign rule, and whether that rule is active. |
| Used in Promos | Whether any promotion currently targets this contact type. |
| Status | The status of the contact type, active or inactive. |
| Action | View, edit or delete the contact type. |