Tags and custom fields

A list is what someone signed up for. A tag is something you know about them. A custom field is a detail you keep. Postalion has all three, and keeps them simple: no rules engine, just labels and values you can filter by, send to and write into an email.

Tags

A tag is a short label on a subscriber: customer, attended 2026, VIP, asked about Pro. One person can carry any number of tags, and a tag with nobody on it is fine. Tags are created under Postalion → Lists & tags, but they also appear by themselves the first time a form, an import or your code uses a name that does not exist yet.

Ways a tag gets onto a subscriber:

• By hand: when you add or edit a person, type the tags in the Tags box, separated by commas. Existing names are suggested as you type.
• In bulk: on the Subscribers screen tick people and choose Add tag or Remove tag from the actions menu.
• From a form: [postalion_form tags="webinar, 2026"], or the Tags for new subscribers setting of the block. Only tags that already exist are applied this way, so a visitor cannot invent one by editing the page.
• From a CSV file: a tags column, comma or semicolon separated, plus any tags you type in the import dialog. New names are created.
• From code: postalion_subscribe( $email, array( 'tags' => array( 'customer' ) ) ), or Postalion_Tag_Manager::add_subscriber( $subscriber_id, array( 'customer' ) ) for someone who is already subscribed.

What you can do with tags once they are there:

• Filter the Subscribers screen by tag; each tag on a row is a link to that filter, and the export follows the filter.
• Send to a tag: in the composer the audience Only people with a tag reaches everyone carrying at least one of the ticked tags. Only confirmed subscribers get email, as always.
• Hook into it: the actions postalion_subscriber_tagged and postalion_subscriber_untagged fire with the subscriber ID and the tag ID.

Renaming a tag renames it everywhere, including the slug used in forms. Deleting a tag takes it off everyone; the people stay subscribed. Unsubscribing never touches tags: they describe the person, and if they come back the tags are still there.

Custom fields

Postalion always keeps the email address, the first name and the last name. Custom fields add whatever else you need: a company, a city, a birthday, a plan, a number of seats. Each field has a name, a type and a key.

• Text: anything up to 500 characters.
• Number: whole or decimal; anything else is dropped.
• Date: stored as a date whatever format it came in; shown in your site's date format.
• Choice: one of the options you list, one per line. A value that is not on the list is dropped.

The key is made from the name when the field is created (Company becomes company, Société S.A. becomes societe_s_a) and never changes afterwards, so forms and emails keep working when you rename the field. A few keys are taken by Postalion itself (email, first_name, status and the like) and cannot be used.

Ways a value gets in:

• By hand: every field is an input in the add and edit dialogs. Clearing the input clears the value.
• From a form: [postalion_form fields="company, city"] adds those inputs, in that order, below the name and email; fields="*" asks for all of them. The block has the same setting. Choice fields become a drop-down, dates a date picker, numbers a number input.
• From a CSV file: a column whose header is the field's key or its name. Values are checked against the type like everywhere else.
• From code: postalion_subscribe( $email, array( 'fields' => array( 'company' => 'Acme' ) ) ), or Postalion_Field_Manager::set_values( $subscriber_id, array( 'company' => 'Acme' ) ).

Where the values show up:

• In emails: every field is a variable, {company}, {city}, next to {first_name}, {last_name} and {subscriber_name}. A value that is empty for someone is left blank for them, so write sentences that survive a blank, or use {subscriber_name}, which always says something.
• In the export: one column per field, named by its key, after the standard columns.
• In personal data requests: WordPress's export includes them and the erasure removes them.

Deleting a field deletes every value stored in it. Fields can be reordered with the arrows; the order is the order in forms, dialogs and the export.

Shops get a head start: with WooCommerce tracking on, buyers are tagged Customer and the fields Last order and Orders are kept for you.

Lists, tags or fields?

If people choose it, it is a list: the weekly letter, the workshop announcements. If you know it about them, it is a tag: they bought, they came, they asked. If it has a value, it is a field: which city, which plan, how many. The three work together: a form can fill a list, add a tag and ask for a field in one go.

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