A contact in Engage is created with many default attributes, which are known as standard attributes (or standard fields). For example: Contact type, First Name, Last Name, E-mail, and others.

You can see the whole list of standard contact attributes here.

It's also possible to create custom contact attributes for your particular Engage environment, if you need your contacts to hold more information than the standard attributes. Here's how to do that through the configuration area.

The contact attributes page

When you arrive at Contact attributes in the configuration area, you'll see a list of all the current custom attributes that have been created (if any).

At the bottom of the custom attributes list is the button that you use to add a new attribute:

Below this is the area where you can see the standard (default) contact attributes:

Finally, selecting the edit icon on the right hand side of an attribute brings up this panel, allowing you to edit some of the values for that custom attribute.

See the next section for a description of the settings on the panel.

Adding a custom attribute

When you select Add attribute you will see this panel:

These values are needed to create your new custom attribute. The first three are:

• Name: This is the attribute's display name, shown on contact cards or in segmentations.
• Id: This is an attribute's database name used during integration, when importing/exporting, or when personalizing contact data in a mailing from Engage. It is required to be unique (an attribute can't be created if you try to use an already existing attribute name). An Id can't be changed once the attribute is saved and created.
• Type: There are many attribute types used for different data types or behaviours. Only some types can be used to create custom attributes. In the next section are the types available for creating custom attributes.

The next three settings decide the placement of the custom attribute on the contact card in Engage.

• Show in contact-card panel or tab: This determines where in the contact card in Engage this attribute will be displayed. For example, "First name" might belong to the "Contact details" tab, while a "Number of pets" attribute might belong to "Interests".
• Row: The row (1-3) of your custom attribute on the page.
• Column: The column (1-3) of your custom attribute on the page.

Each attribute also comes with four independent check-boxes.

• Segmentable: Select this if the attribute can be used for segmentation.
• Allow in personalization: Select this if the attribute can be used to personalize contact data in emails, like this: "Hello [[firstName]] here comes a special offer".
• Exportable: Select this if the attribute should be included when exporting contacts.
• Read-only in contact card: Select this if the Engage admin can change the value of this attribute for a contact directly on the contact card in Engage.

Article last reviewed 10 November 2025 09:11