How to use Tags, Segments, and Custom Fields in Kit (Formerly Known as ConvertKit)

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Tags, custom fields, and segments are the backbone of your Kit account, and in my opinion your email marketing strategy in general. They’re what are used to intentionally and thoughtfully organize your subscribers. And your tags and custom fields play a vital role in ensuring that your automations runs smoothly.

After years of using Kit for my own businesses for over a decade and supporting dozens of small businesses with theirs, I can tell you that even the most tech savvy business owner gets confused by them. It’s also very common for me to see them used incorrectly, and it turns your account into a confusing, jumbled mess.

Let’s break down what these terms actually mean and how to use them well.

What are Tags?

Tags are individual pieces of information attached to a subscriber. For example, someone purchased Product A, or they’re currently enrolled in a specific sequence, or they signed up for a specific lead magnet.

Tags work best for:

• Binary cases – either something happened or it didn’t: they purchased, or they didn’t), they’re interested in something or they’re not, they want to opt out of hearing about something or they haven’t
• Multiple-choice situations – a subscriber can have more than one, like several topics they want to hear about

Tags are generally something that is automatically applied to or removed from a subscriber, either at signup, within a visual automation or rule, or after they click on something.

If you’re integrating your Kit account with another software, such as a course or membership platform, you will sometimes see the option to add a tag for items purchased.

How do you add a tag in your Kit account?

Tags can be added in multiple places:

• From the subscriber dashboard, where you’ll find a list of all of your subscribers, tags, and segments
• Inside a visual automation or rule
• When creating a landing page or form, and you want to give subscribers topics to select from a dropdown menu or

For the most up-to-date information on how to add tags, check out Kit’s help article on creating and managing tags.

Can you retroactively tag subscribers?

Yes. Say for example you want to tag everyone who clicked on a link in your email but you forgot to set up a link trigger. You can find the list of people who clicked on the link, then bulk-apply a tag.

(See Kit’s documentation on how to perform bulk actions.)

Or let’s say you want to tag all of the people who purchased any of your products with a catch-all “Customer” tag. I’d recommend creating a segment that includes “any” of those purchase tags, then bulk add the “Customer” tag.

Common mistakes people make when using Tags

Here are some common errors I see inside of people’s Kit accounts when it comes to tags:

Tagging too many things.

They want to tag everything, but most of them have are irrelevant or have no meaning. For example, you don’t need to tag every link that was very clicked on, though you might want to know if they click on your sales page.

Adding tags that contradict one another

I’ve seen this happen especially when people have memberships. A subscribe will have a tag that says “enrolled” and another one that says “cancelled”. And that’s because for some situations, a custom field works better.

Adding or removing tags without checking where they’re being used first

Because tags are used so heavily in automations, you could inadvertently trigger an unintended action by adding or removing a tag. Similarly, you might remove a really important tag by deleting it. Before doing any of these things, always check your visual automation and rules to make sure that tag isn’t being used in any of those places.

Deleting tags without checking if they’re being used

If you’re cleaning up a messy tag list, the instinct is often to create a brand-new, better-named tag, then bulk-apply it to everyone who has the old one. Don’t do this if the old tag lives inside an automation – it could break that automation, since the automation is still watching for the original tag, not the new one. Renaming the existing tag directly avoids that problem entirely, since Kit updates every reference to it automatically.

Advanced move: Using “Admin” tags to trigger actions

Not every tag needs to tell you something about a subscriber. Some tags exist purely to make an automation do something, and then they’re immediately removed. In this case, the tag’s only job is to fire a trigger, not to describe the subscriber.

I use this for clients when an automation needs to move someone from one step to another, but I don’t actually need that tag sitting on their profile afterward as information. The tag gets applied, it triggers the next action in the automation, and then it’s stripped off right away, almost like a light switch rather than a label.

What are Custom Fields in Kit?

Custom fields are things like first name, last name, and email address. They’re more nuanced bits of information inside individual subscribers’ accounts, where there generally isn’t one set response.

Custom fields are one of the most underused features in Kit. My guess is that’s because tags are so easy to create that it doesn’t occur to most people there’s a better option for certain jobs. (I was in that camp myself for years.)

Tags are limited by nature – either the exact tag exists on a subscriber, or it doesn’t. A custom field, on the other hand, can hold a range of information. Here’s where they’re best used:

• Information that has infinite possibilities. In addition to names and email address, this could be things like website URL’s, phone numbers, and Instagram handles. This is information that is generally user-generated.
• Anything in your business that has set levels or stages, where only one thing can be “true” at a given time.

Here are some examples of how you might use Custom Fields:

Identifying quiz results. Many of my clients have quizzes where the result could change over time. Since you don’t want to have conflicting quiz results, you can use a custom field to collect the most recent quiz result.

Collecting LinkedIn URL’s on a form or landing page. When someone signs up for your lead magnet, you can have a custom field that asks them to fill in their LinkedIn profile. This information will sit inside their Kit subscriber dashboard.

Tracking course progress. Instead of a tag like “Purchased – Product A,” a custom field can show you exactly where someone is: purchased, started, or completed. Now you can trigger a reminder email specifically to people who purchased but never started.

You could technically create a separate tag for each of those three stages instead. But now you’ve got three more tags cluttering your account, and technically a subscriber could hold all three tags at once – which creates chaos. A custom field only ever holds one value at a time, so there’s no conflict.

Tracking payment plans. If you offer payment plans, a custom field that identifies this does the job of what would otherwise be a separate tag for every product and plan combination. And similar to the quiz results, it can be updated to the most current version.

How do you create a Custom Field?

To create a custom field, go to an individual subscriber’s profile and look for the option to add a new field. (Kit only adds in “First name” and “Email address” fresh out of the box.) You’ll see a section here to add in a custom field.

Once you save it, the field appears on every subscriber automatically. By default, everyone’s custom field will be blank, and that can be changed automatically using forms and landing pages, visual automations, and rules.

For the most up-to-date information on how to add a custom field, check out Kit’s documentation.

How to see everyone who has a particular Custom Field?

Unlike with tags, where you can click on an individual one and see everyone who has that particular tag, if you’re using custom fields to say, track everyone who’s on monthly payment plan, you have to set up a segment.

Create a new segment, and where it says “Add a filter,” click on where it says “All subscribers,” and scroll down to where it says “Custom field.” (For the most up-to-date information on creating segments, check out Kit’s documentation on creating a segment.

From there, select the custom field, select “is exactly” and type in the word (e.g. monthly), and that will show you everyone who has the monthly payment plan.

A word of caution: this will only work if the spelling and punctation is exactly the same for everyone, including capitalization. For this reason, I recommend have Standard Operating Procedures that identifies how custom fields should be spelled out if you’re updating the information manually, or if you have it being updated via a visual automation, make sure the spelling matches.

What are Segments in Kit?

Segments are dynamic groupings of subscribers.

Unlike tags, which are static and attached on an individual basis, segments update automatically based on the criteria you set. They’re used as a way to group subscribers based on that information. You might use them as a way to exclude certain subscribers. As Kit explains:

Segments are fluid groups of subscribers who meet certain filter conditions.

I also happen to find Mailerlite’s definition of subscriber segments even more helpful:

Segmentation is the art of grouping subscribers together based on common traits in order to send more personalized, targeted campaigns.

People often conflate email segmentation as a strategy with the Segment feature inside Kit. They’re related, but not the same thing, and some people are technically doing segmentation without realizing they have a name for it.

In Kit, segments can be based on tags that a subscriber has (or doesn’t have). For example, you might have a “Customer” segment which includes anyone on your email list who purchased Product A, Product B, and/or Product C.

You can also create segments based on geographical location, by date range that they subscribed, particular forms they subscribed to, or by a custom field.

Segments are also great for sending email broadcasts, especially if every time you go to send one you find yourself including and/or excluding a specific list of tags. Instead of needing to remember this every time, you create the segment by selecting which tags to include or exclude. Then when you go to send or schedule your broadcast, you select that segment!

How do you create a Segment in Kit?

To create a segment, head to your subscribers view and look for the option to create a new segment. You’ll be able to name it and choose your filter logic:

• Any of the identifiers – for example, anyone with any product tag
• All of the identifiers – anyone who’s purchased every one of your products
• None of the identifiers – anyone who hasn’t purchased any of your products

Choosing “any” casts the widest net. “All” narrows it to people who match every condition. “None” excludes anyone who matches even one.

Will you mess things up if you rename Tags, Segments, or Custom fields?

No, but possibly yes. Once renamed, the change updates in all of the visual automations and rules that it’s used.

However, if you’re using either tags or custom fields to customize emails using Liquid, then changing the names will mess this up, so only change the name if it’s absolutely necessary, and also update your Liquid code in any sequences, snippets, or templates where it’s being used.

What updates automatically vs. manually?

Here’s a handy chart that sums that up for you:

An example of how someone might use these all together

Here’s a simple way to think about how the three pieces fit together, using an imaginary example of a client who is a trained therapist who offers a membership for business owners with ADHD:

Tags handle the binary and multiple-choice traits. In this case:

• One tag that identifies that signed up for their quiz lead magnet
• Another one that identifies that they signed up for their private podcast feed
• Tags for the topics that they’re interested in (time management, perfectionism, and avoiding procrastination) that they can select when they sign up for their newsletter
• Whether they consent to receiving the weekly newsletter (because some members only want the membership updates)

Custom fields handle the open-ended or changeable traits:

• Subscribers’ first and last name
• Their website URL
• Membership: whether they’re trialing it for a month, a member paying monthly, a member paying annually, or have cancelled their membership
• Their quiz results

Segments are what you build once your tags and custom fields are in place. For this client:

• They have a segment of their current members, which includes anyone with the membership custom field identified as “monthly” OR “annually”
• Another segment of anyone who is tagged with having signed up for the quiz and the membership custom field is blank
• Another segment of anyone who has the membership custom field identified as “cancelled”
• A newsletter segment that excludes anyone going through the welcome sequence and excludes anyone who doesn’t have the consent tag

When you have your Subscriber Strategy nailed down so that you’re able to set this up with intention, this combination keeps your account organized, makes sure the right subscribers land in the right automations (without anyone getting buried in emails they didn’t sign up for), and gives you a clearer picture of your audience so you can actually tailor what you send.

When tags, custom fields, and segments are set up with a plan behind them, they do the heavy lifting: keeping your account organized, making sure subscribers land in the right automation, and helping you send more relevant emails without the guesswork.

If untangling your current setup feels overwhelming and you’re looking for a Kit Certified Expert, that’s exactly what I help with.