Creating an audience list

An audience list groups recipients you can select for an email campaign. In Lists, you can build one from visitor tags, collect people with known email addresses into Site Users, or import recipients from a CSV.

Choose the source that matches how you want to maintain the audience. Creating a list does not send a campaign, and appearing in a list does not guarantee that someone is eligible to receive marketing email.

Before you begin

Open Lists in your site's admin. You need permission to manage lists to create a tag-based list, create or update Site Users, or add recipients manually. CSV importing has its own permissions; being able to import into an existing list does not necessarily let you create a new one or manage import jobs.

If Lists is missing or an action is unavailable, ask a site administrator to check your access. See Why can't I see or use a feature?.

Only include people you have permission to email. A purchase, booking, form submission, or known email address does not by itself establish permission for every marketing message. Building Site Users or using Add recipient adds accepted recipients as subscribed and records the administrator's confirmation of consent, so check that permission before proceeding.

Choose among these sources:

• People with a tag creates a dynamic list from enabled analytics visitor tags. Cedros periodically updates the tag-derived membership as people qualify or stop qualifying.
• Everyone with an email creates the Site Users list from people with known email addresses in your site's contacts, including contacts collected through forms, bookings, and subscriptions. You update it manually when you want to add newly available recipients.
• Upload a CSV imports an existing audience into a new private list or selected existing lists. Later changes to the original file do not update the list automatically.

The tags offered by the list builder are analytics visitor tags. They are separate from the tags you create and apply in People. A People tag or saved People filter does not automatically become an audience list. See Organizing contacts with tags and filters for that workflow.

Create a list from visitor tags

Use this option when membership should follow visitor behavior represented by the tags available on your site. If you need to set up or change those rules, follow Creating audiences from visitor behavior.

1. Open Lists and select New List.
2. Under Who's on this list, choose People with a tag.
3. Select one or more visitor tags. When you select several, set Include people with to Any of these for people carrying at least one selected tag, or All of these for people carrying every selected tag.
4. Review Who's on it today. Wait for the preview to finish updating, then check the count and sample people against the audience you intended.
5. Check the suggested Name and change it if needed. Choose a name that describes the audience and is different from your existing list names.
6. Open Advanced if you want to change the description or visibility. Private is the default. Choose Public only when you want the list to be available for joining through your site's subscribe forms.
7. Select Create list. When the list opens, check its name and recipients.

For example, Any of these with two interest tags includes people with either interest. All of these includes only people who have both. Do not add individual tag counts together: the same person can carry several tags.

A visitor must be associated with a person who has a usable email address to appear in this audience. An anonymous visitor carrying a tag is not yet an email recipient. Automated or no-reply addresses are excluded.

Cedros rechecks tags every 15 minutes, so membership changes are not immediate. The automatic cleanup applies to membership added through the tag rule; recipients added separately may remain even if they do not match the tags. Check the actual list if you need a strictly tag-based audience.

The preview is a count and sample of matching people, not a delivery forecast. If it says first 10,000 checked, treat it as a limited preview. Dynamic audience processing also has a 10,000-candidate limit; for a larger audience, use more specific tags and review the resulting lists before sending.

Create or update Site Users

Use Site Users when you want to collect eligible recipients from the people already known to your site. Despite its name, this list is built from site contacts; it is not limited to people with a registered account.

1. Open Lists and select New List.
2. Choose Everyone with an email.
3. Review Who's on it today and confirm that you have permission to email the audience.
4. Select Create list. If the list already exists, select Open Site Users instead.
5. Check the result message and open list. Review how many recipients were added and how many were skipped.

Site Users is a private snapshot. Opening an existing Site Users list does not refresh its membership. To add newly available contacts later, open that list and select Update from users, then review the added and skipped counts.

The update adds eligible recipients and leaves existing members in place; it does not rebuild the list from scratch or remove every person who no longer appears in the source contacts. Existing subscribed members can contribute to the skipped count, so skipped does not always mean an error.

Cedros also skips automated addresses, suppressed recipients, previously unsubscribed or bounced list members, and recipients blocked by applicable email preferences or consent checks. A successful update can add zero people. Compare the result with the list's current members before running it again.

If an address is missing or incorrect in People, follow Adding and updating a contact. Correcting a profile is separate from checking its list membership and subscription status.

Create a list from a CSV

Use this option when you already have a file of recipients and know their subscription status. For file preparation, exact status values, job controls, and recovery, see Importing contacts from a CSV.

1. Open Lists, select New List, and choose Upload a CSV.
2. Select Browse files, or drop your CSV into the upload area.
3. In Map CSV columns, map the column containing email addresses to Email. Check the preview and map any other fields you want to import, then select Continue.
4. In Confirm details, check New list name. Leave existing lists unselected when you want to create a new list. Selecting an existing list uses that destination instead, and no new list is created.
5. Choose the required Subscription status, review If a contact already exists, and check the destinations again. Leave Re-subscribe contacts who previously opted out off unless you have fresh consent and the required permission.
6. Select Save. Read any validation errors. If the import is queued, follow Import status until processing completes, then use View list and check the recipients.

Choose Already subscribed only for contacts who have opted in. Send a confirmation email first gives recipients a pending subscription status; they need to confirm before receiving campaigns. A completed import is not evidence that a confirmation message has arrived. Add without subscribing stores recipients without subscribing them to email.

If you map a Subscription status column, check its values too: recognized per-row values can determine each recipient's status instead of the default choice. The supported values are confirmed, unconfirmed, and unsubscribed.

For existing contacts, Fill in missing fields only preserves existing core contact values while allowing list memberships to be processed. Leave them unchanged skips the existing contact's row entirely, including adding it to a destination list. Replace with values from CSV can overwrite mapped values. Choose deliberately before saving.

Import queued means the job has been accepted for background processing, not that the list is populated. Review the final status and any row errors; use Download error report when offered. If processing fails, a newly created empty list may already exist. Check Lists and the import job before creating another list or uploading the same file again.

Add one recipient to an existing list

Use Add recipient for a small, deliberate addition to an active list.

1. Open the list in Lists and select Add recipient.
2. Enter the email address. Add a first and last name if you have them.
3. Confirm that the person has agreed to receive the email you intend to send. This action adds an accepted recipient as subscribed; it is not a request for their confirmation.
4. Select Add recipient and read the result message. Search the list for the address and check its status.

Cedros can decline the addition because the address is automated, already on the list, previously unsubscribed, suppressed, or blocked by preferences or consent checks. A closed dialog alone does not mean the recipient was added. Use the outcome message to decide what needs attention; do not repeatedly add the same address to try to override a refusal.

Check the list before using it

Reopen the list from Lists and confirm its name, source, and intended audience. Use Search to find a recipient by name or email, and Clear search to return to the loaded recipients.

Check subscription status as well as membership:

• Subscribed means the list membership is confirmed. Other sending checks, including suppression, preferences, and consent, can still prevent delivery.
• Pending means the membership is not confirmed.
• Unsubscribed means the recipient has opted out of that list.
• Bounced means the membership has been marked as bounced.

Large lists may show only the first 2,000 recipients. Search and pagination work within the loaded recipients, so an unsuccessful search in that view does not prove the address is absent from the full list. Check any displayed limit before interpreting a missing result.

Review the campaign's own audience checks before sending. The list's member count, the builder's preview count, and the number eligible for a particular campaign can differ. Check unsubscribed and suppressed recipients when an address is excluded. Once the list is ready, follow Sending your first email campaign.

If something does not look right

No tags are available. The builder offers enabled analytics visitor tags. A tag created in People will not appear here. If the page reports that tags could not load, resolve that error before treating the empty view as an empty tag catalog.

The preview is empty or smaller than expected. Check the selected tags and Any/All choice, whether tagged visitors are linked to people with email addresses, and whether the preview reports a limit. For a saved dynamic list, allow for the 15-minute refresh interval. Do not treat a preview error as a count of zero.

Create list or Save is unavailable. Check your permissions, a unique nonempty list name, and the selected source. For CSVs, map Email, choose a subscription status, and confirm that you can use the selected destination.

Site Users is missing someone. Opening the list does not update it. Use Update from users, read the added/skipped result, and check the person's email and subscription restrictions. An existing member may simply have been skipped because no new membership was needed.

A list or recipient seems to have disappeared. Clear the Lists search and source filter. Check Archived for an archived list, and check the recipient search and displayed loading limit inside the list. An archived list must be restored before it can be updated.

A CSV remains queued or fails. Read Import status and any processing warning or error report. If you cannot view import history, ask an administrator with import access to check it. Avoid creating another copy of the same list while the original job is still unresolved.

If you need help, include the list name, source option, action, approximate time, and exact error text. For CSV issues, include the import status and a redacted row example rather than the full customer file. See Getting help with your Cedros site.