Using Custom Data to Store Contact Info
Custom data is contact data you can store about your survey respondents in Contacts. You can also use custom data to personalize messages when using Email Invitation.
You can store the following custom data for each of your contacts:
- Email address
- First name
- Last name
- Six custom fields: Custom 1, Custom 2, etc.
Adding Custom Data to Contacts
Log in to SurveyMonkey and click your username in the upper-right corner of your account to access Contacts.
To edit the custom data for a single contact, click their email address in Contacts.
You can also organize custom data in a CSV file and upload it to Contacts:
- Create a CSV file of your contacts. If you already have contacts added to Contacts, click the down arrow to the right of a group to export them as a CSV.
- Add the custom data to the CSV file. Ensure the CSV is properly formatted.
- Import the CSV to Contacts, making sure to select update contact information.
Please take note of character limits for each field in Contacts.
Viewing Custom Data in Contacts
To view all custom data fields in Contacts, go to the bottom of the contact list and move the scroll bar to the right.
By default, we label the custom data fields as Custom 1, Custom 2, etc. To edit these labels:
- To the right of the search box in Contacts, click y Settings.
- Enter your preferred label names.
- Click Save.
This changes the label names across all of Contacts.
Using Custom Data in Messages
You can use placeholder tags in your messages to populate custom data from Contacts. When a recipient reads the message, the tags are replaced with their information. This is similar to merge tags in MailChimp or mail merge in Word.
To add custom data to your message:
- While editing a message, click the place in the message where you'd like to insert the tag.
- Click Insert Custom Data and select the tag to insert.
- Keeps the tags exactly as they are inserted, including the brackets.
When using the HTML template, you can use custom data tags in the subject line, the header, and the body of the message.
You can use the following tags in messages to pull information from Contacts:
[Email]
[FirstName]
[LastName]
[CustomData1]
[CustomData2]
[CustomData3]
[CustomData4]
[CustomData5]
[CustomData6]
Here is an example message you might use in the Email Invitation Collector (placeholders highlighted in yellow for the example):
Hi [FirstName],
We're planning a picnic for the [CustomData1] department and would love to get your feedback.
Please do not forward this message since it's associated with your email address: [Email]
Thanks for your participation!
- Annie
The message is sent to each email address in the collector separately, and placeholders are replaced with each contact's information from Contacts.
Here is what the recipient sees (placeholder content highlighted in yellow for the example):
Hi Danny,
We're planning a picnic for the customer service department and would love to get your feedback.
Please do not forward this message since it's associated with your email address: danny@surveymonkey.com
Thanks for your participation!
- Annie
Viewing Custom Data in Analyze
The following custom data is passed along to your survey results:
- Email address
- First name
- Last name
- Custom 1-6
You can see custom data in your results when browsing Individual Responses or in Responses Data exports.
You can also export custom data from Contacts.