Build manual contact lists

When to use a manual list

Use a manual list for a fixed or curated cohort: webinar attendees, a launch pilot, named strategic accounts, customers handed to a specialist, or recipients approved for a one-time review. Use a smart list when membership should continually follow fields such as lifecycle, opt-in status, last activity, or tags.

Manual membership does not override consent, suppression, a missing contact method, or channel availability. A campaign can still exclude list members at send time.

Create the list

1. Open Contacts, then Lists.
2. Choose New list and select Manual list.
3. Give the list a specific name and description. “July onboarding pilot—approved customers” is more useful than “Marketing list.”
4. Save the list.
5. Return to Contacts, select the intended records, and use the list membership action to add them. You can also manage membership from the list detail when available.
6. Open the list and review a sample of names, companies, owners, and channel eligibility.

Example: create an event follow-up cohort

Start from the attendee file or verified registrations, not everyone tagged with a broad event label. Remove staff, test addresses, duplicates, and people who did not agree to the intended follow-up. Add the remaining contacts to a list named for the event and date. Before any campaign, preview the channel-specific sendable count.

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Maintain membership

• Add a contact when an authorized teammate makes an explicit inclusion decision.
• Remove a contact when the cohort’s purpose no longer applies.
• Archive a list when the business purpose ends; do not reuse an old list for an unrelated campaign.
• Record the list’s owner and purpose in its description so future users know whether it is still valid.

Verify before use

1. Compare the list count with the expected cohort.
2. Search for known inclusions and known exclusions.
3. Check for contacts that have become archived, opted out, or unreachable.
4. In the campaign builder, review Matched, Sendable now, Duplicates removed, and Skipped rather than assuming list count equals delivery count.

Recovery

If the wrong records were added, remove those memberships; do not delete the contacts. If the whole audience is suspect, archive the list and create a correctly named replacement after reviewing the source. For large errors caused by an import, check Import history before changing membership manually because import undo can remove imported memberships safely.