First things first, let's talk about what they even are. Custom fields give you the ability to create your own contact data fields, most importantly, this is data for the contact itself.  So each contact will have these fields within their record that they can fill out within form surveys, stuff like that. You can go in and enter information via forms, surveys, workflows, manually, all sorts of things. These fields capture information about the contact. So favorite color, lease renewal, date, policy, renewal, date, canceled date, start date, whatever you want it to be. You can literally create whatever question you want.  Then you can pull these into messaging like text messages, emails, landing pages, all sorts of things & it will pull in whatever is attached to their contact record.

Then we also have custom values, which are standard account values. These are predetermined fields that you enter the data into and you only have to edit them in one place. So you can, again, you can pull these into messages, funnels, websites, emails, texts, all of those things.

The main difference is that custom fields are contact data fields, & they are specific to that one contact they've entered that data you've entered that data for them, whatever it is it's to that one contact, whereas custom values are for your account and you are putting the value in there. You are determining what that value is being entered. And this is for that value as a whole, wherever you bring it in. And then you can always go in and edit that later. 

What this looks like inside the system is if we go into the system and go down to settings, we will see under this last chunk of settings here, that we have custom fields and custom values.

If we click on the custom fields tab, again, these are your contact data fields. So these are going to be your questions you're asking on the forms surveys, different data you're having them pull in or enter in. Most examples include questions… What is a favicon and how do you add one? What's your LinkedIn profile link? What questions would you ask the client, if any?

I've created all of ours when I created our forms or surveys & you can use these custom fields and values all over different parts of the system, which is why they're mainly in this backend settings area. Again, under this custom fields tab, you are able to view, edit, delete, and actually change the order of your fields and how they present to you when you're in a contact record. If you want to have a certain question show up first, when you go to any contact record, you can use those lines to then rearrange how you want them to be presented to you.

Then under the custom values tab, we can see all of these ones that we have here, we have 49 of them in our account. When creating these values, you name your value for your internal usage so you know which link you're grabbing, and use the key for actually populating that field. Lastly, there's the value that you enter.  So if I took this backend API one, I could go in and enter a value, edit a value that's already existing, or I could delete it entirely if I wanted to. 

Once a value is created…that means that when I go to create emails and text messages, I can pull in these custom values into those messages. And then let's say later, six months down the line, I'm like, oh crap. I need to change my referral meeting link to a different one, I don't want to go back to all of those emails and all of those text messages to replace that one link, and gotta make sure I don't forget any…Actually, if you use these custom values, it's much easier because all you have to do is just change the value in this settings area. Then this key will now update that value wherever you've pulled that in. So it's really, really helpful when you have links that you're pulling into email after email and they're all over the place. 

To provide a couple of use cases, I wanted to show you how these custom fields and values work. In our referral smartlist, we can see the names of our contacts, custom fields for both the contact referred and referred by, and more. When these people are filling out my forms that I've created to submit those referrals, it's automatically filling in that information to that contact. So for this person, I can see that they were referred to by Sam Yasmin. I can click on any of these people and go to the additional info tab and see all of my custom fields and what data that person has entered into them. You can turn on and off hiding those empty fields if you only want to view the ones with data in them.. 

To use the fields and values, you can pull those in via these custom values drop down wherever you're working in the system. You can find any custom field you've created under the contact list all the way at the bottom, under the custom fields area. And then this is where you can scroll and find any custom field that you've created and it'll pull in whatever data is associated with that contact for that said custom field that you chose.

We also have user information. Whoever the contact is assigned to the appointment information if this is being sent off of an appointment. Message body, account fields which pull in your CSP or high level account information, right now, email unsubscribe, link membership, contacts, or Shopify.

Lastly, we have our custom values. Again, these are all those really quick links and data fields that I want to be able to grab very quickly when I'm working within the system. So one that I use a lot is our open office hours zoom link. So if I just quickly was messaging someone and was like, oh, I need my open office hours link…I can just go and grab that custom value and send it to them rather than having to go find the link in zoom and copy paste it and move it all over, I can just quickly grab my little link here. And if I ever needed to change that open office hour link later, I can always go back in under settings, custom values and then edit that link, then wherever I have this custom value pulled in, it will update automatically. 

We can also pull custom fields & values into funnel/website pages. We don't know who they are right when they join the page, but we do after they've submitted some sort of form or booked an appointment, etc. Now, we know who they are & we can use those custom fields on those different pages. For example, we have our internal processes here where they're booking their intro call. On the thank you page that is connected, you will see that I have {{contact.name}}, thanks for booking on {{appointment.start_time}} {{appointment.time_zone}} And the buttons add to calendar buttons are just pulling in that appointment custom field. So what happens is when they book on this page and they get taken to this page, it knows who they are, what their data is when they book their appointment, then it just is going to show and present that contact’s information via the custom fields on my page.

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