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Lists

A list is who you're sending a campaign to. There are two kinds:

  • Simple list — people you add by hand.
  • Smart list — a set of rules, like "bought from Trees in the last 30 days." A smart list re-checks itself every time you send, so it's always current — no manual upkeep.

The Lists page

Every list shows a People count. For a smart list, that's a live count of who currently matches its rules. For a simple list, you'll see two numbers: how many are on the list, and how many of those can actually be emailed right now.

Tip

Those two numbers on a simple list can be different — a list of 500 people might only have around 120 who can be emailed today. That gap is normal. As the page itself explains, the rest are excluded automatically — most often because there's no opt-in on file and no purchase in the last two years, and also for people who opted out, whose address bounced, who asked for fewer emails, or who share an address with someone else on the list. Open the list to see the breakdown.

Building a smart list

A smart list is built from plain-language conditions, combined two ways:

  • Match ALL / ANY of these — the main set of conditions
  • Optionally, exclude anyone who matches ANY of a second set of conditions

Available conditions:

  • Customer class
  • Purchased from department (within a number of days)
  • Purchased item (PLU) (within a number of days)
  • Total spend over an amount (within a number of days)
  • Purchased at store (within a number of days)
  • Is on list — another of your lists
  • Was sent campaign (within a number of days)
  • Opened campaign (within a number of days)
  • Opened or clicked any email in the last number of days
  • Everyone we're allowed to email — the whole mailable audience (a new smart list starts with this)

As you build the rule, a live count updates below it — "N people would get this right now." If the count is temporarily unavailable, the page shows "count unavailable right now — it will still send correctly" — sending still works; it just can't show you a live number at that moment.

Once a list is saved, two tools help you sanity-check it:

  • Who's excluded, and why? — shows how many people the list matches, how many can be emailed right now, and counts for each reason people are skipped. (Someone can be counted under more than one reason — these are reasons, not separate groups of people.)
  • Show me 25 of these people — a quick spot-check of who's actually on the list right now.

Note

Some smart lists show "This list uses an advanced rule that can't be shown in the simple builder, so it's read-only here. It still works exactly as saved." That means the list's rule was written outside the builder (for example, by the VMXpert assistant) and uses conditions the builder can't display. The list still counts and sends correctly — it just can't be edited on this screen.

Building a simple list

Give the list a name and Save it first — a brand-new list shows "Save the list first, then add people to it." Then search for customers by name, email, or customer number and add them one at a time. Each person on the list can be removed the same way.

Archiving a list

Archiving takes a list out of the picker for new campaigns, but any campaign you've already sent to it keeps working normally — nothing about past results changes.

Importing contacts from another email service

Moving to VMX POS from Constant Contact? A two-step import brings your whole list over — the people who unsubscribed there go on your do-not-email list first, then everyone still subscribed has their sign-up recorded here so your lists can reach them. The import doesn't create a new list; it changes who your existing lists can email. See Bringing your list over from Constant Contact for the full walkthrough.

Coming from a different email service? You can still protect your unsubscribes by exporting that service's unsubscribe list as a CSV and uploading it on the Suppressions tab — see Importing from a file.