While we usually recommend that creators use Tags to keep track of their subscribers' interests, this method has limitations.

Here’s what we mean:

Let’s say you’re a travel filmmaker who writes about travel videos and film-making, but you know not everyone might be interested in both topics.

As a result, you want to survey your subscribers to segment them according to:

Then, to segment your subscribers, you send a survey email containing Link Triggers that tag subscribers based on the survey response they click.

However, a problem can arise if subscribers click multiple survey responses in your survey email (whether accidentally or otherwise).

For example, a subscriber may be interested in just emails about travel videos but click both the “Travel videos” and “Film-making” survey response options.

As a result, they get tagged as being interested in both travel videos and film-making, and receive emails on both topics from you.

To avoid these tag-related issues, an advanced—but more robust—method of saving your subscribers’ interests is to use custom fields. Read on to learn how in this guide.

First, craft your survey question and responses. (See steps 1 and 2 of this guide for more details on this.)

Then, create a new custom field, which you’ll use to save your subscribers’ survey responses.

You can name your custom field however you like, but make its name relevant to your survey. Using the same travel filmmaker example from above, we'll name our custom field “Interests.”

Also, leave the custom field value blank. Your subscribers will help fill it out for you.

Next, go to Rules under the Automate tab in the navigation. Then, click the + New rule button to create a new Link Trigger.

Use “Clicks a link” as the Trigger and “Set custom field” as the Action so that the subscriber will have their survey response saved in a custom field when they click the Link Trigger.

The custom field you set should be the one you created in the previous step.

After that, fill out what the custom field value should be when a subscriber clicks a certain survey response option. Following from our travel film-making example, our custom field values could be:

Create separate Link Triggers for each survey response option.

Finally, add your survey question and Link Triggers into an email.

Your survey email can be a Sequence email if you want to prompt new subscribers as they opt in. Alternatively, if you’re doing a one-off survey of your existing subscribers, set up your survey email as a Broadcast.

So, create a new Sequence or Broadcast email, and type your survey question and survey responses. Then, highlight each of your survey responses and add their corresponding Link Trigger.

To test your Link Triggers, add your email address to your Kit account. Then, create a Broadcast with your survey and Link Triggers set up, and send that Broadcast to yourself.

When you receive the survey email in your inbox, click one of the survey options. You should be sent to the destination URL you set in your Link Trigger.

Then, check that your email address has its custom field set correctly in your Kit account.

☝️ One last thing:

Once you’ve started getting survey responses, you can create a Segment to group subscribers who have the same custom field value.

More info on how to do this below 👇

How to create a Segment