# Lists

Lists and segments are two ways to group contacts, and a campaign is sent to one of them. Both live under Audience, next to Contacts.

- A **list** is a fixed group. People are on it because you added them, or because they signed up through a form.
- A **segment** is a rule. Contacts join and leave it on their own as their tags, activity or fields change.

## Lists

Create one at Audience > Lists > New list. Click a list to open it.

- **Members:** add people with the Add contact search (type at least two characters of an email), with **Add all N contacts to this list**, or with **Import into this list**, which opens the CSV import with that list preselected. **Remove** takes a person off the list without deleting the contact.
- **Subscribe page:** every list has a public page at `/subscribe/<list id>`. **Copy subscribe link** copies it.
- **List settings:** rename the list or delete it. Deleting never deletes contacts. Any unsent campaign, RSS campaign or [Form](/docs/platform/forms) that used the list is left with no list, and the confirmation names them.

Unsubscribed and Bounced contacts cannot be added to a list. When a contact becomes unsubscribed or bounced they are removed from every list at once, and a nightly sweep catches anything that slipped through. If older data still has some, a banner on Audience > Contacts shows the count and a **Clean up now** button. See [Contacts](/docs/platform/contacts).

A list can hold Pending contacts, but sends only reach Subscribed ones.

## Segments

Create one at Audience > Segments > New segment, name it, then build the rule.

Choose **Match all** or **Match any** of the conditions, add them with **+ Add condition**, and click **Preview count** to see how many subscribed contacts match the rules on screen, saved or not. Click **Save segment** to keep it. With no conditions, a segment matches every subscribed contact.

A segment only ever contains Subscribed contacts. It is worked out again each time you preview it or send to it, so it is never a stale snapshot.

| Condition           | What it checks                                                                                                                                               |
| ------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Subscription status | Is Subscribed (the only choice, since segments are subscribed contacts).                                                                                     |
| Tag                 | Has tag, or does not have tag.                                                                                                                               |
| List membership     | Is in a list, or is not.                                                                                                                                     |
| Custom field        | Operators depend on the field type: equals, contains, greater or less than, before or after a date, within the last N days, yes or no. Needs a custom field. |
| Email engagement    | Has, or has never, opened an email or clicked a link in the last 7, 14, 30, 60 or 90 days. Machine and Apple Mail Privacy Protection opens do not count.     |
| Lifecycle stage     | Is, or is not: Active, Cooling off, Dormant, Never engaged, New.                                                                                             |
| Lead score          | Is at least, or at most, a number of points from Settings > Lead scoring.                                                                                    |
| Churn risk          | Is, or is not: low, medium, high.                                                                                                                            |
| Paid membership     | Is, or is not, a paying member (Settings > Paid tiers).                                                                                                      |
| Date added          | Added before or after a date. The date is read as midnight in your browser's timezone.                                                                       |

See [Email Tracking](/docs/concepts/tracking) for how opens and clicks are recorded. Deleting a segment does not touch its contacts, but a campaign still using it loses its audience.

## How a campaign picks its audience

In the campaign builder, open **Settings** and choose either **Send to list** or **Or send to segment**. The segment menu appears once you have at least one segment. A campaign has one audience, so picking one clears the other.

When the campaign sends, Flomailr starts from the list's Subscribed members or the segment's matches, then drops:

- addresses on the suppression list
- contacts who opted out of the campaign's Topic, if you set one
- anyone your Settings > Guardrails rules block

The Send panel shows "Sending to" with the audience name. A list also shows its subscriber count. A segment's size is worked out at send time. See [Campaigns](/docs/platform/campaigns) for the rest of the send.