This article explains how to use filter views to segment your contacts and how those segments can be turned into contact lists for sending mass emails, mass series, or mass texts.
You can either read through the steps below or scroll to the bottom of the page to watch the recorded walkthrough video. Click here to go to the video.
What Is a Filter View?
A filter view is a rule-based way to display a subset of your contacts that match specific criteria at any given moment.
For example, filter views can answer questions like:
Who are all of my contacts in a specific state or city?
Which contacts match a certain status or type?
Which contacts have or do not have certain custom field values?
Filter views automatically update as contact data changes. If a contact no longer matches the rules, they will automatically stop appearing in the filter view.
Filter Views vs Contact Lists
Understanding the difference between these two is critical.
Filter Views
Are entirely rules-based
Update automatically as contact data changes
Are used to dynamically identify contacts that match certain criteria
Contact Lists
Are static collections of contacts
Contacts are either in the list or not
Do not automatically change unless you add or remove contacts
Filter views are often used first, then converted into contact lists when you want to send a mass communication.
Navigate to Contacts
Click Contacts in the left sidebar.
Your contacts table will load.
All filter views are applied from this page.
View Existing Filter Views
Above the contacts table, click the leftmost dropdown.
This dropdown shows:
System filter views like My Contacts and All Contacts
Any custom filter views that have already been created
If you already have a filter view that matches your needs, select it here and skip ahead to the section on creating a contact list.
Create a New Filter View
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Click the Filter button above the contacts table.
Give the filter view a descriptive name.
Choose who the filter applies to:
Me - only your contacts
All users - contacts across the entire account
Optionally make the filter view visible to other users in the account.
Define Filter Rules
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Add one or more rules using contact fields, including:
Location fields like city or state
Contact status or type
Custom fields
Choose how each rule behaves:
Is / Is not for exact matches
Includes / Does not include for partial or multi-value fields
Multiple rules can be combined to narrow results further.
Once your rules are set, click Save.
Review Filter Results
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Once saved, the contacts table will refresh to show only contacts that match the filter view.
Below the filter name, you can see a summary of the rules applied so you can quickly confirm what criteria are active.
How Filter Views Update Automatically
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Filter views update dynamically.
If a contact’s data changes in a way that no longer matches the filter rules, that contact will automatically disappear from the filter view without any manual action.
This is a key difference between filter views and contact lists.
Star Important Filter Views
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If you have filter views that are core to your daily workflow:
Click the star icon next to the filter view name.
Starred filters appear in the Starred Filters menu.
You can access these filters quickly from anywhere in the system.
Click the star again to remove it from your starred list.
Edit or Delete a Filter View
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Select the filter view you want to modify.
Click Edit Filter.
From here, you can:
Change filter rules
Rename the filter
Delete the filter view entirely
Deleted filter views are removed from the dropdown and cannot be recovered.
Create a Contact List from a Filter View for Mass Communications
This is the key workflow for sending mass emails, series, or texts to a segment of contacts.
Select All Contacts in the Filter View
With the filter view applied, click the checkbox in the upper-left corner of the contacts table.
If the filter matches a large number of contacts, a blue banner will appear.
Click the option in the banner to select all contacts that match the filter, not just the visible ones.
Create a Contact List from Selected Contacts
Click the dropdown next to the checkbox.
Choose Create segment from selected.
Enter a name for the contact list.
Click OK.
The system will process the list in the background. This may take a few minutes depending on size.
Send a Mass Communication to the Contact List
Once the contact list is ready:
Use it when sending a mass email
Use it when enrolling contacts in a mass series
Use it when sending a mass text
Follow the normal sending steps you already use and select the newly created contact list as the audience.
If you need help with sending emails, series, or texts themselves, refer to the help articles specific to those features.
Summary
Filter views allow you to:
Dynamically identify contacts that match specific criteria
Save and reuse those criteria
Convert filtered contacts into static contact lists
Send targeted mass communications with confidence
Used together, filter views and contact lists give you full control over who receives your messages and why.
Training Video
Transcript
Transcript
0:00
hello everybody my name is Drew and
0:04
today we're going to look into filter
0:06
views filter views are how you can pull
0:10
up a list of contacts that matches a
0:14
particular rule in any given moment so
0:20
for instance if you're wondering
0:22
questions like who is everybody that is
0:26
in the state of Pennsylvania in my
0:29
contact in all my contacts my account a
0:32
filter view can be how you can pull
0:34
something like that up assuming that you
0:36
have the data in your system to begin
0:38
with and this can of course apply to
0:40
custom fields that you might have in
0:42
your system or like a contact status or
0:47
any any other things that you were
0:48
tracking in your account on a contact
0:51
record or in an Associated account to
0:54
that contact record now these can apply
0:58
as well to other tables in your system
1:01
like tasks opportunities accounts um but
1:05
in most cases people are using these for
1:08
contacts it's the most common use case
1:10
and the process is all basically the
1:12
same so we're just going to focus on
1:14
contacts for
1:16
today so let's head over to our
1:21
contacts you're going to see the filter
1:24
view that is being shown in this drop
1:29
down right here basically regardless of
1:31
what data table you're looking at in the
1:32
system so we can click on here and see
1:35
that we're looking at my contacts versus
1:37
all contacts and all the other filter
1:41
views that have been created in this
1:43
account are also showing right
1:46
here now if you are looking at a given
1:50
uh filter view you're going to see a
1:53
button right here that says edit filter
1:55
so if you're looking at a filter view
1:57
that's been created your option here
1:59
Will be to tweak this particular
2:03
filter but if you go to a system filter
2:06
like my
2:07
contacts you'll see that this button
2:10
says filter so this is basically just to
2:12
create a new filter view right here so
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we're going to click on
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this and we'll just work uh through this
2:21
a little bit so you've got the name for
2:25
the filter view so you can give it your
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uh
2:31
whatever name you like whatever is
2:32
descriptive you've got a couple of
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options here that relate to multi-seat
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accounts so if you're if if it's a
2:40
single user account in your account then
2:42
just leave these as me uh these really
2:44
don't make a difference for you but if
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you have multiple people in your account
2:48
you can apply the filters across just
2:51
your contacts versus everybody's
2:54
contacts so basically is this an account
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wide filter view or is it going to be
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just just for my particular
3:02
seat and then you can make this
3:05
available to all of your users as well
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so if it's uh some sort of a list of
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contacts that's really important for
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everybody to be able to be on the same
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page for you can make it all users and
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then your users will find that in their
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filter view drop
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down uh that this is uh the star of the
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show here you are able to select the
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fields that are going that these rules
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are going to apply to so it could be
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like you know
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city is
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uh Philadelphia as just a as an example
3:44
you can also apply
3:46
multiple
3:49
filters like you know we're looking at a
3:51
custom field here so industry is
3:54
retail and then you're also able to
3:57
change how these rules are set here
4:00
based on like is which would mean like
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it's going to have an exact match to
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this or is exactly not going to match
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this
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includes is uh is more like if if the if
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this parameter is going to be uh it
4:18
could have like it could just like for
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instance um if you are going to be
4:23
trying to make a a filter view for
4:27
whether they have an email address or
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not you can just do like but if it
4:31
includes or does not include the at
4:33
symbol in an email address well that'll
4:36
determine whether they they have an
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email address at all to begin with or
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not so that's a an example of how you
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could use includes or does not
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include and once you're ready you can
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hit the save button to save that filter
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we're not going to worry about that for
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this particular example we'll just go to
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some existing filter views that I have
4:58
in here
5:00
like we've got an example here for
5:03
industry is construction and we can see
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we've got the column displaying here and
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sure enough we're seeing everybody here
5:12
that matches
5:15
construction as you can see as well
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under this section right here you can
5:20
just see at a glance what are the rules
5:24
that apply to the filter view that I'm
5:26
looking at right now
5:30
now we go down here to
5:32
includes Auto so yeah here this is
5:34
probably a better example of how
5:36
includes Works than the example I gave
5:39
earlier so you can see we got mult in
5:42
for this particular Uh custom field it
5:45
can have multiple values applied to
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it and so this is everybody that has
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Auto even if they also have home as a
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plan that applies to them
6:01
and
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then you can also see the negative
6:04
version of that like plan does not
6:07
include
6:08
Auto so for instance if we go in
6:17
here and add an auto plan to this
6:20
particular
6:23
contact now they don't appear in this
6:26
list
6:28
anymore and I think now's a good time as
6:31
well just to because sometimes people
6:32
get a little bit tripped up on the
6:34
difference between a contact list and a
6:35
filter
6:36
View and one of the core differences is
6:40
that a filter view is entirely rules
6:43
based versus a contact list which is
6:46
just like everybody is either in this
6:48
bucket or they're not in this
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bucket and so as an example you know for
6:53
this filter view I just changed I didn't
6:56
explicitly try to remove this person
6:58
from this filter View
7:00
I changed the data for that contact
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record and because the data changed in a
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way that doesn't apply to the rule of
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the filter view the contact is no longer
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in this filter
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view so um as you can see when you
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create these filter views and
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you uh you create the filter views your
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filter view will remain in this dropdown
7:31
here so you don't have to create and
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recreate filter views every single time
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you want to view one you can simply go
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to your contacts click on this dropdown
7:41
and visit and revisit your uh filter
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views here now it's possible that you'll
7:48
have filter views that you use in your
7:50
account that are core to your day-to-day
7:54
workflow and if that's the
7:56
case like actually let's uh let's go
7:59
here to this not yet contacted example
8:03
so if you are doing sales operations and
8:08
you're constantly you got contacts
8:11
you've added into your account and
8:14
you are always looking to engage new
8:18
people to add them to your pipeline you
8:20
might have a filter view just like this
8:21
of not yet
8:24
contacted
8:26
and you'll uh if you want to be able to
8:30
easily access this filter view from
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basically anywhere in your
8:36
account you can click on this star
8:40
here and we
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refresh and now you can see up here
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we've got our starred filters so let's
8:48
just uh go to a different page just to
8:51
illustrate here I click on the start
8:55
filters and now I can just click on this
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right here to quickly go straight
9:01
to this star filter
9:05
View and so this just makes it really
9:08
easy for me to quickly get to this page
9:11
that I need to go to so I can
9:14
communicate with the so I can start
9:16
engaging these uh
9:18
uncontacted contacts right
9:21
here and you can remove the contact of
9:24
this uh from the starred filters by just
9:27
clicking on that star again
9:29
so it's kind of like you can have two
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different tiers of filter
9:34
views though even if you st a filter
9:36
view you'll still find them in the drop
9:41
down now if I need to uh just get rid of
9:45
a filter here like I've got way too many
9:47
in
9:48
here let's uh let's go over here to this
9:51
doesn't include Auto as an example I can
9:54
click on this edit filter
9:57
button I can make changes to this filter
10:00
view as needed but also I got the delete
10:04
button right
10:05
there and all you need to do is just go
10:08
to a different filter View and now we no
10:12
longer see this one in that list right
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there so I hope that uh you all find
10:20
this helpful filter views are a really
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powerful way to sift and sort your
10:25
contacts create segments for marketing
10:27
campaigns you know
10:30
surface opportunities even you know
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account management all these things can
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be uh can be aided by using these filter
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views now if you have any questions
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about uh how to create specific ones for
10:44
your needs uh as always you can reach
10:47
out to us and we will be more than happy
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to help thank you so much