What is the difference between a recipient list and a smart list?

Recipient Lists

A recipient list is a grouping of contacts where contacts may not need to have same characteristics in their contact records.  Often times a recipient list will be added when a user imports a spreadsheet of contacts in their account.

Some common uses for a recipient lists are to gather contacts from a chamber of commerce list or to create a list of contacts from an event - at first glance, these contacts will not have anything in common in their contact records, but they should all be grouped together for marketing purposes.

A recipient list must be updated manually, meaning that a user must import more contacts into the recipient list or manually add them.

Learn more about how to create a recipient list and how to add contacts to a recipient list. 

Smart Lists 

A smart list is like a query where the software makes a list of contacts with the same characteristics in their contact records or actions they've performed.  Mindmatrix can make smart lists based on a variety of criteria like all contacts with a contact type of Prospect, all contacts with the same zip code, all contacts who filled out a form, and more.  You can include more than 1 criterion in your conditions for the smart list (example:  prospects who opened an email).   

Contacts will be automatically added into the smart list as long as all conditions of the smart lists are met.  

When a new account is created by the support team, it will include default smart lists in the account.  

Learn more about how to create a smart list.

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