Lists & Subscribers

Create mailing lists, manage subscribers, define custom fields, and segment your audience for targeted campaigns.

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About Lists

A list is a collection of subscribers who have opted in to receive your emails. Each list is independent — it has its own subscribers, custom fields, opt-in settings, and company details.

Common use cases for multiple lists:

• Separate lists for different brands or products
• A newsletter list and a transactional/customer list
• Lists for different regions or languages
• Internal vs. external communication lists

Creating a List

1. Navigate to Lists in the sidebar
2. Click Create New List
3. Fill in the General tab:
   • Name — internal name for the list (not shown to subscribers)
   • Display name — public-facing name shown on subscription/unsubscription pages
   • Description — optional internal description
4. Fill in the Defaults tab:
   • From name — the name recipients see (e.g. "Your Company")
   • From email — must match your verified sending domain
   • Reply-to email — where replies go
5. Configure the Notifications tab (optional):
   • Receive email alerts when someone subscribes or unsubscribes
6. Set the Company details (auto-populated from your account but can be overridden per list)
7. Click Save

[Screenshot: Create list form]

[Screenshot: Create list form]

List Settings

After creating a list, you can configure additional settings:

Opt-in Method

• Single Opt-in — subscribers are added immediately when they submit a form. Faster but less verified.
• Double Opt-in (recommended) — subscribers receive a confirmation email and must click a link to verify. This ensures valid email addresses and stronger compliance.

Subscriber Actions

• Welcome email — automatically send a welcome message to newly confirmed subscribers
• Unsubscribe page — customise the page subscribers see when they unsubscribe
• Subscription confirmed page — customise the confirmation success page

Custom Fields

Every list comes with a default EMAIL field. You can add custom fields to store additional subscriber data like name, company, phone number, preferences, etc.

Adding a Custom Field

1. Open your list and go to the Fields tab
2. Click Add Field
3. Choose the field type:
   • Text — single-line text input
   • Textarea — multi-line text
   • Dropdown — select from predefined options
   • Checkbox / Checkbox list — multiple selections
   • Radio list — single selection
   • Date / Datetime — date picker
   • Country / State — geographic selectors
   • Phone number — formatted phone input
   • Email — additional email field
   • URL — website address
   • Consent checkbox — GDPR/privacy consent
4. Set the label (what the subscriber sees) and tag (merge tag used in emails, e.g. [FNAME])
5. Choose whether the field is required and visible
6. Click Save

[Screenshot: Custom fields management]

Adding Subscribers

Manually

1. Open your list and go to the Subscribers tab
2. Click Add Subscriber
3. Fill in the email address and any custom fields
4. Click Save

Importing Subscribers

For bulk additions, use the CSV import feature:

1. Open your list → Subscribers tab → Import
2. Upload a .csv file (UTF-8 encoded, comma-delimited)
3. Map CSV columns to your list fields
4. Choose import behaviour:
   • Add new only — skip emails that already exist
   • Add and update — add new subscribers and update existing ones with new data
5. Click Import

[Screenshot: Import subscribers]

Exporting Subscribers

1. Open your list → Subscribers tab
2. Click Export
3. Choose which fields to include
4. Optionally filter by status (confirmed, unsubscribed, etc.)
5. Click Export — a CSV file will be generated for download

Subscriber Statuses

Segments

Segments let you target specific subsets of a list based on conditions. Rather than creating separate lists, you can define rules to filter subscribers dynamically.

Creating a Segment

1. Open your list → Segments tab
2. Click Create New Segment
3. Name your segment (e.g. "Melbourne customers" or "Opened last campaign")
4. Set the match condition: All (AND logic) or Any (OR logic)
5. Add one or more conditions:
   • Field conditions — filter by any custom field value (e.g. STATE is "VIC")
   • Campaign conditions — filter by campaign engagement (e.g. "opened Campaign X within 30 days")
6. Click Save

Available Condition Operators

is, is not, contains, not contains, starts with, ends with, greater than, less than

[Screenshot: Segment creation with conditions]

Subscription Forms

waveMail can generate embeddable HTML subscription forms for your website.

1. Open your list → Forms tab
2. Choose which fields to include in the form
3. Copy the generated HTML embed code
4. Paste it into your website's HTML

When visitors submit the form, they'll be added to your list (following your opt-in rules).

[Screenshot: Subscription forms]

Example: building a simple newsletter list

A typical end-to-end setup for a monthly newsletter:

1. Create the list. Go to Lists → Create new and name it “Monthly Newsletter”. Pick the Business Profile whose branding and company footer should appear on the forms and emails.
2. Choose opt-in. Use double opt-in so new subscribers confirm their email — this keeps your list clean and your deliverability high.
3. Add a custom field. Add a First namecustom field so you can personalise subject lines and greetings.
4. Create a signup form. Open Forms, design an embedded form, and add it to your website — every signup lands in this list automatically.
5. Welcome new subscribers. Add an autoresponder on the after subscribe event so they get an instant welcome email.