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Open the Audience tab in the sidebar to see every contact, search and filter them, and edit their details. From an agent, search_contacts, create_contact, and update_contact over MCP work the same records, and the contacts API serves them to code.
Every marketing recipient must have opted in to hear from you. Importing or syncing contact data into Brew is not permission to email it. See What You Can Send.

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Contact Properties

Every contact has properties, fields that store information you can use for personalization and segmentation.

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Default Properties

subscribed, created_at, and updated_at are filter and sort fields, not merge tags. Brew hides them from the variable picker because they’re bookkeeping rather than personalization. Use a custom property if you want a date you can write into email copy. See Merge Tags for the full syntax.

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Custom Properties

Add custom properties for any additional data, demographics, plan, behavior, anything you want to use in personalization or segmentation. To add a custom property:
  1. Open the Audience tab
  2. Click the contact-properties icon (rightmost icon in the audience table)
  3. Select Add new property
  4. Name it, pick a type, save
These field names are reserved and can’t be used for custom properties: email, first_name, last_name, subscribed, created_at, updated_at, validation_status, last_validated_at, and import_id. Use alternatives like companyEmail or workEmail if you need similar fields.

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Property Types

Text values. Examples: "Enterprise", "New York", "Referred by Jane".
Integers or decimals. Examples: 42, 99.95, 2500.
True/false. Accepted formats: true/false, yes/no, 1/0.
Unix timestamp (seconds or ms) or ISO date string.Examples:
  • 1704067200 (seconds)
  • 1704067200000 (milliseconds)
  • 2025-01-05
  • 2025-01-05T14:30:00Z
Brew stores everything in UTC and displays times in your browser’s local time zone. Small offsets between input and display are normal.

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Activity Timeline

Click any contact’s email in the Audience table to see their full activity timeline. Every event, in chronological order. The timeline shows:
  • Sent. When an email was delivered to the contact
  • Opened. When they opened an email
  • Clicked. When they clicked a link
  • Hard bounced. Permanent failure
  • Soft bounced. Temporary failure
  • Marked as spam. They reported an email as spam
  • Unsubscribed. They opted out
  • Added to audience. When the contact was first added
  • Property updated. Any time a property changed

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Unsubscribes

Every marketing email carries an unsubscribe link automatically. Unsubscribe page owns how the path works end to end. On this side, the contact’s status updates immediately and an “unsubscribed” event appears in their activity timeline. What happens after unsubscribe:
  • They stop receiving marketing emails, whether one-off sends or automations
  • Transactional sends like password resets still reach them: an automation sending from a transactional-purpose domain delivers to unsubscribed contacts
  • The unsubscribe shows up in your analytics
Important rules:
  • You can’t re-subscribe contacts from the UI. This protects against accidental re-subscription and keeps you compliant with CAN-SPAM
  • CSV imports don’t re-subscribe contacts who’ve previously unsubscribed, even if Subscribed is set to true
  • Hard bounces and spam complaints are handled separately from unsubscribes
Don’t delete unsubscribed contacts. If you re-add them later, they could end up subscribed again. Keep them in your audience so Brew can enforce their unsubscribe status.

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Customize the Unsubscribe Page

Open Brand → Unsubscribe to preview and customize the page contacts see. You can adjust the copy, branding, and confirmation message. The unsubscribe link itself stays automatic in every email.

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Updating Contact Properties

For individual contacts:
  1. Click a contact in the Audience table
  2. Edit any property
  3. Click Save
For bulk updates, re-upload a CSV. Empty cells won’t overwrite existing values, so you can update only what’s changed.

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Deleting Contacts

To permanently remove contacts:
  1. Filter or select the contacts to delete
  2. Click the More menu (...) at the top of the table
  3. Select Delete contacts
  4. Confirm
Contact deletion is permanent. Deleted contacts are removed from all automations. This is different from unsubscribing or suppressing.

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Need Help?

Our team is ready to support you at every step of your journey with Brew. Choose the option that works best for you:

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