# Tags

> A tag in MailCamp is a colour-coded label you assign yourself to group contacts, mailing lists or templates. Tags are account-wide and invisible to the recipient.

## What it is

A tag is free-form grouping under your own control. Pick a name, pick a colour, apply it where it helps you find or filter things later. Because tags are account-wide, the same tag can be used across lists and on different kinds of object.

Tags are one of the three mechanisms that replaced the habit of creating a separate mailing list per purpose (the others being segments and topics).

## Key concepts

- **Account-wide**: a tag exists once for the whole account, not per list.
- **On contacts**: a contact can carry several tags — for example `customer`, `trade-fair-2026`, `VIP`. Used for segmenting.
- **On templates**: template tags keep a growing template library findable; you pick a template from a dropdown in the campaign wizard, so naming and tagging matter.
- **Invisible to recipients**: unlike a topic, a tag is never shown to the contact and the contact cannot change it.
- **In segments**: `has tag = X` is a segment rule, combinable with topic and custom-field rules.

## Common workflows

### Creating and applying a tag

1. Open **Settings → Tags**.
2. Create the tag with a name and a colour.
3. Apply it on a contact (from the contact form), on a mailing list, or on a template.
4. Use it as a rule in a segment, or pick it as the recipients of a campaign.

### Tagging an import

Give each CSV import its own tag. After consolidating several lists into one audience, the tag is what still tells the groups apart.

## Limits and edge cases

- A tag is descriptive only: applying or removing one never changes a contact's subscription status.
- Deleting a tag removes it from everything it was applied to; segments that filtered on it stop matching.
- Tags do not carry consent. To target people who asked for a subject, use a topic.

## Web routes

- `/settings/tags` — tag overview.
- `/settings/tags/new` — create a tag.
- `/settings/tags/:id/update` — edit a tag.
- `/campaigns/templates/tags` — tags used on templates.

## Related

- [Topics](/llms/topics.txt) — the recipient-controlled counterpart.
- [Segments](/llms/segments.txt) — filtering on tags.
- [Contacts](/llms/contacts.txt) — what tags are usually applied to.
- [Templates](/llms/templates.txt) — tagging a template library.