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Now this one is something I tend NOT to suggest but it is definitely a request that comes up A LOT. How can I create a segment of people I can just add by picking people myself, or based on an upload file. If there isn’t any filtering criteria, you can use the Include Members feature when building your segment, but that has limits of 100 records that can be added in this way. Marketing Lists have been around for well over a decade (anyone know when they were introduced?) and are definitely still used by a LOT of organisations. This post looks at how you can take advantage of a marketing list with way more than 100 members and use it to create a Segment in Realtime marketing.
This assumes you have your marketing list ready to go. Create a new segment in Realtime Marketing for Contacts.
Next, if you have never added the related table for marketing lists, you will need to that first.
Search for marketing list to find the out of the box table. Select it then click next.
Now you can add the table so that you can use it to build your segment.
Once you have added it, you will see it in the Related Tables section. Search again for Marketing list, and click on the lookup attribute.
Now you will be asked to pick the correct path between a marketing list and a contact. 9 times out of 10 you want the simplest path which is the first one. Pick Marketing List > Contact and click Next.
Now it wants the related attribute between the two tables. You are in luck as there is only one option available (unless you’ve done some REALLY weird configuration), so select that and click Set path.
Now you get a lovely lookup that you can use to find the right Marketing List. Hooray! You should of course add in any additional filtering criteria you might need to make sure you are getting the correct Contacts (those that are active and have an email address for example).
If you’ve not used Marketing Lists before, do some digging before you go off and start creating them. This should NOT be used as a way around good solid filtering in your Segments. I am a big advocate of creating Segments that work dynamically based on accurate data rather than taking a short cut and just dumping people in to a Marketing List. However, Marketing Lists are in the Sales Hub app and have been used for as long as I have been working with CRM/D365 by sales teams and marketing to create lists of people they met at an event etc. Your Marketing List should be targeted at Contacts.
And there is an option from a View and directly on a Contact record to add them to a specific Marketing List.
I have 1552 Contacts in my Marketing List, and my Segment shows the exact same number. Quick and easy to do, but again, use with caution and ONLY when necessary. These Segments will never change the number of members unless someone manually adds or removes people from the related Marketing List, so this is something to use only as and when absolutely needed.
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Split Your Audience By Number Or Percentage In Customer Insights - Journeys
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Hello, thank you for this article.
I was able to find this out by far, however, I have a question as you are mentioning an upload file, but within the Marketing lists section in Dynamics I cannot find such a function and my organisation needs to upload around 4000 members (exceptions, no way to filter out via segment) in a Marketing list in order to use in one special segment and journey. I can see only a template I can create but nothing for uploading data.
I would appreciate it if you are aware if this is possible?
Regards,
Hi Krasimira, I would talk with your System Administrator. There is standard import functionality that exists in D365 that gives you the ability to use Excel or a CSV file to import and create new records. You would still then need to create a view afterwards of your new records then select them all and add to the Marketing List in bulk.
I use Marketing lists very often in Segments, as it this the best workaround for my customers to manually add single Contacts to a Live Journey.
Not being able to edit Real-time Segments used in Live Journeys is one of the worst restrictions so far. Adding the Marketing Lists to the Real-time navigation bar is now one of the first steps in a new Marketing setup.
Yup. It shouldn’t be needed but Marketing Lists will be a thing we keep using for a LONG TIME in the Marketing world.
Hi from Germany,
I have a question about the marketing lists, will they still be available in Customer Insights Journey after the end of outbound marketing (in my region June 2025)?
Many thanks and regards
Josh
Hi Josh, from what I understand, there is no difference between regions and the end of Outbound marketing, it’s June 2025 for all. In terms of Marketing Lists, this table is a much older one, from original CRM days. I haven’t seen anything about it being deprecated. You may want to add access to it from the navigation in Real-time so you can get to it easily, but it should still be there in Dataverse.