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Custom fields are how a campaign stops sounding generic. A field called appointment_date on the contact lets one email step say “your appointment on Thursday the 14th” to every recipient, each with their own date. Your agent can read them on a call too. Fields are defined once for your whole workspace, then filled in per contact.

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Before you start

  • Ten minutes.
  • A list of the things you find yourself needing on a call that Brilo does not already hold.
  • Your import file to hand, if you are creating fields so you can import a column into them.

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Steps

1

Work out what you actually need

The test is simple: would your agent say it out loud, or would an email step insert it? If neither, it does not need to be a field.Four or five fields covers most businesses. Twenty means you are rebuilding your CRM inside Brilo.
2

Create the field

Go to your contacts settings and add a custom field. Give it a clear key, because that key is what you use in campaign emails and prompts.Name it after the thing: appointment_date, amount_owed, policy_number. Not field_1 and not when_is_their_appointment.
3

Pick the right type

The type is enforced on import, so text in a number field is rejected rather than quietly stored. Choosing Text for everything avoids rejections and costs you that protection.
4

Fill the values

Either import them as columns alongside your contacts, or edit a contact directly. See Import your contact list.
5

Use them

In a campaign email, insert the variable with the + button. In an agent prompt, refer to the field so your agent knows to use it. Then send one test to yourself and check the value appears.

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You will know it worked when

A test campaign email to your own address arrives with your own appointment date in it, not a blank space and not the raw variable name.

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Using fields in campaign emails

Custom fields are available as {{custom.<key>}}, where the key is the one you set. A field with the key appointment_date is {{custom.appointment_date}}. Insert them with the + button in the email editor rather than typing them, so the key is always correct. They work in the subject, the body, and in Cc and Bcc, which is how you copy in the account owner for each contact rather than one fixed colleague. See Add an email step.

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Fields worth creating for campaigns

Each one turns a generic step into a specific one, and specific steps get answered.

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Always test with an empty value

The failure nobody catches: a contact who has no value for the field. Your email arrives with a gap in the middle of a sentence and reads as obviously automated, which undoes the whole point. Before a big send, add a test contact with the field deliberately empty and read what arrives. Then write the sentence so it survives a blank, or make sure every contact has a value.

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What else you can do here

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If it did not work

The variable printed as raw text in the email. The key does not match a field that exists. Insert variables with the + button rather than typing them. The variable came out blank. That contact has no value for the field. Test with an empty contact before you send to a list. Values were dropped on import. They failed the field’s type validation, or the key does not exist or was archived. Unknown, archived, and reserved keys are dropped and reported, and the contact is still created. Your agent does not use the field on calls. It has the value but was never told to use it. Mention the field in the agent’s instructions. You cannot change a field’s type. Create a new field with the right type and migrate. Changing a type under existing data is not something to do casually.

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FAQ

Yes. Create them once for your workspace, choosing a type such as text, number, date, email, phone, URL, boolean, or multi select. They can then be imported per contact and used in agent prompts and campaign emails.
Insert it with the + button in the email editor. Custom fields are available as {{custom.<key>}}, and they work in the subject, the body, and in Cc and Bcc.
Text, number, date, datetime, email, phone, URL, boolean, and multi select. The type is enforced on import, so a value that does not fit is rejected rather than quietly stored wrong.
They failed validation for that field’s type, or the key was unknown, archived, or reserved. The dropped values are reported and the contact is still created, so check the report rather than the contact count.
The variable comes out blank, leaving a gap in your sentence. Always send a test to a contact with the field empty before a large send.
Yes, and mentioning the field in the agent’s instructions is what makes it actually use one. Turn on Contact Memory so it recognises the caller in the first place. See Remember callers between calls.
Four or five for most businesses. The test is whether your agent would say it out loud or an email would insert it. Anything else belongs in your CRM, not here.