How to use Advanced Search

The Advanced Search feature lets you find specific groups of contacts using data available to you in your account. This includes geolocation, actions your contacts have taken, lists they are on, the status of deals, tags, and much more. You're able to combine several conditions with “And” and “Or” logic until you've narrowed your list to the exact contacts you are looking for.

After running an advanced search, you can see the number of contacts that match those conditions. You can easily save this group of contacts as a segment for use in campaigns and automations later on. You can perform bulk edit actions on this group of contacts, such as: adding or removing a tag, adding to or removing from an automation, adding to or removing from a list, or updating a field.

Take note

Advanced search uses the segment builder. Learn how to get started with segments to ensure you’re familiar with using segments in ActiveCampaign. Then, learn how to create and save segments.

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Creating an advanced search

The search field on the Contacts Overview page lets you: create a basic search, create an advanced search, and access past searches and suggested searches. 

To create a new advanced search:

1. Click Contacts on the left menu.
2. Click the "Search Contacts" field.
3. Click the "Advanced Search" button located in the search field.
4. Next, you can either prompt Active Intelligence to create an advanced search by specifying the conditions you want to use, or you can build your conditions from scratch.
5. To build your conditions from scratch:
   • Click the “Build With Segment Conditions” dropdown to show the segment builder
   • Click the conditions field (left-most field). This displays  condition categories
   • Click any category listed to display its conditions, then select the option you want to use. In this example, we want to see how many contacts have the "Engaged" tag in our account. To do that, we're going to use the "Tag" condition listed under the "Contact Details" Category. Or type "Tag" into the "(Select a condition)" field
     
     
      
   • Depending on the selected search condition, you may or may not need to choose an operator when defining your own search criteria. To choose an operator, click the middle field and click the operator you would like to use.
     
     Continuing with our example, we're presented with different operators to choose from. Since we want to know how many contacts have the "Engaged" tag, we're going to choose the "Exists" operator by clicking it.
     
     
      
   • As the final step to creating your first search, you'll need to provide a value for your search condition. Click the value field (right-most field) and click one of the options listed. You can also type the value to search and select it.
     
     
      
   • To add another condition to your segment, click "+ Add another condition.” 
     
     
     
     This displays a new row to define another condition. Note that there is a toggle to specify whether the additional condition is added with “And” or “Or” logic.
     
     
     
     Using “And” logic displays contacts that meet all conditions at the same time.
     
     Using “Or” logic displays contacts that match any of the conditions
   • You also have the option to create Segment Groups. With Segment Groups you can combine multi-dimensional conditions with “And” and “Or” logic.
     
     For example, you might have one segment group with conditions that look for link clicks within a single campaign and then you might have another segment group that looks for link clicks in another campaign. You could display only contacts who'd clicked the links in both campaigns (with an “And”) or contacts who'd clicked either group of links (with “Or”)
     
     Learn how to use and/or conditions
6. When you've finished defining your search condition(s), click the "Search" button. 

Contacts who meet the segment conditions are listed on the Contacts Overview page. 

Use Active Intelligence to create an advanced search

Instead of building search conditions from scratch, you can have Active Intelligence do it for you. 

To do so, click the “Advanced Search” button, type your prompt into the field provided, then hit the “Return” or “Enter” key on your keyboard.

Active Intelligence then translates your prompt into segment conditions and executes the search. You can see your search conditions by clicking the “Build with segment conditions” dropdown. Contacts who meet your conditions display below the segment builder.

Save a search

You can save advanced searches for future reference. This makes it easy to find a specific group of contacts without having to recreate complex conditions. If you can see yourself using this search again, it's a good idea to save it.

In addition, saved searches are dynamic; they update automatically as contacts meet or don’t meet your conditions. 

To save an advanced search:

1. Create your advanced search conditions following the steps in the section above.
2. Click the “Save as search” button . 
3. In the modal window, provide a name for your search, then click the “Save” button. 
   
   

Find a saved advanced search

All saved advanced searches can be found in the segment builder. To locate a saved advanced search:

1. Click Contacts on the left menu.
2. Click the dropdown next to the “Advanced Search” button.
3. Select the advanced search you want to use. 

Save an advanced search as a segment

You can save advanced searches as segments. A segment is a subgroup of contacts on your list that you can send highly targeted messaging to. 

Just like saved advanced searches, saved segments are dynamic; they update automatically as contacts meet or don’t meet your conditions. 

To save an advanced search as a segment:

1. Create your advanced search conditions following the steps in the Create an advanced search section above.
2. Click the “Save as segment” button.
3. In the modal window, provide a name for your segment, then click the “Save” button. 
   
   

Your segments are saved on the Segments page in your ActiveCampaign account. 

Bulk edit your contacts

Advanced search and the bulk editor work together hand-in-hand. With advanced search, you can find very specific groups of contacts and with the bulk editor you can make changes to those specific contacts. For example, you might want to create a segment out of all the contacts who opened a specific campaign.

To bulk edit the contacts that were pulled in an advanced search:

1. Click the "Edit All" button on the Contacts Overview page to display the bulk editor.
2. From the Bulk Edit tool, select the action you want to use. You can choose from:
   • Subscribe to a list
   • Unsubscribe from a list
   • Add to an automation
   • Remove from an automation
   • Add a tag
   • Remove a tag
   • Update a field
3. Complete the requested fields then click the “Apply” button. 
4. Click the “Apply changes to X contacts” button in the confirmation window. 
5. Click the “Okay” button. 

Learn more about the Bulk Editor.