Contacts are central to everything a Constant Contact user can do using the product or the API. Customers are usually billed according to the number of active contacts they have in their account.

Contact Object and Subresources

The contact resource is composed of core properties and subresources. By default, contact resource request and response payloads only include core properties. To include subresources in response payloads use the include={subresource} query parameter in each request. This streamlines the size of response payloads when retrieving collections of contacts. Learn more.

Search for Contacts

You can search for contacts in a user’s account using the following criteria:

• include - use to specify which contact sub-resources to include in the response. Use a comma to separate multiple sub-resources. Valid values: custom_fields, list_memberships, taggings, notes, phone_numbers, street_addresses, sms_channel.
• status - retrieve contacts with one or more of the following status: all, active, deleted, not_set, pending_confirmation, temp_hold, and unsubscribed.
• exact email address
• list membership - retrieve all contacts that are members of one or more lists.
• tag ID - retrieve all contacts that are tagged with one or more specified tags (tag_id).
• segment ID - retrieve all contacts to which a specified segment’s criteria applies. This query parameter can only be combined with the limit query parameter. When using the segment_id query parameter, the V3 API may return a 202 response code instead of a 200 response. The 202 response code indicates that your request has been accepted, but not fully completed. Retry sending your API request to return the completed results and a 200 response code.
• updated date - retrieve all contacts with properties updated after (updated_after) date or before (updated_before) a specified date and time. To search for updated contacts within a date range, specify both updated_after and updated_before dates. Accepts ISO-8601 formatted dates.
• created date - retrieve all contacts created after (created_after) date or (created-before) a specified date and time. To search for contacts created within a date range, specify both created_after and created_before dates. Accepts ISO-8601 formatted dates.
• optout date - retrieve all contacts that opt out after or before (optout_after, optout_before) a specified date and time. Accepts ISO-8601 formatted dates.
• SMS status - use the sms_status parameter to retrieve only those contacts that have a specified SMS status. Valid values include all, explicit, unsubscribed, pending_confirmation, and not_set. This parameter accepts one or more comma separated values.

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Custom Fields

The V3 API supports the same flexible custom_fields naming rules as in the product UI. Custom fields are no longer required to use the restrictive custom_fieldn naming format in order to be accessible through the API. Also, the V3 API is not limited in the number of custom_fields it can show for a contact.

Learn more.

Create New Contacts

There are different ways to create contacts with the V3 API:

• Create new contacts one at a time by making a POST call to the /contacts endpoint. For more information, see Create a Contact.

• If a contact has given you explicit permission to send them emails, use the /contacts/sign_up_form endpoint to create a contact or update an existing contact based on their email address. This means you do not need to make a separate API call to check if the contact email address already exists in the user account. For more information, see Create or Update a Contact.

• Use one of the import contacts bulk activity endpoints to create up to 39,999 contacts in a single API call. For more information, see Add Many Contacts.

Delete Contacts

You can delete contacts one at time by making a DELETE call to the /contacts/contact_id endpoint. Or delete 500 or more contacts using the delete contacts bulk activity endpoint.

Learn more.

Add and Remove Contacts from Lists

Add and remove contacts from lists using the list management bulk activity endpoints.

Learn more.

Get Contact Consent Counts

To gain insights about the current consent state of all contacts in your account, make a GET call to the contacts/counts endpoint. Optionally, to include the total number of new subscribers in the results, specify new_subscribers in the include query parameter.

Learn more.

Get Contact SMS Engagement History

To get SMS engagement details for a contact, such as SMS consent and advertising frequency details, make a GET call to the /contacts/sms_engagement_history/{contact_id} endpoint.

Learn more.