Most CRMs limit you to at most three different record types — contacts and maybe deals and companies.
What is a custom object?
Most CRMs limit you to at most three different record types — contacts and maybe deals and companies.
These allow you to see all the contacts who work for a company, or all the deals that a particular contact is involved with. That’s nice.
But, when you need to store anything else you’re out of luck.
With Ontraport, the sky’s the limit.
Here are a few ideas to give you a sense of what’s possible.
Create new record types
Each custom object has its own fields, messages, automations and more.
Events
Pets
Parents
Serial numbers
Surveys
Applications
Anything else you can dream up
Set up relationships between records
Connect different kinds of records together in three different ways: one-to-one, one-to-many, or many-to-many.
Serial Numbers ↔ Buyers: A buyer can only have one serial number, and a serial number has only one buyer.
Pets ↔ Owners: Each pet has one owner, but an owner may have many pets.
Surveys ↔ Responses: Each survey will have many respondents and each respondent may fill out multiple surveys.
Publish custom object data on the web
Customer portals with purchase history, rewards perks and more
Project portals with clients’ important documents
Membership sites for online courses
Directories listing members of an organization, real estate listings, or spa service providers
Event management sites including speaker bios and photos, topics and agendas
A blog with personalized content and calls to action
A client-facing knowledge base covering common questions
Automate anything for your business
Because each custom object has its own campaigns, your imagination is the only limit to what is possible.
Events/Attendees
Email everyone the day before, and follow up separately with people who don’t show up.
Parents/Students
Tell the parent if a student isn’t logging in.
Surveys/Responses
Respond to each survey without losing information about the last one.
Pets/Owners
On the pet’s birthday, send a promotion to the owner.
Serial Numbers/Buyers
Remind the buyer that it’s time for annual maintenance on an item’s purchase anniversary.
Applications/Applicants
Accept applications, schedule interviews, process approvals, and more.
Automate anything for your business
Because each custom object has its own campaigns, your imagination is the only limit to what is possible.
Events/Attendees
Email everyone the day before, and follow up separately with people who don’t show up.
Parents/Students
Tell the parent if a student isn’t logging in.
Surveys/Responses
Respond to each survey without losing information about the last one.
Pets/Owners
On the pet’s birthday, send a promotion to the owner.
Serial Numbers/Buyers
Remind the buyer that it’s time for annual maintenance on an item’s purchase anniversary.
Applications/Applicants
Accept applications, schedule interviews, process approvals, and more.
You have to create custom fields in contact records to store things like surveys, policies, projects, events, deals or pets.
Keep data organized in appropriate record types.
Contact records get complicated and overwhelming with so many fields.
Relate records to each other for easy access.
Data gets overwritten when you try to store a second related record.
Manage and view different types of data differently.
No history of previous records is stored.
Never overwrite data.
You have no ability to automate processes for more than one related record.
Sophisticated automation is easy.
You have to create custom fields in contact records to store things like surveys, policies, projects, events, deals or pets.
Contact records get complicated and overwhelming with so many fields.
Data gets overwritten when you try to store a second related record.
No history of previous records is stored.
You have no ability to automate processes for more than one related record.
Keep data organized in appropriate record types.
Relate records to each other for easy access.
Manage and view different types of data differently.
Never overwrite data.
Sophisticated automation is easy.
Custom objects work seamlessly with the rest of your toolset.
Getting your data organized right is a key part of the foundation that enables you to innovate, iterate quickly, and uncover successful strategies. Related features:
Every custom object has its own campaigns, messages, forms and more, enabling unlimited flexibility for scaling effective messaging.
Use your custom object data along with dynamic pages and blocks to create personalized, interactive web experiences for your visitors.
Whether you need to send an email or get a team member to perform a task or anything else, it’s possible with custom objects.
Frequently Asked Questions