--- title: Contacts description: Keep every contact, client detail, referral, and audience membership in one organized place. section: Core workflows order: 2 --- # Contacts Contacts are the people connected to your studio. They may be new inquiries, booked clients, repeat clients, referrals, or subscribers on an audience list. A contact is shared across their projects and event bookings. Keep one record per person so their conversation history, paid work, source, and audience journey stay together. ## Add a contact Use the **+** menu in the top bar and choose **Add New Contact**. Enter: - **First Name:** required. - **Email:** required and must be unique within your account. - **Last Name** and **Phone:** optional. - **Source:** optional. If you choose **Referral**, select an existing referring contact or enter the referrer's name. If the email already belongs to a contact, the new record will not be created. Search for that email and update the existing contact instead. You often do not need to add contacts by hand. Inquiry forms and public booking flows create or update the contact as the client enters their details. Audience-signup forms do the same and add the person to the selected audience without creating a project. ## Open the contacts page Go to **Contacts** from the main sidebar. The page shows contact stats, filters, and a searchable table of people in your account. The summary cards show: - **Total Contacts** in the account. - **New Contacts** from the past 30 days. - **Top Source** by number of contacts. - **Most Valuable Source** by lifetime value. The table shows name, email, phone, date created, and lifetime value. Select a row to open the contact without leaving the page. Use contacts when you need to answer questions like: - Who is this person? - What projects or bookings are tied to them? - How much work have they booked with us? - Which audience lists are they on? - Where did they come from? ## Search and filter Search by name, email, or phone. Use **Audience** to find people connected to a specific interest list or waitlist, or **Tag** to find your own manual segment. Search, Audience, and Tag are focused ways to narrow the list. Choosing an audience clears the text search and tag filter; choosing a tag clears the audience filter. Use **Clear filters** to return to the full list. ## Review a contact Select a contact to open the details sheet. Editable text fields save when you leave the field, so you do not need a separate Save button. From there you can review and update: - Name, email, and phone number. - Notes and partner name. - Source, including referral details. - Tags. - Audience list memberships. - Related projects and bookings. - Lifetime value from projects and bookings. - Where a booking came from, when that information is available. - Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn details. The **Financials** section separates paid project work from paid event bookings and combines them into lifetime value. Select a related project row to open that project. Use **Load more** when the contact has more history than the sheet initially shows. If you cannot edit a field or do not see Attribution / Acquisition, your team role may not include that access. ## Use tags and sources Tags are manual labels for the way you run the studio, such as VIP, returning family, wedding lead, vendor, or mini-session client. Add an existing tag from the contact sheet or type a new tag name to create and assign it. Removing a tag only removes that label from the contact. Sources answer the broad question “How did this person find us?” Use consistent names such as Instagram, Google, Vendor Referral, or Past Client. The source options reuse values already present in your account; when no options exist yet, type the first one directly in a contact's details. **Attribution / Acquisition** is separate from the contact's Source. When tracking data exists and you have access, it shows the campaigns and websites a client visited before an inquiry, booking, or payment. Use Source for the label you choose, and this section for the visit details LYGHTBOX collected. ## Audience memberships Audiences preserve a person's relationship with an interest list or event waitlist. The contact sheet shows current and past memberships, related events, conversions, and dates from the journey. Membership states include **Active**, **Invited**, **Redeemed**, **Converted**, and **Removed**. You can add or remove a contact from a manually managed interest audience in the contact sheet. Event waitlists are managed by their booking flow, so they do not offer the same manual controls. Removing someone from an audience does not delete the contact or erase the history. The removed membership stays visible lower in the list. This is different from a tag: tags are simple labels, while audiences keep signup, invitation, acceptance, and conversion context. Audience membership and permission to receive marketing email are also separate. Removing a tag or audience is not a substitute for changing the contact's email preferences. ## Referrals If a contact came from a referral, set their source to **Referral**. Search for and link the referring contact when that person is already in LYGHTBOX; otherwise enter a name. Changing the source away from Referral clears the referral link, so copy any context you still need into Notes first. ## Safe recovery and useful habits - **A contact will not save with a new email:** search the account for that address. Each email can belong to only one contact. - **A field did not update:** leave the field and wait for the save to finish. If an error appears, keep the sheet open, correct the value, and try again. - **A contact seems to be missing:** clear the Audience or Tag filter before searching by name, email, or phone. - **You removed the wrong tag:** add it again from the same contact sheet. - **You removed the wrong audience membership:** the history remains visible, but completed audience stages are not edited like tags. Review the audience or booking flow before adding the person again. - **Lifetime value looks incomplete:** check the contact's related projects and bookings. It reflects settled payments, not only quoted project amounts. ## Related guides - Turn a contact into a [project](/docs/projects). - Add contacts to [audiences and campaigns](/docs/campaigns). - Collect new contacts through [forms](/docs/forms).