Understanding data types

You will learn

Learn about the different options available for storing your data in Klaviyo, and how to use each one. You can use the data collected about your customers to guide your marketing choices, so it’s important to understand the data being pulled into your account.

Where data types appear in Klaviyo

When creating a segment or configuring a flow filter using Properties about someone, choose a profile property, then select the data type for your condition. This setting determines how Klaviyo compares the value in the condition. It does not change the stored profile property.

The following data types are available to select:

• Text
• Number
• Date
• Boolean
• List

Text

A text input is any finite sequence of characters (i.e., letters, symbols, and punctuation marks). It is always used to represent plain text, even when it includes numbers or is formatted like a date. Use the text data type for:

• Names
• Numerals that are mixed with other characters (e.g., a currency symbol)
• Street addresses
• Short or long-form answers to a question (e.g., shopping preferences, favorite color)

For new properties in a CSV upload, Klaviyo suggests Text if it cannot recognize another data type.

You can think of a text input as what might appear within quotation marks in a paragraph. Regardless of content in the quotation marks, whatever is inside of the quotation marks exists as a finite sequence of characters. Below is a sign-up form that gathers preference information that will be translated into text properties.

Number

A number is a numeric value, with or without a decimal (e.g., 25 or 25.5). When importing a CSV, select Number for numeric custom properties and omit currency symbols.

Number inputs could reference someone’s age, the number of emails received, or how many times a customer has purchased from you. Below is a segment that shows customer engagement by interaction with the number of emails that have been clicked on or opened in the last month.

Date

A date is used for a date or date-time value. Klaviyo recognizes supported formats, including YYYY-MM-DD and YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS. See the accepted date and timestamp formats for profile and event properties.

Dates could reference someone’s birthday, the day they first signed up for your newsletter, or an anniversary with a partner. Below is a sign-up form collecting birthday information as a date.

Boolean

The boolean data type can only represent 2 values: true or false. For example, a property can record whether someone accepted marketing, as shown below. A custom property does not replace a profile’s subscription status in Klaviyo.

For profile-property conditions in segments and flow filters, accepted true values are:

True, "1", 1, "true", "t", "yes", "y"

Accepted false values are:

False, "0", 0, "false", "f", "no", "n", None

The quoted values above are text representations of Boolean values and are not case-sensitive.

List

A list is any array of values; for example ["Offer1","Offer2"]. In Klaviyo, lists are used when the goal is to collect an array of words or phrases where every single item in the array can be identified individually.

One common use case for this is when different tags are being collected under a single property, such as the Shopify Tags property. When Klaviyo stores a property as a list, this allows you to use the property in a segment or filter and then include as many available tags as you'd like. You have the ability to choose from any value stored as part of the list.

Another common use case is when Klaviyo captures a Placed Order metric through an integration and the data we receive along with this placed order includes an Items property. This single Items property will need to include all items purchased in the order.

To achieve this, the property is always synced and stored as an array (a list) in Klaviyo. This allows us to store the Items property while including a series of values (i.e., each item purchased in the single order), where each value in the array can be identified individually.

When uploading a CSV that includes a list property, include the full list formatting within the cell. For example, use ["Offer1","Offer2"] for 2 items or ["Offer1"] for 1 item. Use double quotes around text values, and select List as the column’s data type. Every non-empty cell in the column must follow the list format.

Text during CSV uploads

During CSV uploads, select Text for text values.

String is the same as the text data type. When creating a segment, you can segment based on string data using the text data type.

Additional resources