Get Started with Customer Information Collection
Square collects your customer’s email addresses and phone numbers when they elect to receive digital receipts. If customers opt-out of receiving digital receipts, you can still collect additional customer information in a variety of ways:
POS sign-up screen
Hosted sign-up page
Embedded sign-up form
Text and Email Subscribers
Import Customer Lists
Subscribe Existing Square Customers in Directory
Collecting your customers information with Square’s customer information collection tools enables you to expand your marketing reach. You can even incentivize customers to share their information by offering a discount or coupon with Square Marketing.
Email addresses and names shared by customers (i.e. when a customer’s email address is manually entered into their profile or via customer information collection tools) will be saved in your Customer Directory, and can be used with Square Marketing or exported for use with a third-party marketing service. Customers who sign up for your mailing list will be reflected in the Collected Emails group of your Customer Directory.
This video has an overview of collecting your customer’s information at checkout and online:
1. Collect customer information from the POS sign-up screen
Open POS app > click Settings > click Customers.
Tap Sign-Up Screen > Toggle ‘Collect customer data after sale’ to ON.
Scroll down to the Data section and click on ‘Add/remove data’ to select the customer data you want to collect or create new data fields under configure profile (options include Name, Phone, Email, Company, Birthday).
In the ‘Messaging and coupon’ section, edit the headline, subheadline, and choose to add a coupon to send to your customers. If you want to do this, click Create a coupon > Coupon type > Coupon amount > Expiration date. Tap preview to see what will be sent to your customers.
Limitation: This feature is currently only available on iPad and if you are using Loyalty, then Loyalty takes precedence in the checkout flow, rather than customer signup.
2. Collect customer information with a hosted sign-up page
Go to Customers tab on Square Dashboard > Click into the Customer Directory. (Customers) > click Settings > tap Email Collection.
Hosted Sign-Up Page > Click Customize Page button > Select the text (Title and Body) and color of your Button > add your logo if you’d like > then Save.
Click the Copy Link button to share your unique link with prospective customers on social media or on your website. This link will send customers directly to a custom sign-up page where they can enter their information which would then get stored in your Customer Directory.
3. Collect customer info from an embedded sign-up form
Go to Customers tab on Square Dashboard > Click into the Customer Directory. (Customers) > click Settings > tap Email Collection.
Under Embedded Sign-up Form > click Customize Form to select the text and color of your sign up button > then Save. Click the Copy Code button to copy the HTML code and paste it into your editing tool.
4. Email and Text Subscriber Smart Groups
Customers who sign up for your mailing lists will automatically be populated into your Customer Directory and can be easily found in the Smart Groups of Email Subscribers and/or Text Subscribers (depending on if they provide email address and/or phone number). You can also filter by Marketing Subscriber to build an advanced text and/or email marketing audience on the fly.
If you are using Square Email Marketing, customer contact information in your Customer Directory, such as email addresses, can be used to send out email marketing campaigns.
Email Subscribers
The Email Subscribers Smart Group excludes unsubscribed and bounced emails. An Email Subscriber in Customer Directory and Square Marketing is defined as a customer with a visible email address (that isn’t bounced or unsubscribed), or with a private (not-visible) email address that has made a payment with the Seller in the last 12 months.
Visible email addresses: those where the email was collected by the Seller or the Buyer entered themselves
Not-visible/Private email addresses: those where the email was collected at the receipt stage and Square has pre-populated the email for convenience to the customer. You will not be able to see these email addresses, but you can market to them.
Note: Email Subscribers where there is no email address shown are customers you can reach via Square network data collected from Receipts. These customers have purchased with you and used a card Square has linked to an email address for automatic receipts. Square enables you to market to that customer, but will not share their email address with you.
Text Subscribers
The Text Subscribers Smart Group is defined as a customer who has opted in to Text Message Marketing.
Currently, your customers can opt in to text message marketing via the Square Point of Sale, or by using the Text to Join functionality.
POS Checkout: A Text Message Marketing enrollment screen will appear during customer checkout, asking them to opt into your marketing program by providing their phone number, and also providing them with their first coupon. After doing this, they’ll receive their coupon and be opted-in to your Text Message Marketing program.
Loyalty subscribers will be able to collect Text Message Marketing opt-ins via the Loyalty enrollment screen, which we’ve updated to also include consent to receive Text Message Marketing.
Text to Join: During Text Message Marketing onboarding, you will be issued a unique phone number to which your customers can text ‘JOIN’ to be added to your opt-in list wherever and whenever it’s convenient for them. After texting JOIN, they’ll receive a confirmation text that they need to respond YES to in order to complete the opt-in process. This number can be promoted anywhere: on your website, social media, email, or in-store.
5. Import Customer Lists
If you already have an existing customer list from Square Online or a third-party platform, you'll need to update your customer profiles to display the subscribed status before you can send email marketing. Learn more about importing customers online.
Note: We do not currently support phone number list upload because we cannot verify that the customers who provided the phone numbers on an uploaded list gave explicit consent to receive marketing text messages. However, we provide an update if anything changes.
6. To Import a New Customer List:
Go to Customer Directory in your online Square Dashboard.
Click Import Customers > Download Template to download a blank CSV file. This will allow you to bulk upload your customer list.
Open the CSV file using Microsoft Excel or other common spreadsheet software. Enter the customer details, including their name and email address.
Under the “Email Subscription Status” column, in each row enter subscribed, unsubscribed, or unknown. Click Save. Note: Only customers with ‘subscribed’ in this column will be able to be emailed and count towards your subscriber number.
Go back to your Customer Directory and select Import Customers.
Follow the steps to drag and drop your file to upload or click select it from your computer. Ensure you review and tick the checkbox. Click Next.
Assign applicable field labels. Click Import.
Your customer’s email status will now appear as “Subscribed”.
6. To Subscribe Existing Square Customers in Directory:
If you’re seeing existing customers that are not subscribed to Marketing and want to subscribe them, take the following actions:
Go to Customer Directory in your online Square Dashboard.
Select the customers who provided permission to receive marketing emails. If all customers have provided consent, go to step five.
Click Add to Group.
Select an existing group or select Create New Group. Then, select Add to Group.
Once you’ve created a new group, click Export Customers.
Click Specific Groups and choose the group.
Click Export.
Click Download to edit a CSV file containing your customers.
Open the CSV file using Microsoft Excel or other common spreadsheet software.
In the Email Subscription Status column, update “unknown” to “subscribed”. Click Save.
Go back to your Customer Directory and select Import Customers.
Follow the steps to drag and drop your file to upload or click select it from your computer. Ensure you review and tick the checkbox. Click Next.
Assign applicable field labels. Click Import.
Your customer’s email status will now appear as “Subscribed”.
If you’re using Square Loyalty, the customer information collection screen will not be displayed if the purchase is eligible for a point. If you’d like to collect customer emails and use Square Loyalty, you may be interested in using the email collection tools included in the Loyalty program setup process.