Ghost, a platform for publishing newsletters and selling memberships, now lets publishers store their own fields on a member’s profile. A trade newsletter could record whether a reader works in a newsroom, an agency or on their own. Staff can import those values from a spreadsheet, filter members by them and ask readers to update fields from their account profiles.
Ghost’s November 10 announcement says imports match existing members by email. An empty cell leaves the value already in Ghost in place. That makes a partial update convenient, but it also means a blank in a cleaned spreadsheet can leave a reader in the very group you meant to remove them from. Ghost’s custom fields help page lists the feature on Ghost(Pro)’s Publisher plan and higher. Ghost says self-hosted sites need to update.
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A four-member import that catches stale values
Suppose you run a trade newsletter and want to invite newsroom staff to a roundtable. Your existing member list already has a work setting field. You have a newer spreadsheet with one column for email and one for work setting. For Bea, the spreadsheet is blank because your team removed an outdated classification. For Dev, it is blank because you never had one. Those cells look identical to the importer.
The four records below are invented. They apply Ghost’s documented rule for empty cells and assume that the import maps only the work setting field. Newsletter subscription status is a separate check. In this example, your campaign also excludes any classification the team already knows is stale.
| Member | What the import does | Invite? |
|---|---|---|
| Alex | Newsroom stays Newsroom. | Yes |
| Bea | A blank leaves Newsroom in place. | No. Stale value. |
| Cam | Agency changes to Newsroom. | No. Unsubscribed. |
| Dev | A blank leaves the field empty. | No. No classification. |
Check the addresses behind the filter count
The work setting filter alone returns three people. Checking newsletter subscription status removes Cam and leaves two. Reviewing the source record removes Bea and leaves one. That gap matters even if the import report shows no errors. It takes a check of individual records to tell a successful import from a usable invitation list.
Use a small batch of test profiles before importing real member data. Save the intended results by email address, then compare them with a fresh export and the actual saved view. Include one updated value, one blank over an existing value and one blank over a previously empty field. If your spreadsheet uses blanks to mean “remove this,” separate those rows before import and verify a clearing procedure for your setup. Repeating the same upload will still leave the old value intact.
Ghost’s member management guide documents filters for newsletter subscription and member status alongside custom fields. Keep the filter that identifies the audience separate from the check that determines who receives a particular newsletter. For a paid event, you may also need to check who has the relevant tier. Ghost’s membership tier guide on this site shows how to test access with sample accounts.
Decide what members should be able to see
New fields start out visible only to staff. If you make a field visible to members, a reader can see and edit their own value in Ghost’s account area, called Portal. That includes values you imported before changing the setting. For the work setting example, you might want readers to correct their answer. Give that field a label that reads well in a profile. Keep a staff-only classification in a separate field if it would be confusing or inappropriate to show it to the reader.
Ghost’s help page says custom fields cannot be required and cannot appear in its built-in signup or embeddable forms. A reader who never visits their profile can leave the field empty. If you invite members to complete it, report the share of the eligible list that answered and keep the blank group visible when interpreting results. A majority among people who filled in a field does not establish a majority across your list. For another example of why the denominator matters, see our guide to tracking signup and paid conversion.
Check your export before retiring the old spreadsheet
Ghost says a saved filtered view can still return results after a field is archived, even though the field drops out of member exports. If the old spreadsheet is your only complete copy of the values, verify that an export from an active field contains what you need before archiving it. Ghost also says deleting an archived field removes its data. Test with disposable records before changing a field that feeds a recurring audience report.
A sensible first use is one reader-editable field tied to a decision you already make, such as which local briefing a member wants to hear about. Check the field from a test member’s profile and compare the export with your saved view before relying on either. If you also send automated emails, review Ghost’s subscription automation update separately. This example follows the documented import rules. It does not report a test inside a publisher’s Ghost account.