Before you start
Things you need to know:
You can only import Excel, CSV, TXT and ZIP file formats.
Contacts can also be uploaded to your contact lists.
Mobile numbers must use the international phone number starting with (+): +44 7000 000000.
Learn how in Create an email list.
Import contacts into your account
Go to Audience > Contacts.
Expand the NEW CONTACT drop-down menu at the top of the page and select Import contacts.
On the Upload contacts page:
(Required) For File, select CHOOSE FILE and choose the file you want to upload. The file must be CSV, TXT, XLSX or ZIP format.
(Optional) For Email address to notify, enter the email address you want us to send the upload-complete report to.
(Required) For Encoding type, expand the drop-down menu and choose the encoding type of your file. UTF-8 supports most languages.
Select UPLOAD.
Under Map your contact data fields, expand the drop-down menus to map your file column to a data field in your account.
Learn more under How to map your contact data.
Select FINISH.
We now upload your file and import the contacts. This might take a few minutes.
How to map your contact data
On the data mapping page, expand the drop-down menu of each field and select the appropriate contact data field for each column, or create a new contact data field by selecting Add new data field.
If your file contains consent data, then you need to map any columns to the appropriate consent fields in the dropdown - consentdatetime, consentip, consenttext, consenturl and consentuseragent. You don't need to include all five consent fields to be able to map this type of data successfully.
Mapping an opt-in type
To import contacts with an opt-in type, map the following values to the optintype contact data field:
Single
Double
If you don't map one of these values to this contact data field, the value is set to Unknown by default.
If you don't have verified double opt-in turned on for all signups (under 'Regulatory settings' in your account settings) and you map Verified double as a value to this contact data field, the value is changed to Unknown.
Automatic mapping
If your import file uses our standard contact data field labels as column names then these are automatically mapped for you.
Using column names that differ to our standard contact data field labels
If you've included column names that differ from our standard contact data field labels in any way, you need to select CHANGE SETTINGS and then select Include on first row.
This lets the importer know it should recognise the top row of your import as column names rather than a standard data row, and prevents the importer from rejecting the row for being an invalid email address.
Overwriting data by importing contacts into an existing list
If you're importing into an existing list, and overwriting contact data, select CHANGE SETTINGS to choose a data merge option.
You can either choose to:
update all of the existing contact data fields with the imported data.
keep existing data in contact data fields from being updated with any imported blank values.
merge your imported data so that you keep any existing values in contact data fields.
When ready, select FINISH and the file is imported into the selected list.
Successful imports are confirmed by a clearance message from our powerful and intelligent data analysis tool, the Data Watchdog.
If any records failed to import successfully, your import report displays how many, and allows you to download a file of these contacts.
View your import report
Expand the User menu and go to Settings > Contacts > Import history.
Select DATE RANGE in the top right and choose the time period you want to see your contact imports from. Import history is stored for 30 days.
To open a Contacts import report, select the Report icon.
The Contacts import report displays useful data about the contacts you have imported, including:
Total uploaded contacts
New and updated contacts
Contacts not imported
