Where you start the import decides where your contacts end up.
Start from Audience > Contacts to import contacts into your account without adding them to a list. Start from a list to import contacts into that list.
Before you start
You can only import CSV, TXT, XLSX, or ZIP file formats. Max file size is 10MB per file. If your file is larger than this, split it into smaller files and import them one at a time.
To upload large volumes of data regularly, or to automate your uploads, use the scheduled contact importer instead. It handles much larger files, but you need an SFTP client to set it up.
Your file must include an Email column. We use the email address as the unique identifier for a contact.
If the same email address appears on more than one row of your file, we import the first row. Any later rows with that address are counted as duplicates in your import report.
Mobile numbers must use the international phone number format starting with (+), for example: +44 7000 000000. If you're uploading contacts with mobile numbers, you must set your mobile subscription settings.
To add up to 50 contacts you already have to another list without importing a file, go to Audience > Contacts, select the contacts you want, then expand the MORE ACTIONS drop-down menu and select Copy to list.
Learn more in Move and manage contacts between lists and programs.
Required permissions
To use this feature, you must be an account owner or have the following user permissions:
Contacts
Can create contacts
If you don't have both of these permissions, Import contacts is unavailable and you can't add contacts manually either. Ask your account owner or a user with account management permissions to enable them.
Import contacts into your account
Before importing your contacts, ensure your data is well-structured and clean.
For example, each contact's details should be in its own row, and unnecessary placeholder values should be removed. This helps to reduce errors and make the import process smoother.
Import contacts into All contacts
Go to Audience > Contacts.
Expand the New contact drop-down menu and select Import contacts.
On the Upload contacts to Contacts page:
For File, select Choose file and choose the file you want to upload. Required
For Email address to notify, enter the email address you want to send the upload complete report to. Optional
For Encoding type, expand the drop-down menu and choose the encoding type of your file. Unicode (UTF-8) supports most languages. Required
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 in the section How to map your contact data.Select Finish.
We now upload your file and import the contacts. This might take a few minutes.
Import contacts into a list
Go to Audience > Lists.
Select the list you want to import your contacts into.
Expand the New contact drop-down menu and select Import contacts.
On the File upload page, follow steps 3 to 6 above.
We now upload your file and import the contacts. This might take a few minutes. All imported files are checked by our Data Watchdog.
When you import into a list, contacts who already exist in your account are added to that list alongside your new contacts. We update their existing record rather than creating a second one, so you don't get duplicates.
Contacts you import who are already suppressed or unsubscribed stay suppressed. Importing them doesn't resubscribe them, and they remain blocked from receiving campaigns.
Overwrite data by importing contacts into an existing list
Email addresses are unique in your account, so importing an email address that already exists doesn't create a second contact. We update the existing contact with the data in your file. By default, we update every contact data field. To choose what we update, change your data merge options before you select Finish.
If you're importing into an existing list, and overwriting contact data, select Change settings to choose a data merge option.
Expand the Data field options drop-down menu and choose from:
Update all data fields
Update all of the existing contact data fields with the imported data.Don't update data fields with blank values
Don't replace existing data in contact data fields with blank values from the import file.
Don't update data fields that already have a value
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.
All imported files are checked by our Data Watchdog, and if your import is successful, you see a confirmation message.
If any records failed to import successfully, your import report displays how many, and allows you to download a file of these contacts to review the data.
How to map your contact data
On the data mapping page:
Expand the Map to contact data field drop-down menu for each column of your file.
Select the contact data field to map the column to.
To create a new contact data field, select Add new data field, then:
In the Create a new data field side panel, enter the required details:
Name
Data type
Default value
Access
Folder
Learn more in the section Create a custom contact data field.
Select Create.
To not import the data from a column, select Skip column.
Once you have mapped all of the columns from your import file, select Finish.
Map consent data
If your file contains consent data, you need to map any columns to the appropriate consent fields in the drop-down menu : consentdatetime, consentip, consenttext, consenturl, and consentuseragent.
You don't need to include all five consent fields map this data successfully.
Map 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.
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.
Map custom IDs
If you have set up custom IDs, then you can map these during a file import in the same way as you map your contact data fields.
To avoid unique identifier conflicts, verify that no duplicate values exist for email addresses or phone numbers in your data file. Conflicts can result in rejected data during the import process.
You should know:
Custom ID values must be unique per contact.
You can't overwrite an existing custom ID value through a file import.
Automatic mapping
If your import file uses our standard contact data field labels as column names, then these are automatically mapped for you.
If you've included column names that differ from our standard contact data field labels in any way, select Change settings at the top of the Map your contact data fields page. Then, for Column names, 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.
View your import report
Select the Account menu icon 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 Contact import summary shows:
Total uploaded contacts
New contacts
Updated contacts
Contacts not imported
Invalid contacts
Conflicted emails
Conflicted numbers
Duplicated contacts
Below this, the Channel data report shows how many of your imported contacts are subscribed to each channel.
If any records failed to import, the Contacts not imported tile shows how many. Select Export as CSV to download a file named importFaults, which gives a reason for every contact we couldn't import.
Learn more in Understand the import report.