Prepare your contact list for import

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Before starting

Before importing your contacts, start by gathering the list of their email addresses, in one of the supported file types. This is the only mandatory information to add your contacts. However, you can include other information that will be useful for personalizing your mailings (such as their first and last names) or that could help you effectively segment your subscribers. If you use a CRM or other application to manage your customer databases, you should know that most of them allow you to export their data directly into a ready-to-use format. This will save you a lot of time. 

Learn how to export your contacts from various email software here.

To help you build your contact file, you can also download our sample file. It contains all the information you can include when adding your contacts as well as examples of accepted data formats. Download sample file >

Finally, before importing your list of subscribers, it can also be useful to think about how you want to segment them. Some of our clients will organize their contacts by language (e.g., French or English), by type of interest, by origin (e.g., the region where they live) or by consent sources... Keep in mind that all the contacts in your file will be imported into the selected group(s). These groups will then be used to send out your mailings. Sending an email to a well-targeted audience will always yield better results. If you don't know how you want to organize your groups yet, don't worry. Once your contacts are added, you will benefit from powerful tools like dynamic groups and advanced search to help you segment them right from your account.

Supported file types

Your contacts must be grouped in a file corresponding to one of these formats:

  • XLSX or any other spreadsheet software
  • CSV (Comma Separated Values)
  • TSV (tab-separated values)
  • TXT (text file)

Keep your file and its formatting as simple as possible. Certain elements, such as line breaks within table cells, columns and hidden rows, can cause problems when importing your contacts.

Did you know that you can import your contacts by copying and pasting them directly from an Excel spreadsheet? Learn how

Field and data format

Follow the instructions below to build your import file.

Mandatory field

The email address is the only mandatory information to import your contacts. In your file, there must be only one email address per line. Gather the addresses of your contacts in a single column.

Order and number of columns

There is no order of presentation or number of columns to respect in your file. Your email addresses can be in the first column, last or in the middle, it doesn't matter.

During the import process, you will be able to select the columns to be imported and to which field of your contacts they should be associated.

Add a title to your columns to save time! 
Although it is not necessary to insert a title line in your file, it could greatly speed up the import process, especially during the column association step. If the column has the same title as the field, our system will recognize the information and make the association automatically.

Fields and recommended formats

There are 3 types of fields: regular fields, consent fields and custom fields.

Regular fields are predefined fields and are designed to add basic information about your contacts (such as their first name, last name, birthday, etc.).

Consent fields are used to store all of your contacts' consent information to help you comply with Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL).

Custom fields are additional fields where you can save other information that will be useful to you about your contacts (for example, the date of their last in-store visit, their favorite colour, the total donations made or their customer number). There are 4 types of custom fields: text, date, integer and decimal number. You can create up to 40 custom fields, depending on your plan. Learn how to create custom fields >

Below is a list of all the fields in which you can import your contact data and their recommended format.

It's important to respect the fields' format, otherwise some entries in your import file may be rejected. If this is the case, you will see invalid lines in your import report. It's possible to download invalid lines to view the errors and correct them.

Email

The email address is only mandatory information.

First and Last name

Maximum of 255 characters. Insert the first and last names of your contacts in two separate columns.

If your contact's first name and last name are in the same column, we suggest that you split them into two separate columns. This will allow you to import the information in the right fields and will simplify the personalization, if needed, of your mailings.  To learn how to do this in Excel, click here.

Language

Here are the supported formats for each language:

  • French: fr, fr_ca, fr_fr, french, français or francais
  • Anglais : en, en_ca, en_us, english or anglais

To make it easier to plan your mailings, try segmenting your contacts according to their language by adding them in different groups. To learn more about how the language works, click here.

Gender

Here are the supported formats for each gender type:

  • Female: f, female, woman, femme, fille, madame, Mrs., Mme, Ms., Madam ou Mlle
  • Male: m, male, man, h, homme, garçon, gars, M., Sir, Mr., ou Mister
  • Other: o, autre, other

Birthdate

There are several supported date formats, but they must all follow the order: year-month-day. For more details, see the recommended date formats > 

Postal code

Text field. The postal code must not exceed 10 characters.

Country

To import the information in the Country regular field, you must use the 2-character country code (ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code).
For example: CA, US, FR

Company

Text field. Insert a maximum of 255 characters.

Note

Tex field. No characters limit.

Consent date

There are several supported date formats, but they must all follow the order: year-month-day. For more details, see the recommended date formats > 

What is the consent date? This is the date on which you obtained consent from your contacts. For example, for an active client, this could be the date of their most recent purchase or the date their contract ended.

Consent proof

Text field. Insert a maximum of 255 characters.

What is proof of consent? It's a reminder of how and/or under what form you obtained your contacts' consent. The proof can also help you remember where to physically find it or can be a reference to the supporting document. For example, for an active client, you could enter their last invoice or contract number.

Custom field - Text

Insert a maximum of 1,000 characters.

Learn more about text custom fields >

Custom field - Date 

There are several supported date formats, but they must all follow the order: year-month-day. For more details, see the recommended date formats > 

Learn more about date custom fields >

Custom field - Integer

Here are key things to remember:

  • Whole numbers can be positive or negative.
  • Values ​​must range between -2147483648 and 2147483647.
  • Decimals cannot be entered in this field unless the digits in the decimal contain only zeros (e.g., 15.0000 is accepted, but 15.050 is not).
  • A comma is the only acceptable thousands separator (e.g., 15,000).
  • Currency symbols ($, €, £, ¥) can be entered, but will be ignored when importing your data.

Here are some examples of integer formats accepted during import:

15155
15 155
$ 15,155
-15155

Learn more about integer custom fields >

Custom field - Decimal number

Here are key things to remember:

  • Decimal numbers can be positive or negative.
  • The values ​​must be between -9999999999999.99 and 9999999999999.99.
  • There must be a maximum of two digits in the decimal (e.g., 215.75).
  • The decimal separator can be a period (.) Or a comma (,) (e.g., 12,55 or 12.55).
  • A space is the only accepted thousands separator. (e.g., 15 000.50).
  • Currency symbols ($, €, £, ¥) can be entered, but will be ignored when importing your data.

Here are some examples of decimal number formats accepted for import:

15155
15155.7
15155.75
15155,75
15 155.75
$ 15,155.75
-15155.75

Learn more about decimal number custom fields >

About the supported date formats

Multiple date formats are supported. Here are the key things to remember:

  • Enter your dates using the following format: year-month-day (e.g., 2020-10-31).
  • The year must always be four digits (e.g., 2020).
  • Dashes (-), forward slashes (/), and periods (.) are all acceptable delimiters.
  • The date can be accompanied by the time, but the latter will be ignored when importing your data.

Here are some examples of accepted date formats to import:

yyyy-MM-dd
yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm
yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss
yyyy-MM-dd HH: mm: ss.FFF
yyyy-M-dd
yyyy-MM-d
yyyy-M-d
yyyy.MM.dd
yyyy/MM/dd

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