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Add email contacts, lists and segments

Bring in the people you want to email, then group them. At the end you have contacts marked Subscribed, at least 1 list to send a campaign to, and optional segments that narrow a list to the people who match your conditions.

Before you start

  • You can see Email in the left rail with Audience in its panel. If not, ask your admin for access.
  • You have permission to email these people. Only Subscribed contacts receive marketing emails.
  • To import, your file is a CSV, XLSX or XLS file with the columns Email, First Name, Last Name and Phone.

Steps

Add contacts one at a time or several at once

  1. Open Email in the left rail, then select Audience, then the Emails tab.
  2. To add 1 person, click Add Contact. Fill in Email, and optionally First Name, Last Name, Phone, Birthday, Subscription Status and Tags (comma-separated) — e.g. vip,newsletter. Save the form.
  3. To add several, click the arrow next to Bulk Import Contacts, then click Add Multiple. The Add Multiple Contacts dialog opens.
  4. Type 1 address in each Email row. Click Add another row for more.
  5. Optional: choose a list in Add to Mailing List (optional), or click Create New List….
  6. In Subscription Type, keep Marketing (Subscribed) unless these people have not agreed to marketing email.
  7. Click Add. The Result section shows which rows were added. Click Retry Failed to try failed rows again.

On a new account, the Add the people you want to email card offers Add contacts, which opens the same dialog.

Import contacts from a file

  1. On the Emails tab, click Bulk Import Contacts. The Import Contacts wizard opens.
  2. Under How would you like to add contacts?, choose Upload a file or Copy and paste. Click Continue.
  3. Select your file, or paste 1 contact per line as email, first name, last name, phone. Click Continue.
  4. Under Organize your contacts, optionally choose a list in Mailing List (optional). Click Continue.
  5. Under Tag your contacts, optionally type tags in Tags (comma-separated), for example vip,newsletter. Click Continue.
  6. Under Match Columns, match each column in your file to Email, First Name, Last Name, Phone or Skip this column. At least 1 column must be Email. Click Continue.
  7. Under Set a marketing status, choose the status for every contact in this file. Only subscribed contacts receive marketing emails. Click Continue.
  8. Under Review and complete your import, check the details, then click Complete Import.
  9. Import complete shows New contacts detected, and how many were added to the list and tagged. Rows that failed are listed with the reason. Click Done.

Note

Column matching works for CSV files only. Excel files must use the standard column order: Email, First Name, Last Name, Phone.

To see earlier imports, click Manage audience on the Emails tab, then click Import history.

Create a list and add people to it

  1. Open Email in the left rail, then select Audience, then the Email Groups tab and Fixed.
  2. Click Create list. In List name, type a name such as Newsletter. Add a Description (optional), then click Create list.
  3. On the new list, click Add contacts — this list is empty. The Members dialog opens.
  4. In Search contacts to add…, find and tick the people to add, then click Add.
  5. Click Close.

To work with an existing list, open its ⋮ menu. Manage Members adds or removes people, Duplicate copies it, and Merge Into Another List moves its members into another list.

To add people from a file straight into a list, open Manage Members, then click Import to This List.

Build a segment

A segment narrows a list to the people who match your conditions. It never adds people who are not on the list.

  1. Open Email in the left rail, then select Audience, then the Email Groups tab and Rule.
  2. Click Create segment. The New segment screen opens.
  3. Pick a card under Start with a common segment, or click Build from scratch.
  4. Click Add filter, choose a filter in Choose a filter, then set its value.
  5. To combine conditions, set Contacts match to all or any. Click Add AND group or Add OR group for nested groups.
  6. Check the preview. WHO MATCHES THIS SEGMENT shows the count and SAMPLE CONTACTS.
  7. Type a name in Untitled segment, then click Save segment.

To aim a campaign at a segment, choose a list and the segment in the campaign. See Send an email campaign.

Video walkthrough

[VIDEO]

Troubleshooting

Issue Cause Fix
A contact with email '…' already exists. The address is already in Contacts. Edit the existing contact instead.
A deleted contact with this email exists — reactivate it instead of recreating. The contact was deleted earlier. Find the deleted contact and reactivate it.
Import row shows Contact with this email already exists or Invalid email address '…' The row repeats an existing contact or has a bad address. Fix the row in your file and import it again.
Map at least one column to Email before continuing No column is matched to Email. Match your email column to Email.
Add at least one complete condition before saving. A segment filter has no value. Fill in or remove the incomplete filter.
No contacts match these conditions yet. The conditions are too narrow. Loosen a filter, or switch all to any.