Importing contacts
The new import process and choice fields are available to our Beta users. If you'd like to sign up for our Beta program, click here.
Before importing a file with contacts, make sure your spreadsheet includes all the fields and tags you'd like to assign to your contacts.
Each field, including the email address field, would need to be added to your spreadsheet as a separate column. The comma-separated tags can be added to the same column and separated by commas.
Once your spreadsheet is ready for import, go to your mailing list and on the top-right side of the page, select "Import contacts from a file" from the Add contacts dropdown.
The next screen will allow you to attach your file. Just click and select a file to import or drag it into the framed area. Make sure that your file is in a CSV, XLSX, TXT or DSV format and that it's not larger than 50 MB.
After selecting your file, you can choose whether the contacts you import should be marked as subscribed or unsubscribed. If you already have some contacts in your list, you can also select whether those should be updated or skipped if they appear in the imported file.
You can't resubscribe unsubscribed contacts with an import.
You can also assign new or existing tags to all contacts from your imported file. To create a new tag, type the name you want to use for it into the search bar.
Your EmailOctopus account can store the email addresses along with custom data about your contacts. You can create custom fields if you need to store additional information, such as an address, name, or relationship stage.
Custom fields can be created in the account or during the import. You can use the dropdown menu for each column you want to import. Make sure to assign the right field to each column so your information can be imported correctly. All columns, besides the email address column, will have the "Ignore (do not import)" option selected by default. You can keep it this way for columns you don't want to import. You can also import values in the column as tags.
Make sure to pick the correct field type (text, numerical, date, single-choice or multiple-choice) for the kind of content you're importing into a new custom field.
- When importing data into a date field, use the YYYY-MM-DD format in your file.
- When importing data into a single-choice or multiple-choice field, ensure that your file only contains the pre-defined values for those fields.
When an import is complete, it will appear in the Imports tab. You will receive an email notification informing you when your import process is complete.
You can also download a report with a list of import issues here, if there were any.
You can download a CSV file template for import by clicking here: CSV file sample.