Importing Contacts
View a walk-through of Importing Contacts in the emfluence ClickLearn section here.
To import contacts, you can either choose Import Contacts from the dropdown menu when hovering over the Contacts icon in the top navigation, or click through to Contacts and chose Import Contacts from the left sidebar. NOTE: The only files which can be imported are CSV and TXT files. If your file is an Excel Workbook, make sure to save it as a CSV prior to uploading it into the platform.
On the Import Page, either drag your CSV or TXT file onto the upload area, or click Select File to choose it from your computer. Once the file is loaded you should see a green checkmark in front of your file's name.Click Next to continue. If you see an error, your file is either the wrong type (for example a XLXS file instead of a CSV) or something is wrong with your file (perhaps the data is malformed or the size is too large for the uploader).
On Step 2, you will configure your file. If the system finds a header row in your file, it will attempt to use those values to try and auto-match your columns. Of the pre-matched columns, only Email will be pre-selected. If you want the system to attempt to match other columns, you can click the Auto-map all columns button. Any column can also be matched manually from your file's column to the value you want in the emfluence Marketing Platform. Once a column is mapped you will see it the column bolded in a green outline with the emfluence field displayed. Any columns not mapped will not be imported. NOTE: Make sure the data you are mapping matches the field in the emfluence Marketing Platform. If you attempt to map text data to a numeric-only field, for example, those records will fail).
Clicking Next will move you forward to the Settings step where you can choose to add the contacts to any existing emfluence Group by typing the name of the group you wish to add the contacts to (or clicking Browse Group to find the full list of all the groups in your account that your user has access to). You can also choose to create a new group and add these contacts to it by clicking the New Group button. And finally, if you are a client admin, you have the ability to Import as another user and/or overwrite the ownership of any contact currently in the system who is also in your list. Any values on existing contacts will be overwritten on the import. If you want to avoid the possibility of a blank value overwriting a current value you can check the box at the bottom of the form to "Ignore blank values."
Click Import Contacts to begin the upload, and Yes Import Contacts to confirm you do wish to upload this list into your account. Depending on the size of your list, they may be uploaded immediately, or (for larger files) it may take a few minutes). When your import is complete you will see the Import Contact History for your file. You can click View Import History to see a history of recent uploaded files to your account. Or, if you have another file to upload, you can click Import Another File. If you go straight to Import Another File, and your columns match exactly, the system will remember your last file mapping and select the same mapping for your second file.
Once your upload is complete, you will see a summary of the import which will show you the number of new contacts added, the number of existing contacts updated (available, held, and suppressed), and any duplicate or failed entries in your file which couldn't be uploaded. Note: The most common reason for an email not being uploaded is the email field was missing/blank (we must have a valid email to save a contact) or being misspelled, ex: support@emfluence,com or supportemfluence.com or support@emfluencecom.
Remember, if you are a Restricted User, you can only make updates via Import to existing records that you "own". (Check with the Administrator for your account if you don’t have the right permissions to make updates to the list into which you’re importing.)
Importing as Held or Suppressed
View a walk-through of Importing Contacts as Held or Suppressed in the emfluence ClickLearn section here.
When manually importing a file, you do have the option to upload a set of contacts as held or suppressed (to make sure they never get sent to).
To import a list as suppressed add a new column to your CSV file titled Held and give every entry a value of 1 in that column. When you map you will map the Held field in your file to the Held field in emlfuence. A pop-up will alert you that any held addresses cannot be sent to. Click OK and continue as normal. To import a list as Suppressed, follow the same steps but title your column Suppress and map it to the Suppress field in emfluence. You can also use this method to un-hold a list of contacts by using a value of 0. NOTE: For security reasons you cannot bulk unsuppress contacts.