Whether you want to perform an initial import of contacts from another platform or update your customer data, you can use Connectif's contact import tool.
In this article you’ll learn how to import contacts and their properties.
Difficulty: Low.
When to use it: To import contacts when setting up your account or to update customer data.
Before you start: what to consider
Before importing contacts, you must have:
- Previously created the fields in Connectif. If you import a CSV with fields that do not exist in Connectif, they will not be imported.
- A CSV file with the contacts you want to import, where:
- There is only one Email field.
- The Date and Telephone fields are in their corresponding format:
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- Date: its format is ISO 8601 yyyy-mm-dd (year-month-day).
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Telephone: can be with or without international prefix and must be without spaces in both cases. If no prefix is added, the configured international prefix will be used. Two examples are:
- With prefix: +34651234567
- Without prefix: 651234567.
- Integer-type fields start with a number between 1 and 9. It is not possible to include fields whose first number is 0.
- No fields including numbers (telephone, date, integer, decimal and radius) are empty.
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For example, if we are importing contacts with a phone number, there cannot be contacts in the same file with information in the Telephone field and others that have it empty. If a contact has a phone number, all other contacts must have a phone number assigned to them for the import of that field to occur.
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- The CSV fields must contain a value that matches the ID of the corresponding value in Connectif.
For example, if we are importing the newsletter subscription status, the information in the CSV must match one of the values in the Newsletter subscription status field in Connectif, i.e. "subscribed", "unsubscribed" or "none".
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- Checkbox fields can have multiple options for a contact. In such cases, the "|" character must be used to delimit the text.
STEP 1: Preparing the CSV file for import
1. Open a blank file in a spreadsheet such as Excel or Google Sheets.
2. In the first column, create a label for the email field.
3. Add as many columns and their corresponding labels as fields you want to import into Connectif.
If the fields to be imported do not exist in Connectif, you will need to create custom fields prior to this process. Find out how to create them in this article.
In our example, we have added the First name and Last name fields to the export.
4. Complete the information for each contact in the appropriate column.
5. Save the file in comma-separated CSV format.
More information on exporting in CSV format can be found in the Excel or Google Sheet documentation.
STEP 2: Importing the file into Connectif
6. Go to “Contacts > See all” and click Import.
7. Under Select a data source check Import from file.
8. Select the CSV file to be imported and load it into Connectif.
Optionally, you can also perform the import by copying and pasting the CSV content into the central text box, however this option is more limited because it doesn’t support imports of large numbers of contacts.
9. (Optional). Indicate whether the CSV file has a header with the column names, as well as the cell delimiter (comma) and the column delimiter (semicolon).
10. Check the appropriate checkboxes:
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Overwrite existing: to overwrite with the data from the file if a contact exists in Connectif with any of the imported email addresses, and other fields of the contact are also being imported.
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Update only empty fields: in the case of overwriting, to update any empty fields.
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Add to segment: to add the imported contacts to a previously created static segment.
If you want to update any field in bulk, you must check Overwrite existing. In addition, if you only want to update empty fields, you should select Update only empty fields.
11. Click Next .
STEP 3: Selecting the fields to be imported
12. In the menu of data available for import (left-hand column) select the data to be imported from the CSV and drag it to the central block so that it matches the corresponding Connectif field.
In the upper left corner is the Literal value. When you associate the Literal value to a field, a small editor appears where you can indicate your chosen value for that field for all the contacts to be imported. If, for example, you associate the Literal value to the Points field and indicate "10", all contacts included in that import would have their Points field set to a value of 10.
In our example, the Email data is associated, which is the only mandatory data. The rest are optional, but if they are not associated they will not be imported.
13. Once you have associated the data with the fields, click Next to start the import process.
STEP 4: Import and Summary
14. In the summary screen, click Go to import list to check the status of the import, the contacts that have been successfully imported, and those that have had a problem (along with the reason for the problem).
If you navigate to another page or close the browser, the import process continues in background in Connectif but you will no longer be able to access the results of the import, such as the contacts that failed to import.
Success!
The import of contacts is now ready.
Do you have questions?
Don’t forget, our Connectif specialists are here to help you. To contact them, just open a Support ticket by clicking the blue “Help” button on your dashboard.
Keep learning!
To make the most of your Connectif account, we recommend reading these articles next:
- Contact sheets and digital footprint, to visualize all the information collected by Connectif about your ecommerce site’s registered and anonymous contacts.
- Exporting contacts and activities, to transfer information about contacts and their activity to a CSV file for use outside Connectif.
- Access a dynamic segment when identifying an anonymous contact, for an in-depth look at how dynamic segments work.
- Delete contacts, to delete a contact's information and activity, individually or in bulk.