Import a CSV straight onto a marketing list

An import used to end at you now have 500 records. Emailing them meant going to Lists, finding the same 500 again and adding them by hand - and the consent attestation was asked in that second place, by whoever happened to be doing it, rather than at the moment the file arrived.

Pick the list while you import

The import wizard’s Options step now offers the marketing lists that hold this kind of record. Choose one and the rows go on it as they import. The consent tick sits next to it, because the person holding the file is the one who knows where it came from.

When you finish, the result says what actually landed: how many were added, how many were already on the list, how many are waiting on a double opt-in confirmation, and how many were left off - with the reasons separated, because this person unsubscribed and this address doesn’t exist are different problems and only one of them is yours to fix.

Nothing treats an imported contact as second-class

Worth saying plainly, because it is the question people ask: an imported record is exactly as mailable as one you typed in or one a form captured. Solstral does not ask how a record was created when it decides who a campaign goes to, and it never has. The only things that keep an address off a send are a standing unsubscribe, bounce or complaint; a watchdog alias like postmaster@; or a double opt-in list it hasn’t confirmed yet. Ordinary shared addresses - info@, sales@, support@ - go through.

Somebody who has unsubscribed stays off, whatever the file says. That is the one rule an import cannot talk its way past, and the result tells you how many rows it applied to.

Two fixes alongside it

• A double opt-in list now says so before you import, rather than after - every row lands unconfirmed and waits for a click, which previously showed up as a campaign with an audience of nought.
• Records of the wrong type are no longer added to a list. A company on a contacts list has no address in the field that list sends to, so it sat there as a member nothing could reach while making the list look bigger than it was.