There are multiple ways to add contacts to your account and how to manage them.
Adding contacts - via .CSV file upload
Navigate to your "Contacts Screen" and select "Add Contacts" from the "Manage Contacts" drop down.
1. Confirm your contact's consent.
2. Simply drag and drop the .csv file onto the screen.
The upload tool supports raw a single .csv file or a zipped .csv file. It is recommended that you keep the file size to a maximum of 25MB.
3. You can then customize the contact fields.Make sure there is exactly one field labeled 'email'. There cannot be multiple contact field labels that use 'email'. The system will auto-detect existing contact fields as well as the following:
email, firstname, lastname, title, organizationname, city, country, state, zip, phone, mobilenumber, birthdate, gender, websiteurl, pageviews, visits, industry, numberofemployees, annualrevenue, faxnumber, purchasecount, linkedinbio, linkedinconnections, twitterbio, twitterusername, twitterprofilephoto, twitterfollowercount
Here are some example values for these fields:
someone@example.com, John, Doe, Sr, Example, New York, US, New York, 01234, 3334444, 5556666, yyyy-mm-dd, m, ...
someone@example.com, Jane, Smith, Mrs, Example, New York, US, New York, 01234, 3334444, 5556666, yyyy-mm-dd, f, ...
At the minimum the .csv file can simply be a column of email addresses:
email
address1@domain.com
address2@domain.com
4. Then choose to add the contacts to either an existing static list or create a new static list for the contacts to be added to.
Larger files may take some time to process.
PROPER .CSV FORMAT:
**Note
".csv" file stands for "comma delimited values" which are values separated by a comma.**
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If you have a Microsoft Excel file you can save the file to .csv by choosing Save As and choosing the .csv extension.
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If you are using a Mac computer, you will need to convert the file to CSV before uploading it.
Adding contacts - via Quick Add
To manually add a single contact to your account go to your Contacts Screen and click on "Add Contacts". Or go to this screen. Quick Add tool is on the right.
The minimum required field is "Email". Once the contact is on the account you can edit addition contact fields. You must check "I confirm these contacts have consented to receive my communications".
Adding contacts - via HTTP API and SMTP Relay
Contacts can also be added to the account using our API.
Additionally, all recipients that are sent an email via API and via the SMTP Relay are automatically added to the account as a contact.
Contact Lists - in General
Lists are the basis for contact management.
“All Contacts” is the default list for an account here.
Every contact added to the account is included in this list. Unlimited lists can be created, and contacts can be added to specific lists. Contacts can be moved or shared between lists. A contact’s profile can be edited within a specific list.
Contact Lists - Creating New List
- Go to your Contacts Screen. Click on "Create List".
2. New List: Give your list a name.
3. Allow Unsubscribe: When enabled this setting works with the {unsubscribelist} merge field to allow recipients to see which lists they are on.
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If Allow Unsubscribe is enabled then your recipients can see the list name. Give the list a name that means something to both you and your contacts.
Contact Lists - Creating Random List
1. To create a random list of contacts, start by selecting the list you wish to pull the contacts from at random.
2. Then click on "Create Randomized List".
3. New List: Enter the name of your new list.
4. # of Random Contacts: Enter a positive integer.
5. Allow Unsubscribe: Works with {unsubscribelist} merge field to allow recipients to view and manage their subscriptions from their email.
6. Must confirm your contacts have given you the consent.
Contact List - Upload Filtering
Our system automatically validates contacts that are uploaded to our system. This is a very useful feature of VMA Emailer which helps to provide better lists for our clients. Basically, we provide the user with the option to "clean" the data they are uploading to us. We run a script that compares and tests the addresses uploaded to our system.
Addresses are marked as Invalid when:
- we know that the email address does not exist,
- the email address has bad syntax,
- the email address is hosted on a non-existent domain.
Addresses are marked as Inactive when:
- the email address is a Role Address,
- we believe that the email address is a spam trap.
When you upload contacts, on the last step, you are provided with information about how many contacts were uploaded as Active, Inactive, Invalid and Unsubscribed and why they were uploaded as such.
If we know that the address is invalid - we will mark it during upload and change its status to invalid. If you upload an address that the system recognizes as a spam trap, it will be marked as Inactive.
If in the past the recipient has unsubscribed or complaint, the status of this contact will be changed to Unsubscribed and no more emails will be sent to them.
We strongly recommend that you don't send to the addresses we've filtered as Invalid. If you are sure that the contact is valid, you can change the status of the contact from Invalid to Active from you All Contacts screen. If the contact has a status of Inactive, you can Activate it via your Contacts menu.
Re-uploaded addresses keep their previous status. So, if you have the contact that has a status of Complaint, after re-uploading it, it will still have status Complaint (even if you uploaded it as Active). While uploading, we will remove duplicate contacts.
Our results are just recommendations for you which will assist you with improving your delivery.
