Manage Contact Lists

Overview

A contact list is a group of individual contacts that represent an individual person or business with specific contact information such as name, address, city, state, and phone number.

In your portal, you can target specific segments of your existing contacts by creating contact lists. Deliver content to specific segments of your customer base by sending campaign activities such as email and multimedia assets to different contact lists. Created lists are available for reuse and may be used as the basis for new lists.

Before You Begin

Before you begin creating contact lists, you should be familiar with the concepts covered in these articles:

• About Contacts
• About Contact Lists
• Manage Opt-In for Emails to Contacts
• Best Practice for Contact Lists

Contents

Click + to expand each section.

Create Contact Lists

To create a new contact list:

1. Navigate to your Contact Lists page.
2. Click Create Contact List.
3. Provide the following information:

Contact List Name

The name of the list.

Sender Name

The From name shown in mailings to the list.

Sender Email

The From email address shown in mailings to the list.

Language

A language identifier for the list.

1. Click Save.

   

The Contact List Details view for this list opens. For more about this view, see Contact Lists.

Add Individual Contacts to Contact Lists

When building a contact list, you can add contacts in three ways: adding brand new contacts to the list, adding existing contacts to the list, or importing contacts from an external file.

For information about importing multiple contacts from a file, see the Upload Contacts from a File section of this article.

You also have an option to continually have contacts added dynamically, using membership rules. For more information, see the Add Dynamic Membership Rules section of this article.

Add New Contacts

To add brand new individual contacts to a contact list:

1. Navigate to your Contact Lists page.
2. Click the name of the contact list to which you want to add contacts, to open it.

3. Click Add Contacts > Add Contact.

   

4. In New Contact, add the information for the contact.

5. If Opt-In Authorization is enabled for your account, specify how the contact will opt in to receiving your communications to this contact list.  You can either confirm that the contact is already opted in, or specify that they should receive an email asking them to give their confirmation. 

   If an email is sent for opt-in, it's based on the email template associated with the contact list in the Confirmation Email tab. For more information, see About Confirmation Emails for Contact Lists.

   

6. Click Save.

Add Existing Contacts

To add a single contact to a contact list, go to the contact record, and choose Add to list. Select the required list from the drop down menu.

To add multiple existing contacts to a contact list:

1. Navigate to your Contact Lists page.
2. Click the name of the contact list to which you want to add contacts, to open it. 

3. Click Add Contacts > Existing Contacts.

   

4. In Add Existing Members, create a rule or rules that will match the user(s) you want to add to the list. Matching Contacts shows how many users will be added using the rule.

5. If Opt-In Authorization is enabled for your account, specify how the contacts that will be added to the list under the rule(s) will opt in to receiving your communications to this contact list.  You can either use a general statement that all users are automatically opted in, or specify that each one should receive an email asking them to give their confirmation.

   If an email is sent for opt-in, it's based on the email template associated with the contact list in the Confirmation Email tab. For more information, see About Confirmation Emails for Contact Lists.

   

6. Click Add Contacts.

For more information about the other methods for adding contacts, see Add Dynamic Membership Rules and Upload Contacts from a File.

Add Dynamic Membership Rules

Membership rules pull contacts into a contact list based on a set of rules that you define. Additionally, any contacts added via a dynamic membership rule that no longer meet the criteria will be automatically removed from the list. Each rule group that is added defines a criteria for another segment of contacts to be managed as members of the list.

Note

Filters match on data you provide for contacts when adding them to the portal (either when creating manually, importing in bulk or managing via CRM integration).

To add dynamic membership rules:

1. Navigate to your Contact Lists page.
2. Click the name of the contact list for which you want to configure membership rules.
3. Go to the Membership Rules tab.
4. Click Create Membership Rule (if it's the first rule). If rules are already configured, click Add new rule.

5. Use the drop-down menus to create the rule.

   For example, create a membership rule that adds contacts to this list if they have opened a particular email sent through a campaign:

   • Drop-down 1: Actions
   • Drop-down 2: Email Open
   • Drop-down 3: is
   • Drop-down 4: [Name of Email]

   The Additional Contact Fields drop-down lists custom Lead Contact fields provided by your supplier and your own custom Contact fields.

   The Contact Fields drop-down lists standard contact fields.

   Matching Contacts shows how many users will be added using the rule.

6. Click Add new rule to add another rule to this rule group using an AND statement. Contacts must meet both rules in the rule group to be added to the list.
7. Click Add new group of rules to add another rule using an OR statement. Contacts only need to meet the criteria of one of these rule groups to be added to the list.
8. If you've got multiple rules or rule groups, click the X next to a rule/group to remove it.

9. If Opt-In Authorization is enabled for your account, specify how the contacts that will be added to the list under the rule(s) will opt in to receiving your communications to this contact list.  You can either use a general statement that all users are automatically opted in, or specify that each one should receive an email asking them to give their confirmation. 

   If an email is sent for opt-in, it's based on the email template associated with the contact list in the Confirmation Email tab. For more information, see About Confirmation Emails for Contact Lists.

   

10. Click Set Membership Rule.

Upload Contacts from a File

A quick way to create a contact list is to upload a contact list you already have, by importing it from a file. You can include your custom contact fields such as greeting or salutation with each contact record. You can import files of these types:

XLS (1MB size limit)

XLSX, TXT, or CSV (5MB size limit)

To ensure that the file you upload conforms to the current format, you can export your contact list to use as a template. See the Export a Contact List section of this article for information.

1. Navigate to your Contact Lists page.
2. Click the name of the contact list to which you want to add contacts, to open it.

3. Click Add Contacts > File Import.

   

4. In Upload Contacts, provide the following information:
   • Click Upload to select the file to import. 
   • If the file has a header row, check the File contains a header row option.

   • If Opt-In Authorization is enabled for your account, specify how the contacts that will be added to the list will opt in to receiving your communications to this contact list. You can either use a general statement that all users are automatically opted in, or specify that each one should receive an email asking them to give their confirmation.  If an email is sent for opt-in, it's based on the email template associated with the contact list in the Confirmation Email tab. For more information, see About Confirmation Emails for Contact Lists.

     

5. Click Import.

6. [If the source file has a header row] Map the header columns to data fields, to confirm which contact field in portal records should be populated with the values from each field in the upload file.

   If a column is named the same as a standard contact field (eg. Email), a suggested mapping is added automatically. You can change it if required.

   Columns with non-standard names have Ignore Column set as a default. You can choose to include the field in the import by selecting a mapping to a field (standard or custom contact field).

   Standard contact fields are listed in the General area of the drop down list

   Custom contact fields are shown in the Custom area of the drop down list.

   For information about custom contact fields, see Custom Fields.

   

   If you can't see the field you want in the drop-down, you can create your own.

   Important

   Bypassing the mapping step or incorrectly mapping your fields may prevent your contact list from uploading.

7. Click Upload Contacts. You will receive an onscreen message with the import results.

   

   If any rows failed the import (for example if the contact already exists), you can click a link to download information about those rows.

Efforts are made to populate the company name correctly if there is any doubt about its accuracy in the imported record:

• If it was not included - the company information is populated based on the contact email domain. For example, [e-mail] will result in Apple, Inc. contact information being added.
• If it appears misspelled or incomplete, based on existing records - the correct company name will be added. For example, an entry for Lent Solution would be updated to Lent Solutions if a record with that company name already exists. If the correction is not wanted, you can update it. Only one attempt is made to correct the name.

Export Contact Lists

The ability to export data allows sales reps to verify contacts and create charts or other visuals for presentations. Sales reps can also upload this data to other applications or use it to create new contact lists.

To export a contact list:

1. Navigate to your Contact Lists page.
2. Click the name of the contact list you want to export, to open it.

3. In the Members section, click Export.

   

4. Select the scheduling option for generating the file:
   • To obtain a single current copy of the contacts list, choose Send Now.
   • To schedule regular delivery of the contacts list, choose Send Daily, Send Weekly or Send Monthly.

5. Click Export Contacts.

   The list is exported as a CSV file and includes the data provided for each contact.

   

   Notes about exporting:

   • Standard and custom contact fields are included in the export. For more information, see Contact Fields.
   • Only active contacts are exported. No pending, unsubscribed, or bounced contacts are included.
   • You can export an unlimited number of contacts from your list.

   Depending on the number of records in the database, the process may take some time to complete. When it is done, you will receive a message confirming that you can access your report from your My Downloads page.

   

Archive Contact Lists

Contact lists can't be permanently deleted. You can remove a contact list from your Active view by archiving it. This moves the list to the Archived view.

Archiving is a permanent action - archived lists can't be reactivated.

To archive a contact list:

1. Navigate to your Contact Lists page.
2. Click the name of the contact list you want to archive, to open it

3. Click Archive.

   

4. You're asked to confirm that you want to proceed with the action. Click Archive to continue.

Remove Contacts from a Contact List

You can remove contacts from a contact list without having to delete the contact.

1. Navigate to your Contact Lists page.
2. Click the name of the contact list from which you want to remove the contact, to open it.

3. In the Members section, find the contact you want to remove.

   You can find contacts by searching using keywords or by sorting by status, lead score, create date, or name.

4. Click the X next to the contact to remove it from this list.
5. You're asked to confirm that you want to proceed with the action. Click Remove to continue.

If required, you can deactivate the contact completely once it's been removed from the list. For more information, see Deactivating Contacts.

Training

Related Topics

• Get Started with Contacts and Contact Lists
• About Contacts
• Manage Opt-In for Emails to Contacts