How to Add Contacts to Your Audience
Growing an engaged audience is the foundation of any successful marketing strategy! Sendlane offers four ways to add Contacts to your audience:
- Import Existing Contacts
- Add New Contacts With Integrations
- Add New Contacts With Pop-Ups
- Add New Contacts With the Sendlane API
🚦 Before Getting Started
- Create at least one List for new Contacts to be added to
- Ensure that all Contacts' opt-in details (date, IP Address, and source) are recorded
🚨 Important Notes
- All imported Contacts will be reviewed by our Compliance team before they can be sent to. This process generally takes 24 business hours. Our Compliance team reviews imports from 9AM to 5 PM PST, Monday through Friday.
- All imported Contacts will be in List Review for the first 3-5 Campaigns
- Custom Fields must be created in Sendlane before uploading custom data
- All Sendlane accounts default to double opt-in for new Contacts, contact your Customer Success Manager or our 24/7 support to request that your account be switched to single opt-in
Import Existing Contacts
There are three ways to add or import existing Contacts to your Sendlane account:
Head to the Contact Import Screen:
- Click Audience
- Click Contacts
- Click +Contact
- Click Import
Import via .CSV or .TXT file
🙋 How do I format my .CSV file?
- Size: Ensure your file is 100MB or smaller.
- Headers: All columns must have descriptive headers with no special characters.
- Required data: Email address, Sign-up source, Subscribed date, and Sign-up IP are required for all rows.
- Email Consent: The Email Consent column refers to consent to be sent email marketing material. The following formats can be used to indicate consent to receive email:
Subscribed/Unsubscribed(case sensitive)True/FalseYes/No1/0
- SMS Consent + Phone Numbers:
- Do not include a
+symbol without a country code in the phone number column - Rows with an affirmative indicator for SMS consent must contain a valid phone number.
- The import tool accepts the following formats for SMS Consent:
Yes/NoTrue/FalseOn/Off1/0
- Do not include a
🙋 How does the Email Consent column work?
Review the following table to learn how mapping the Email Consent column will affect Contacts with different statuses in your account during import:
| New Contact? | Subscription Status Before Import | Email Consent Column Value | Contact's Subscription Status After Import |
| Yes | None | Yes | Subscribed to Email |
| Yes | None | Blank | Subscribed to Email |
| Yes | None | No | Unsubscribed from Email |
| No | Subscribed to Email | Yes | Subscribed to Email |
| No | Subscribed to Email | No | Unsubscribed from Email |
| No | Unsubscribed from Email | Yes | Subscribed to Email |
| No | Unsubscribed from Email | No | Unsubscribed from Email |
| No | Subscribed to Email | Blank | Subscribed to Email |
| No | Unsubscribed from Email | Blank | Unsubscribed from Email |
🙋 Does mapping the SMS Consent column overwrite the Contact's existing SMS Consent value?
If the SMS consent column is mapped during import, the consent value in the import file will overwrite the consent value in the Contact's profile as long as the Contact was originally subscribed via import.
If Contacts unsubscribe from SMS by texting STOP, the SMS consent value will not be overwritten by future imports.
To import Contacts in bulk via .CSV or .TXT file, drag your file in or click File Upload to select your file.
Once your file loads, you'll see options to map your file's fields to standard or custom fields. Columns for the following standard fields should map automatically:
- First Name
- Last Name
- Phone Number
- Email Consent*
- SMS Consent
🚨 *If you do not map the Email Consent column, all contacts will be imported with email consent = Yes, even if they have not given consent
If you are uploading a list of unsubscribers, you MUST make sure that the Email Consent field is mapped correctly or you will send to Contacts who have unsubscribed.
Opt-in details like subscribed date, sign-up IP, and sign-up source, are usually automatically be set to "Ignore this field" but our import tool may detect the column header. Select the correct field from the dropdown if it is not set automatically.
To add a Tag to every Contact in your file, enter the Tag in the Tags field.
Check the permission checkbox to confirm that you have explicit permission to send marketing content to these Contacts and click Next to head to the SMS import questionnaire!
If you do not plan to send SMS marketing content to the Contacts you're uploading, answer No and click Finish to complete your upload!
If you do plan to send SMS marketing content to the Contacts you're uploading, answer Yes and complete the questionnaire. Include as much detail as possible, then click Finish to complete your upload!
⏭ Next Steps
Congratulations on adding your first Contacts to your account!
All imported Contacts will be reviewed by our Compliance team before they can be sent to. This process generally takes 24 business hours. Our Compliance team reviews imports from 9AM to 5 PM PST, Monday through Friday.
Check out our guide to List Review to learn more about what to expect next!
Copy and Paste Contacts
🚨 SMS consent cannot be uploaded via copied lists
Please use the file import method to add Contacts with SMS Consent.
Copy and paste a list of Contacts by selecting the Copy + Paste option on the Contact Import window, then paste your Contacts and click Import Contacts.
To add a Tag to every Contact in your file, enter the Tag in the Tags field.
To trigger Automations for your new Contacts, click the Trigger Automations checkbox.
Check the permission checkbox to confirm that you have explicit permission to send marketing content to these Contacts and click Import Contacts to complete your upload!
⏭ Next Steps
Congratulations on adding your first Contacts to your account! Check out our guide to List Review to learn more about what to expect next!
Manually Create a Contact
To manually add one Contact at a time, click +Contact > enter the Contact's information > Create
Add New Contacts With Pop-ups
Use a Pop-Up form to collect leads from your business' website! Check out our guide to setting up a Pop-Up to learn more.
Want to create even more intelligent forms with advanced segmentation options, A/B testing, and more? Check out Sendlane's premiere partner for lead capture: Justuno!
Add New Contacts With Integrations
Sendlane offers hundreds of integration options with marketing tools you use every day. Head to the Integrations page for a full list of platforms we integrate with.
Add New Contacts with the Sendlane API
For advanced users, we have created an index of API calls to add individual Contacts or lists of Contacts to your audience.
Troubleshooting
After importing I received an email saying "Uh-oh... There's an issue with your import!"
Import issues could be related to:
- File formatting: Review the file formatting note above and make sure your import file is formatted correctly. If you've included columns for non-required data, try removing those columns and attempting to upload again.
- Plan issue: If you are on a free trial, you cannot import more than 100 Contacts. If your import file contained more than 100 Contacts, your import will not be accepted.