When adding contacts to your account, imports can take some time to process. Import speed depends on the size of the file, as well as the size of your existing audience, especially if you’re updating your contacts because data in the file has to be checked against those existing contact records.
How to import
For more information and step-by-step instructions about importing, please refer to this article. For information about importing to the SMS Mobile field, please refer to this article.
How to troubleshoot import errors
The first step in troubleshooting is to see if any of your file imports have failed. You can easily view the status of an import by following these steps:
- Navigate to your Audience tab.
- Click on the Imports section in the panel on the left.
- Check the Status column for the import in question. If it says Error, then the import failed.
View the import summary
In some cases, viewing the import summary will provide an explanation for the error. To do this, simply click on the file name to view its summary. If any of your files show an Error status, you will have the option to download the import summary. However, for data storage purposes, import summaries are only kept for 7 days, so you will not be able to download the import summary to inspect those errors if the import was performed more than 7 days ago.
Change your file type
File import errors are often caused by formatting issues in the spreadsheet, many of which are easy to fix. For various reasons, the file type can cause an import to fail. If your spreadsheet is an XLS or XLSX file type, try converting it to a CSV file and then see if it will import successfully.
When saving as a CSV file, make sure that the file is UTF-8 encoded.
Check your file name
Be sure your file name does not contain an en dash (–) or em dash (—) in the filename. Hyphens (-) will work fine, but when in doubt, underscores (_) are the safest option.
Remove multiple sheets in your file
Spreadsheets containing multiple sheets cannot be processed. Make sure that the file you’re importing only has one sheet.
Omit multiple email addresses
Only one email address should be entered per cell and all email addresses in your file should be in the same column.
Additionally, if you accidentally import duplicate email addresses, they will be deduplicated during the import process. They will instead show up as Duplicates in your import summary, but this will not cause your import to fail.
Remove multiple header rows
The application can only process a single header row, so if your spreadsheet has more than one header row, you’ll need to remove all but one.
Remove special formatting and formulas
Spreadsheet formulas and other types of data formatting can conflict with the import process. If there are formulas or special formatting applied to data that you want to import, reformat those columns to plain text and try importing again. If there is any data with special formatting that doesn’t need to be imported, it’s best to exclude those columns. Copy only the columns you need, paste them in a new spreadsheet as values only, and import that instead.
This is often the quickest way to get an import to work. Copy only the information that you need off of your original sheet and paste it into a brand new spreadsheet. When pasting into the new sheet, choose Paste special from the Edit menu and select Values only. Then save your new sheet as a UTF-8 encoded CSV file.
Double-check data formats for contact fields
When importing data to contact fields, be aware that some field types require that the data be in a certain format for a successful import.
This is especially important for numeric fields, date fields, select multiple / checkbox fields, and the SMS mobile field. Additionally, for the SMS mobile field, the phone number must be fully unique – if another contact in your account or on the spreadsheet already has a certain phone number, trying to use it for anyone else will cause errors.
If you don’t need it, don’t map it
Remove any columns on your spreadsheet that have information that you don’t need / don’t intend to import.