Bring my mailing list across from another email tool
Moving a mailing list is the frightening part of changing email tools, because the way it goes wrong is public: somebody who unsubscribed two years ago gets an email, and you look careless. So bernard does it in an order that makes that impossible, and shows you the whole thing before it writes anything.
Step one: your files
Open Community, the Email campaigns tab, then Bring your list from ActiveCampaign. Add every file you exported and, for each one, type the list it came from and choose what it is:
- Active on a list or Unconfirmed on a list, for your contacts
- Unsubscribed, Bounced, or Exclusion list, for your do-not-email side
Move my mailing list from ActiveCampaign says how to produce each of those in ActiveCampaign. If your account genuinely has nobody who unsubscribed or bounced, tick the box that says so. Bernard will not read an upload that has neither.
Step two: permission, list by list
For each list you marked Active, bernard asks you one question: did these people ask you to email them, and can you show how they asked?
Only you can answer that. ActiveCampaign's spreadsheet does not carry where a permission came from or when it was given, so there is nothing for bernard to read. Tick a list and bernard records your confirmation as the evidence, with the list name and the date, on every contact from it. Leave it unticked and those people arrive as contacts with no permission recorded, which is the honest state and always available.
Never tick a list you bought, scraped or inherited without knowing.
Step three: the report
Bernard reads everything and shows you:
- how many addresses go on your do-not-email list, and whether each is an unsubscribe or a bounce
- how many people become contacts, and how many of those carry the permission you confirmed
- how many appear in more than one file, and how many rows could not be read
- every tag it found and what each one becomes
- every custom field it found and how many people have one
- everything that does not come across at all
Nothing has been written at this point. Read it, change the tag names if you want, and read it again.
Step four: import exactly this
Import exactly this does the work in one order that never varies: every no first, then the people, their tags and their permission. If you edited anything after reading the report, bernard refuses and asks you to read the new one, because the thing you approved has to be the thing that runs.
Afterwards you get the same report again, built from what actually happened. The two should agree. If they do not, bernard says so plainly and you can undo.
Undo, at any time
Every import is listed with Undo this import. It removes the contacts, tags and permission records that import created and nothing else: a contact you already had keeps its own tags and its own history.
What it will not undo is a suppression. Everyone that import put on your do-not-email list stays there, permanently. A no belongs to the person who said it, and no rollback of yours takes it back.
Nobody is emailed by any of this
Not by reading your files, not by importing them, not by undoing an import. The first bernard email a person from your old list receives is a campaign you wrote and approved, with the recipient count in front of you and a Stop button running. Who will receive my email campaign? explains how that count is worked out, and Why can't I email the people I just imported? explains why an imported person is not in it yet.
The prompt
“I have exported my list from ActiveCampaign. Read the files for [my site] and show me the report before you import anything.”
Press Copy, then paste it into your AI and fill in the [bracketed] parts. First time? Connect your AI to bernard first - a one-time setup in bernard → your site → Use your own AI.
Questions people ask
- Where is it?
- Open Community, then the Email campaigns tab. Bring your list from ActiveCampaign sits under your do-not-email list. Choose Start, add your files, and say what each one is.
- Does uploading import anything?
- No. Reading your files writes nothing at all: not a contact, not a permission record, not a do-not-email entry. You get a report, and the import only happens when you press Import exactly this.
- Why do I have to say what each file is?
- Because the spreadsheet does not say. ActiveCampaign applies the Active, Unconfirmed, Unsubscribed or Bounced filter when it makes the file, so the status is a fact about the download rather than a column inside it. Guessing it would be the one mistake that emails somebody who said no.
- What if I have no unsubscribes at all?
- Then tick the box that says so. Bernard refuses an upload with no do-not-email file unless you confirm there is nothing to bring, because importing a list without its exclusions is exactly how people get emailed after they left.
- Can I rename the tags before importing?
- Yes. The report lists every tag it found, including one per list. Rename any of them, or clear the box to drop one. Change anything and read the report again: the approval names the exact plan, so an edited mapping needs a fresh read.
- How do I undo it?
- Every import you have run is listed under the panel with an Undo this import button, available at any time. It removes the contacts, tags and permission records that import created. It keeps everyone it put on your do-not-email list, and it leaves alone any contact you already had.
- Can Bernard do this for me in the Workshop?
- Yes, and it follows the same rules. Bernard can read a report, run an import you approved, or undo one. All three are the account owner's to decide, so a team member is asked to pass it on, and Bernard has to name the exact report you approved before it can import anything.