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.
The prompt
“I have exported my list from ActiveCampaign. Read the files for [my site] and show me the report before you import anything.”
Signed in, Get my prompt fills in your site for you. Otherwise press Copy and fill in the [bracketed] parts. First time? Connect your AI to bernard once: Use your own AI (opens in a new tab).
Step one: your files
Open Your customers, the Contacts 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
Export my mailing list out of ActiveCampaign gives the exact clicks for each of those, and Move my mailing list from ActiveCampaign is the wider journey. 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 export does not carry where a permission came from: whether somebody filled in a form, was imported or was added by hand is not in any file you can download. A per-list export does carry a subscribe date, and bernard deliberately does not treat a date as permission, because a date says when somebody appeared on a list and not that they asked to be there.
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, proposed as a contact field with its type and how many people have a value, so it fills in for everyone it can and never overwrites a value you already set
- 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. What does my mailing list import report mean? takes every line of it in turn, and What happens to my lists and tags when I bring my list across? covers which tags are worth keeping.
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 place on your do-not-email list. Everyone that import put there stays there, permanently. A no belongs to the person who said it, and no rollback of yours takes it back. Undo a mailing list import is the whole of it, and What will bernard do with my mailing list if I hand it over? is what bernard promises about the list you hand over.
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 When can I email the people I just imported? explains why an imported person is not in it yet.
Questions people ask
- Where is it?
- Open Your customers, then the Contacts tab. Bring people in sits above your contacts list, and Bring your list from ActiveCampaign is the third way in. 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 bernard imports what you declared and approved, never what it decided a column meant. An export of all your contacts carries no status at all, and a per-list export carries one because you chose the filter that made it. Rather than reading one file’s column and guessing at the other’s, bernard asks about every file and shows you the answer in the report you approve. Guessing a status is 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.