What will bernard do with my mailing list if I hand it over?
Handing your mailing list to a new company is a real risk, and "trust us" is not an answer. So here is exactly what happens to it, in the order it happens, and the things that are structurally impossible rather than merely promised.
One: the noes are written first
When you import, the very first thing written is your do-not-email list: every address that unsubscribed, bounced or sat on your ActiveCampaign exclusion list. Only then are contacts created.
There is no moment during an import at which somebody who left you exists in your book as a reachable person, because they were already suppressed before the book was written to.
If you upload no do-not-email files at all, bernard refuses to read the upload until you tick a box confirming there is genuinely nothing to bring. It would rather be awkward than let that be an oversight.
Two: the strictest answer always wins
If one address appears twice in your files with two different answers, the no wins. Active on one list and Unsubscribed on another means suppressed, every time, without asking you.
Three: no import can raise an audience count without a record you can read
Permission that comes across is written on the contact with the list it came from and the date, and you can read that sentence on their page. There is no hidden number and no bulk switch.
Today it goes further than that: transferred permission is recorded and deliberately does not count towards a campaign audience at all, because bernard counts permission given on this site. That is a gap, we say so on every screen that touches it, and Why can't I email the people I just imported? explains it in full rather than burying it.
Four: you read the whole thing before any of it happens
The report is produced with zero writes and approved as a whole, the same way a campaign is. Change one tag name and the approval is void, because the thing you approved has to be the thing that runs. What does my mailing list import report mean? takes it line by line.
Afterwards the same report is written again from what actually happened, and the two are compared for you. If they disagree, bernard says so.
Five: it can be taken back, except the part that should not be
An import can be undone as a unit at any time. The contacts, tags and permission it created are removed.
The do-not-email entries it made stay, permanently. A no belongs to the person who said it, not to the import that carried it. Undo a mailing list import covers exactly what goes and what stays.
Six: nobody is emailed by any of this
Not by the report, not by the import, not by the undo. Bernard sends no mail at any step. The first 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 for five minutes after you say yes.
What bernard will never do with your list
- Email it on its own initiative. There is no automatic first campaign, no welcome to your imported people, nothing.
- Market to your people. They are yours. We do not write to them, ever.
- Sell it, share it, or hand it to another customer. Your contacts are scoped to your site by the database, not by a screen that could be got round.
- Train anything on it. Your contacts are not training data.
- Decide somebody is emailable. There is one place in bernard that works out whether a person can be emailed, it reads evidence, and it is the same one the audience count and the send both use. No import, no operator and no support ticket edits it.
- Un-unsubscribe anybody. Not on your request, not on an undo, not on a re-import. Only the person themselves can say yes again.
- Quietly repair a file. A row it cannot read is reported with its file and row number and skipped, never guessed at.
What you can check for yourself
Open any imported contact. The page tells you whether they can be emailed and why, where they came from, which import brought them, when, and what your old tool recorded about them. Your do-not-email list is readable in full at any time, with a reason and a date against each entry.
If a screen ever disagrees with this page, the screen is right and this page is the thing that needs fixing. Tell us.
The prompt
“Before I upload my mailing list to [my site], tell me exactly what bernard will do with it and what it will never do.”
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
- Will you email my list?
- Never on our own account, and never at all until you send a campaign. Nothing about reading your files, importing them or undoing an import sends a single email. Every campaign is one quote you read and approve, with a five-minute window to stop it.
- Do you use my list for anything of your own?
- No. Your contacts belong to your site. They are not marketed to by us, not shared with another customer, not sold, and not used to train anything. The only mail they ever get from this system is a campaign you approved.
- Who can see it?
- You and the members of your own account. Every read is scoped to your site by the database itself, not by a check in the screen, so another customer's account cannot reach it even by accident.
- Can bernard decide somebody is emailable?
- No, and this is the one that matters. Bernard has one place where it works out whether a person can be emailed, and it reads evidence rather than a number you typed or a column in a file. An import cannot raise that count and nor can we.
- What if I upload the wrong file?
- The report comes before the writing, so you usually catch it there. If you do not, undo the import: it removes the contacts, tags and permission it created. What it keeps is the do-not-email entries, which is the one thing you should not be able to undo.
- What if somebody asks you to delete their record?
- You can delete a contact. Their entry on your do-not-email list is a record of a decision they made about your business, and it stays, because deleting it is how somebody who said no ends up emailed again.
- How do I check any of this rather than believing it?
- Open any imported contact. It says whether they can be emailed and why, where they came from, which import brought them and what your old tool recorded. If the screen and this page ever disagree, the screen is the truth and the page is the bug.