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You need edit access to your organization’s dashboard to upload, edit, rename, or delete an imported audience. With view-only access you can see the list but not change it.
An imported audience is a contact list you upload from a file, such as people who signed up at an expo stand, a list from a partner, or last year’s participants from another system. Once it’s imported, you can choose it as the audience for a marketing campaign.
Everyone you upload is opted in to your marketing emails. By uploading a list, you confirm that you have permission to send marketing email to every person on it. Anyone who has already unsubscribed from your marketing emails stays unsubscribed, even if they’re on the list. See Marketing opt-ins and consent.
If the people you want to reach have already registered for your events, you may not need to import them at all. Build the audience from your existing participant data instead. See Audiences. Go to Marketing & Comms → Audience → Imported audiences to see your lists.

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The imported audiences list

Each row is one imported audience: The newest audiences appear first. Click Added on to show the oldest first. Use Filter by name to find an audience. The list updates on its own while an import is running, so you don’t need to refresh the page.

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Preparing your file

You can upload a CSV, Excel (.xlsx or .xls), or text file of up to 50 MB and 1,000,000 rows. The file doesn’t need a fixed layout or a header row. It needs a column of email addresses, and it can also include first and last names. Before you upload:
  • If your list is larger than 50 MB or 1,000,000 rows, split it into smaller files and upload them one at a time to the same audience.
  • Remove anyone who hasn’t agreed to hear from you.

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Uploading a new audience

How you upload depends on whether Nova, your AI assistant, is enabled for your account. If it is, Nova reads your file and proposes how to import it. If it isn’t, Upload CSV opens the upload page. See Getting started with Nova.

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Uploading with Nova

1

Add your file

Go to Marketing & Comms → Audience → Imported audiences. Click Upload CSV and choose your file, or drop the file anywhere on the page. Let’s Do This checks the file. If there’s a problem, a message on the page explains it. See File errors.You can also attach the file in the Nova chat on this page and ask Nova to import it.
2

Review the proposal

Nova opens in a panel and shows a Contact list card. Nova reads your column headings and first rows to suggest how to import the file. The full file isn’t uploaded until you import it.The card shows:
  • How many contacts will be imported, and from which file.
  • Which columns are used for email addresses and names, and any kept as merge tags.
  • Any rows skipped: no valid email, duplicates removed, and contacts left out by filters or marked for removal.
  • A Preview of the first three contacts as they’ll be imported.
  • The Audience name, which Nova suggests from the file name.
3

Ask for any changes

Click Change something, or tell Nova what you want in the chat. For example, you can ask it to use a different email column, change the audience name, or skip anyone in the 5K. Nova replaces the card with a new one.
4

Import

Click Import contacts. The button shows the number of contacts. The card confirms that the import has started and links to View imported audiences. Most imports finish within a few minutes.
Stay in the same browser tab until you’ve clicked import. The card reads your file from that tab, so if you close or reload it, you need to add the file again.

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Using the upload page

1

Start the upload

Go to Marketing & Comms → Audience → Imported audiences and click Upload CSV.
2

Add your file

Drop your file onto the page, or click browse to choose it. To download a sample file, click See an example. Let’s Do This checks the file and shows a summary of what it found:
  • contacts ready — the contacts that will be imported.
  • duplicates removed — repeated email addresses, which are imported once.
  • rows skipped: no valid email — rows without a usable email address, which aren’t imported.
3

Check the columns

Under What we found, check which column is used for Email, First name, and Last name. Let’s Do This picks these for you; use the dropdowns to change them. If one column holds full names, you can use its first part as the first name and its last part as the last name.The Preview shows the first few contacts as they’ll be imported. Check that names and emails are in the right place.
4

Name the audience

Enter an Audience name. It’s filled in from the file name to start with. This is the name you’ll pick when you choose a campaign audience.
5

Import

Click Import contacts. A confirmation screen shows that the import has started. Most imports finish within a few minutes.From the confirmation screen you can Add another file to the same audience, or Upload a new audience.

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Import status

A campaign can’t be sent or scheduled to an audience that is still processing or that failed. Wait until the status shows Imported, then send. When an import finishes or fails, the person who created the audience gets an email.

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Adding contacts to an existing audience

To add more people to an audience you’ve already uploaded, open the ⋯ menu next to it and click Edit. The new file’s contacts are added to the audience, and the contacts already in it stay.
  • With Nova: choose your file. Nova opens with a Contact list card labeled Existing audience. Review it and click import, as in Uploading with Nova. Dropping a file on the page starts a new audience, so use Edit to add to this one.
  • With the upload page: add your file on the page that opens, check the columns, and click import.
To keep a separate list instead, upload a new audience.

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Removing contacts from an audience

To remove people from an audience, click Edit and add a file with an Operation column. Put REMOVE in that column for each contact you want to take out, and ADD (or leave it blank) for contacts to keep or add. Before you import, the Nova card or the upload page shows how many contacts are marked for removal. The import button reads Import file. If the Operation column mixes ADD or REMOVE with other values, the file is rejected. Correct the values and upload it again.

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Renaming an audience

Open the ⋯ menu next to the audience, click Rename, enter the new name, and click Save. Campaigns that use the audience keep using it under the new name.

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Deleting an audience

Open the ⋯ menu next to the audience and click Delete. Deleting can’t be undone. Campaigns that already sent to the audience keep their results. You can’t delete an audience while a campaign that hasn’t sent yet, such as a draft or a scheduled campaign, uses it. Instead, a message lists those campaigns. Open each one, remove the audience from it, and then delete the audience.

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Limitations

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Failed imports

If an import shows Failed, the reason isn’t shown in the list. Check that the file has a column of valid email addresses and is within the size limits, then upload it again.

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File errors

If the file can’t be used, a message on the page explains why before anything is imported:
  • This file type can’t be used — save it as a CSV, Excel, or text file.
  • This file is larger than 50 MB or has more than 1,000,000 rows — split it into smaller files.
  • This file is empty or We couldn’t find any email addresses in this file — add a column of email addresses.
  • We couldn’t read this file — save it again as a CSV or Excel file.

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Messages on the Nova card

Some problems appear on the Contact list card. Fix them before you import:
  • This file isn’t open in this tab any more — add the file to the chat again.
  • The filters leave out every contact — tell Nova what to change.
  • [Column] has no valid email addresses — tell Nova which column has them.
  • Nova picked a column that isn’t in this file or an audience that isn’t one of your imported audiences — ask Nova to try again.

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Spreadsheets in the Nova chat

Nova only uses a spreadsheet to add an imported audience. It can’t analyze a spreadsheet or match it against your Let’s Do This data. You can only attach one on the Imported audiences page. On other pages, a message asks you to add it from there.

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Campaigns linked to an event

Imported audiences can’t be chosen for a campaign that is linked to a specific event. To email an event’s participants, build the audience from their registration data instead. See Audiences.