What are the best practices for importing email contacts and what fields are required?

Marketer from Email Geeks suggests that depending on the use case, a language preference could be helpful for international audiences. Also suggests consent history, consent split by channel, a quality rating and fields for segmentation may be useful.

Email marketer from MailerLite Blog explains to always obtain explicit consent before importing contacts. They stress the importance of complying with GDPR and other privacy regulations, and suggest using double opt-in to ensure consent is verifiable.

Email marketer from Sendinblue Blog shares that required fields are mainly an email address to send to and optionally the first name for personalization.

Marketer from Email Geeks recommends starting customers in a sandbox with limited outbound sending, promoting them based on performance. Suggests reminding customers to request suppression lists from previous ESPs before importing.

Marketer from Email Geeks shares their experience at an ESP, noting friction between sales and deliverability teams. Suggests pre-contract list checks for larger contracts, suppressing unsubscribes, bounces and complaints, and aligning sales incentives with customer viability.

Email marketer from HubSpot Blog answers that it is important to segment and clean up your list of contacts. Remove any contacts you haven't contacted in a while and old or inaccurate data.

Email marketer from G2 Learning Hub shares you should ensure that after you upload you should use segments, personalise, and track analytics. These features are essential to your marketing strategy.

Email marketer from StackOverflow answers that you should always validate your email list. Check the syntax, check for disposable emails, and check if the email exists.

Email marketer from Reddit explains the need to ensure that duplicate email addresses are removed before uploading to an email marketing system. This helps avoid spam complaints.

Marketer from Email Geeks shares their company's approach of using a dashboard of key indicators like bounces and complaints to align practices with customers. Explains that accounts that don't improve are isolated or closed.

Email marketer from DigitalMarketer Blog shares that once you import your contacts, put them into a welcome series. This can increase engagement and deliverability.

Expert from Email Geeks suggests asking clients where the list originated and whether they'll certify that everyone has given consent. Also recommends running the list through Kickbox to verify emails.

Expert from Email Geeks says removing dead domains is pointless, as bounce management should handle this automatically. He explains Counting dead domains gives you a measure of just how poor the imported list is.

Expert from Word to the Wise explains that list hygiene is not a one-off task during import, but an ongoing process to maintain deliverability. They suggest regular scrubbing and validation.

Expert from Spamresource.com shares that when you are using 3rd party databases you need to ensure that you can pass on the permission that you have to contact them, or request it.

Expert from Email Geeks explains that the only mandatory field for importing contacts is their email address, assuming the client has a contract confirming consent was already obtained. Suggests implementing an audit state, like a 'never mail this' boolean, if non-consented emails are uploaded.

Documentation from SparkPost shares that you should always have a suppression list for people to opt-out or who have previously bounced. This protects your lists overall health and protects deliverability.

Documentation from Amazon Web Services explains that verifying the identity of the sender email address or domain is a critical step for ensuring deliverability and preventing abuse. They recommend using SPF, DKIM and DMARC.

Documentation from RFC details how the syntax of an email should be. This is important to use when validating your email list.

Documentation from Mailchimp explains that they require each imported email address to be valid and opted-in to receive your email marketing. Lists containing non-compliant addresses can be suspended.

Documentation from Microsoft Dynamics 365 Documentation explains that segmentation helps you target your messages to the right audience, improving engagement and reducing unsubscribes. They recommend segmenting based on demographics, behavior, and other relevant criteria.