Import&Export Contacts

Overview

SmartPush synchronizes your customer data in real-time. You can also import contact data by uploading files for your marketing campaigns. Please import actual contact data, and please check whethert your customers consent to receiving email and SMS marketing materials. If the subscription status in the imported data is false, it might cause negative impact on your account credibility and the delivery rate.

In this article, you’ll learn:

1. How to import contacts
2. Common upload errors and solutions

How to import contacts

1. The supported formats for uploading files are .xlsx, .xls, .cvs (UTF-8), and .ods.

2. The maximum file size is 10 MB.

3. The uploaded file can contain up to 150,000 rows.

4. The first row of the "Bulk Import Template" file cannot be modified. It might cause the upload errors.

5. The imported data will only be saved in SmartPush and not synchronized to the SHOPLINE store.

6. Instructions and examples for filling in the form:

	Instruction	Example
Name
First Name	Required	Alex
Last Name
Email	Either email address or phone number is required.	[e-mail]
Accept email marketing	Input “yes” if the customers agree and “no” for if they don't. This field is invalid when no email address is provided.	yes
Mobile number	Either email address or phone number is required. The country calling code should be included, e.g., +1**********. If no calling code is included, the country’s alpha-2 code should be input in the "Country" field.	[phone]
Accept SMS marketing	Input “yes” if the customers agree and “no” for if they don't. This field is invalid when no email address is provided.	no
Gender	Input “m” for men, “f” for women, and “u” for others	f
Birthday	Input the date in the following formats: “YYYY-MM-DD” or “YYYY/MM/DD”.	1999-10-22
Language	Please input with the language code provided in the Bulk Import Template.	en
Company
Address 1
Address 2
City
State / Province	When the "State / Province" field is filled, the "State / Province code" field must be filled correspondingly too.	Ontario
State / Provincial code		ON
Country / Region	When the "Country / Region" field is filled, the field for the Country alpha-2 code must be filled accordingly.	Canada
Country alpha-2 code		CA
Postal code		53118
Tag	Tags should be separated by half-width commas (,). Up to 20 tags can be input in the field. The ones after the 20th tag will not be imported.	VIP,friendly
Remark

Description on "Select a group"

1. During data importing, when "Import to a new group" is selected, a new group will be created for the imported contacts. The new group will appear in the list under [Contacts] > [Segments].
2. When "Not select a group" is selected, no new group will be created for the imported contacts.
3. The imported contacts will be assigned tags specifying the importing date and time for future search. You can filter out imported contacts by the following steps:

Go to [Segments], click on Create segment and then Add condition. Choose Others > Import manually and select the tag  "YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm Imported file" to filter out the corresponding contacts.

Description on "Replace customers"

During data importing, when "Replace existing customers with the same mailbox or mobile number" is checked, and the existing contacts contain those being imported, the data of the imported contacts will overwrite that of existing contacts with the same mailbox or mobile number.

Common upload errors and solutions

1. Upload failed since the Email/Mobile Number header is missing.

First, check if the headers "Email" or "Mobile number"  are missing. If they are, enter the header content and ensure it exactly matches original downloaded file.

Second, if the headers are not missing and the uploaded file is a .csv file, you can solve the problem through the following ways:

1. Convert the .csv file to a .xlsx or .xls file and reupload it.

2.If the office software you are currently using is Office, you can use WPS instead to permanently solve the problem.

3. The .csv files may contain encoding errors. Please make sure your computer supports UTF-8 encoding. You can enable UTF-8 encoding through the following methods:

Method 1. Change the default encoding to UTF-8 in Windows 10 (only applicable to Windows 10).

1. Open the Start menu and go to Settings.
2. Go to Time & Language.
3. Click on Language on the left.
4. Click Administrative language settings on the right.
5. Click Change system locale settings.
6. Check the box for “Beta: Use Unicode UTF-8 for worldwide language support” and click on OK.
7. Then restart your computer, save the .csv file as another file,  and upload it again.

Method 2. Using Notepad to change the encoding of .csv files (only applicable to Windows OS).

1. Right click on the .csv file and open it with Notepad.
2. Go to Files and click Save As...
3. Select “UTF-8” for encoding. Make sure the file extension is .csv and do not change it. 
4. Upload the file again.