If you keep your membership records, student list or customer file in another system, you get a fresh export from it every so often: a new file each month with everyone who currently belongs. You want that list in your Autorespond administration without everyone being added a second time, and without people who once unsubscribed getting mail again. That is possible, and you do it the same way every month.
Importing contacts in Autorespond is based on FluentCRM, included in your package. Read the FluentCRM documentation
What happens when you import the same people again #
The email address is the field your administration uses to recognise who is who. If an address is already there, that contact is updated with the details from your new file; no second record is added. Upper and lower case make no difference. If the same address appears twice in one file, the second row is skipped.
What does not happen is just as important. Someone who unsubscribed earlier, whose address bounces or who once filed a spam complaint keeps that status, even if you import them again with the status Subscribed. So those people are not quietly switched back on. That is exactly the intention: an unsubscribe stays in place, even if the person is still on the member list in the other system.
Preparing your file #
Save your export as a CSV with UTF-8 encoding. That prevents strange characters in names. In Excel you do this through File → Save as → CSV UTF-8. Make sure the first row contains the column names and that there is a column with the email address. Rows without a valid email address cannot be imported and are skipped.
Want to bring in details that don’t fit the standard fields, such as a membership number or membership type? Create those fields first through CRM & Emails → CRM Settings → Custom fields. You can then map your columns to them during the import.
The monthly import step by step #
- In the dashboard, go to CRM & Emails → Contacts and click Import at the top right.
- Choose your file. The system reads the structure and shows the first rows, so you can see whether the columns have been read correctly.
- Map the columns to the right fields. A suggestion is made, but always check it; especially with first name, last name and custom fields, an automatic mapping is sometimes wrong.
- Switch on the setting that updates existing contacts. If you don’t, the people who are already there are skipped and you miss their changes.
- Give the import its own tag with the month in it, for example Members October 2026. Below you can read why that makes the difference.
- Choose the status Subscribed if you are sure these people may receive mail from you. If in doubt, choose Double opt-in required, so they confirm themselves first.
- Tick the option that no automations are triggered. Otherwise a tag from your import can start an existing automation and your entire member list gets a welcome email.
- Confirm and wait until the import has finished. You then see how many contacts have been processed.
Work with a tag per month #
People who cancel their membership are no longer in your new export, but that does not remove them from your administration. An import adds and updates; it does not clean anything up. Without a measure in place, after a few months you are emailing former members too.
The simplest solution is a tag per month. Give each import its own tag and choose that tag as the recipients when you send your mailing, not your whole list. You then reach exactly the people who were in the latest file. Anyone who has left no longer gets the mailing, while their details and history are kept. You choose recipients in the Choose your recipients step of your campaign, where you select by list and tag.
Prefer to work with one fixed list? Then add the contacts to that list as well, and only use the monthly tag to check who has joined. You can filter your contacts by tag through CRM & Emails → Contacts.
Cleaning up now and then #
Over time you will want to remove people who have not appeared in an export for months from your administration, for example because they count towards your usage or because you want to keep a clear overview. To do this, filter on the tag of an older month combined with the condition that the tag of the current month is missing, check the result, and delete or unsubscribe that group in bulk. Deleting is permanent, so always check the selection first and export it as a backup if needed.
What to look out for #
- Only import the addresses of people who have given permission to receive emails from you. Membership records are not a free pass: record what you base this on and make sure members know they will receive mail.
- Split very large files into parts of no more than five thousand rows. That prevents an import from getting stuck halfway.
- Check a few contacts after every import: are the fields filled in correctly and have no strange characters appeared? Strange characters point to the wrong file encoding.
- Keep the naming of your monthly tags consistent, for example Members followed by month and year. That keeps your tag list readable and makes it easy to filter on.
