Contact File Audiences
Choosing File on the audience step supplies a list of recipients for one campaign. The rows belong to the campaign, so nothing uploaded here is added to Contacts or offered to another campaign.
Uploading a File
- Select the upload area, or drag a file onto it.
- Confirm that explicit consent has been obtained from everyone in the file. The upload does not begin until this is accepted.
- Wait for the file to be read. The upload card shows an icon for the format you supplied.
Accepted formats, the file size limit and the 300,000 row limit are the same wherever a contact file is used, and are covered once in Contact Files. If a working sample is useful, Example Files has one in each format.
Mapping Columns
Once the file is read, its columns are listed with an Import As dropdown beside each one, and each column is given a role:
| Role | How many | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Recipient Phone or Recipient Email | Exactly one | The phone number or email address the message is sent to |
| Template Value | Any number | Supplies a value the template can insert for that recipient |
| Priority | At most one | Carries each row's message priority |
| Do not import | Any number | Excludes the column from the campaign |
The recipient role is named for the campaign's channel, so an SMS campaign offers Recipient Phone and an email campaign offers Recipient Email. Only the one matching the channel appears.
For an SMS campaign the recipient column has to hold numbers in E.164 format. For an email campaign it has to hold well-formed email addresses.
Every dropdown carries a mapping status badge, so the state of each column is visible without opening it. Work down the list until nothing is left unmapped, using Do not import for columns the campaign has no use for.
The role that feeds a value into the template is labelled Template Value. Earlier releases called it a custom field, which was easy to confuse with the custom fields held against contacts in the contact store. A Template Value exists only in the file and only for this campaign.
How Rows Are Evaluated
With the mapping in place, every row in the file is evaluated. A row can be reported for an invalid recipient, a missing value, or both, and the two are treated differently:
| Finding | What it means | What happens to the row |
|---|---|---|
| Invalid recipient | The recipient column is empty, or does not match the format the channel needs | The row is skipped and no message is sent to it |
| Missing value | A column mapped as a Template Value has no value on that row | The row is kept, and the template falls back to a default value where one is set |
Changing the mapping runs the evaluation again, so a column mapped to the wrong role can be corrected on the spot.
The Contact Report
Where rows are reported, a contact report modal explains the result. It contains:
- A summary of how many rows are affected and which finding applies to each group.
- A colour coded key, distinguishing rows skipped for an invalid recipient from rows kept with a missing value.
- The source row numbers of the affected rows, matched to their position in the file you uploaded, so the original can be corrected without guesswork.
- Download CSV Report, which saves the same detail for working through offline or passing to whoever produced the file.
Rows with a missing value and no default set still send. The template resolves that value to nothing for those recipients, which is worth checking against the report before the campaign is saved.
Changing Away from a File
Switching the audience from File to All Contacts or a Segment discards work that only makes sense for a file. A confirmation appears when there is something to lose:
| What has been entered | What happens |
|---|---|
| Nothing yet | The source changes with no confirmation |
| Column mappings | A confirmation warns that the mappings will be cleared |
| Column mappings and a template | A confirmation warns that both will be cleared |
The template is caught up in this because a template built against a file's columns cannot be resolved against contact fields. Confirming clears it along with the mappings, and the template step starts again from the choice of a saved template or building your own.
Not the Same as Uploading Contacts
Two places in Outreach accept a contact file, and they check different things:
- This upload evaluates every row against the campaign, reporting invalid recipients and missing values, because the rows are about to be messaged.
- The Upload Contacts wizard in Contacts checks the file's rows and columns only. It adds contacts to the store for anyone to use later, so there is no channel or template to evaluate them against. See Uploading Contacts.
A file uploaded here does not reach the contact store. To keep the contacts for future campaigns, ask a Campaign Manager or an administrator to upload the file in Contacts instead, then target them with All Contacts or a segment.
Related Guidance
- Contact Files. Formats, limits and file structure
- E.164 Phone Number Format. The format SMS recipients need
- Message Priorities. What the priority column changes
- Adding a Template. Building a template against mapped columns