Bulk import contacts using database method

You first need to "create new contact mailing list". You cannot add new subscribers without doing that first. Would you like to "add new contact subscriber to mailing list" through the app?

1. Go to "Lists" --> "Lists" --> Select your desired list from the sidebar menu

2. Click on the "Tools" menu

3. Choose either "Database (live import)" or "Database (SQL import)" from the options

4. Follow the instructions to connect to your database

Difference between live and recurring imports

• Live import is for one-off imports

• Recurring imports are for importing new subscribers with a set frequency

• Recurring imports also allow you to specify an email column name, specify the columns to ignore, write an SQL query, and set frequency

• We recommend using recurring imports for most cases

Recognised headers

These recognised data columns are available by default with every new list. They are case-sensitive. ONLY the email data is mandatory. All other fields are optional. The import will fail if it doesn't see an email database field.

• EMAIL (Mandatory) - Email address of your subscriber

• PHONE - Phone number or mobile data of your subscriber

• FNAME - First name of your subscriber

• LNAME - Last name of your subscriber

Before you proceed, for security purposes, we always recommend that you create a new database user with restricted read-only access to your database. You can give this database user the bare minimum permissions needed. It is considered best practice to do so.

Import via live import

• Server type - The type of database server being used (e.g., MySQL)

• Hostname - The domain or IP address where the database is hosted

• Port - The specific network port used to connect to the database server

• Username - The account name used to authenticate and access the database

• Password - The secret key associated with the username for secure access

• Database name - The specific database on the server containing subscriber data

• Table name - The particular table within the database that holds subscriber information

Import via recurring import

• Server type - The type of SQL database server (e.g., MySQL)

• Hostname - The domain or IP address of the external database server

• Port - The network port number used to connect to the database server

• Username - The user account name for accessing the external database

• Password - The authentication key associated with the username

• Database name - The specific database on the server containing the subscriber data

• Table name - The particular table within the database that holds subscriber information

• Email column - The name of the column in the table that contains subscriber email addresses

• Ignored columns - Columns in the table to be excluded from the import process

• Filter Query - An optional SQL WHERE clause to filter which records are imported

• Unit Time Value - A numeric value specifying how often the import should run

• Unit Time - The time unit (e.g., Minutes) for the recurring import frequency