Can I import unsubscribes or bounces?

[BrianJ557]

A large portion of our contact database does not have email addresses. But they do have either a phone# or postal address. I would like to upload those contacts to my Const Cont account so I can manage my contacts in one area. But I don't want to get charged for additional contacts that I will not be emailing.

I just set up a bunch of "faux", but well-formed, email addresses. And added an optin_status column. Each record in that column is "unsubscribed". Not to my surprise none of the records uploaded. Is there a way to upload additional records to my account that will not count towards my list number and I will not be using for email?

[William_A · Accepted solution]

Hello @BrianJ557 ,

Our system doesn't allow contacts without email addresses to be uploaded into the contacts dashboard. Any contact with a viable, recognizable email address fomart will be considered active (and billable) unless it meets one of the parameters for being inactive (e.g. unsubscribed).

For more info regarding active vs inactive subscribers

[BrianJ557]

Thanks. I understand that each contact needs an email address. I created fake, but correctly formed, email addresses and tried to upload them as "unsubscribed", but the system did not upload them.

Next question is, can I upload them as "bounced"? If not, I will need to convert them to bounces or unsubs, once uploaded. Is there a way I can can make those changes in batch? We may be able to pay for the additional contacts, but I need to make sure we are not emailing those new contacts.

[Caitlin_M]

Hi @BrianJ557. Email addresses can not be uploaded as a bounce as they would need to have attempted to receive an email first. From what I'm understanding in this case, you are looking to keep their information on hand without necessarily adding them to a list. When you attempted to upload the list, were you seeing any errors while following the steps outlined here?

[BrianJ557]

Hi Caitlin,

I did successfully upload all the records in question using the "Upload Unsubscribed Emails" feature. I then tried to tag a few of the records in a secondary upload using the same feature, and it worked ideally. Thanks!!

This is extremely important to our organization as we need to maintain the balance of our contacts w/o emails in the same location.

-b