Make large contact lists easier to handle

Keep a well organized contact list, of 10,000 contacts or more, that's easy to maintain and segment

Large contact lists, with over 10,000 email addresses, can feel challenging to import, organize, and maintain. Here are some tips that can help you save time and get better marketing results: 

• Import a large list
• Segment a large list
• Maintain a large list

Important: If this is your first time adding contacts to your account, please review our permission policy before importing your contacts.

Import a large list

A spreadsheet full of contacts holds a ton of information! The biggest effort always comes when you're importing contacts, and being prepared will save you time and frustration.

• Prevent file import errors - Before you import your list into Constant Contact, take a little time to make sure that your file is a compatible file type, the data is formatted and organized, and the column headings are recognizable by Constant Contact. 
• Split your list into separate spreadsheets - To be imported into Constant Contact, a file can't have over 40,000 rows of data and can't be larger than 2MB. If you have more than 40,000 contacts, you'll want to break your spreadsheet into several spreadsheets before you try and import it.

Save time: Have a really large list? We can help! Please contact premiersupport@constantcontact.com and provide the following information so that we can import it for you: Your account username. A phone number where we can reach you if we have questions. The contact spreadsheets that you want to import. The names of the lists you want to add the contacts to. We will contact you within 48 hours, during our regular business hours (Monday - Friday, 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m., EST), after receiving your request.

Segment a large list

Getting the right content in front of the right contacts, at the right time helps to improve your open and engagement rates! It's hard to keep track of individual contacts on your own, but with our segmentation tools, you can scan your entire list for a portion of your contacts, and create a list from the results. The best part is that once you've created a segment, it gets refreshed before you send to it, so you always know you're sending to the most current group of contacts that meet your criteria.

• Find your most engaged or least engaged contacts and create a segment - Want to try and re-engage your least engaged contacts, or maybe reward your most engaged contacts? You can find those contacts through segmentation!
• Create a segment from contact Information or contact activity - You can create a segment from anything you want, from company name to clicking a link in a specific email, or a combination of both. 
• Send targeted emails to the segment - Once you've created a segment, you can send an email directly to the segment, or add all the contacts in the segment to a list, and then send an email to the list. 

The data shows: When you send shorter emails, with more personalized and engaging content, and a clear call-to-action, to a defined segment of your list, your open and click rates improve.

Maintain a large list

Once your contacts are in your account, the challenge is to keep your list current. Large lists have lots of contacts, but we have a few tools to help you weed out the contacts that are bringing your open and engagement rates down:

• Enable confirmed opt-in - Making sure that the contacts that join your list actually want to receive emails from you helps prevent bounced emails and increases the likelihood that your contacts will open and engage with your emails. Our Confirmed Opt-in feature requires anyone who signs up for your contact list, through one of our sign-up tools, to click a link in an email, confirming that they want to be part of your list. If they don't respond to the email, they don't get added to your list.
• Manage your bounces - Keep your eye on who isn't getting your emails and remove them from your list. Removing bounced emails not only helps improve your open rate, but it can also help improve your email deliverability, keeping your emails out of the spam folder!
• Let your contacts keep their own contact record up-to-date - Take some time to customize the "Update Profile" Form and "Update Profile" Email. The "Update Profile" link is included in the footer of every email that is sent from Constant Contact. When your contact clicks it, they receive an email and can then click the link to update their contact information and choose the lists they want to be a part of.

Questions?