Understanding List Import Failures

Imported lists can be rejected by Lead Gen & CRM due to poor quality.

This article will provide information on reasons for imported list failures and rejections.

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Article Contents

• Deliverability Protections
• Manual Review
• Requirements for Importing .CSV Files
• Verifying Lists
• Rejected Imports

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Deliverability Protections

To protect the deliverability of Lead Gen & CRM's customers and platform, Lead Gen & CRM blocks imports of lists that contain an unacceptable percentage of known bad emails, spam traps, hacked emails, and the like. Each email address is being checked against a database of over 2 billion email addresses that are toxic, have typos, or have a history of being purchased.

When a new email contact list is imported, Lead Gen & CRM evaluates the overall quality of the list based on a variety of factors, including an evaluation done by a third-party verification service. If over half of the list contains contacts with email addresses deemed suppressed, invalid, toxic, or purchased, Lead Gen & CRM will not allow the contact list import to continue. While any list may contain a few of these email addresses, lists that are old, purchased, or otherwise of poor quality will exceed acceptable thresholds and will be blocked prior to import. 

Manual Review

While all senders have email lists analyzed on import, senders with Unhealthy and Limited statuses also have their lists checked when scheduling new automation.

When senders with Unhealthy and Limited statuses schedule new automation to a list, Lead Gen & CRM analyzes your mailing lists for any quality concerns. Lead Gen & CRM will analyze the list, compare it to Lead Gen & CRM's database of known problematic and bad addresses, and prevent setup of automation if the list in question is found to contain a high number of these addresses.

When these senders attempt to set up new action groups, Lead Gen & CRM's list analyzer reviews their lists. Again, if the list analyzer finds that enough of the email addresses on the list match Lead Gen & CRM's database of known bad or problematic addresses, the action group cannot and will not be scheduled to the list.

This is done in effort to protect both your sender status and reputation. If this list were sent to recipients as-is, you would likely experience continued deliverability issues, further damaging your email sender status and sender reputation with Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

All email jobs, once scheduled, will go through manual review. Manual review takes place Monday through Friday, from 9am to 5pm Eastern Time. Be aware that this excludes weekends, as well as federal and observed United States holidays. Lead Gen & CRM recommends scheduling email jobs in advance to help prevent a delay in sending.

The typical manual review process is as follows:

1. A limited sender schedules an email for the future.
   
   
2. That job, once scheduled, immediately lands in the manual review queue for review.
   
   
3. The job will be reviewed by Lead Gen & CRM.
   
   
4. If approved, the job will send as scheduled.
   
   
5. If unapproved, the job will not be sent. Additionally, your agency will be contacted to explain the concern and provide recommendations to get the email job sent as soon as possible.

Requirements for Importing .CSV Files

The Import Tool uses information from .CSV files and creates contact lists from this information. These files contain only alphanumeric data and are presented in a table format.

Any .CSV file that you import should be structured similar to the following:

When importing .CSV files, be aware of the following:

• Header rows are required. Header rows are necessary for mapping Lead Gen & CRM fields to imported fields.
  
  
• Email fields are required. The Import Tool requires that your .CSV file contain a column mapped to the Email field. You will still need to include the Email column when a contact does not have an email address. 
  
  
• Is Unsubscribed fields are required. For Lead Gen & CRM to successfully import a .CSV file, the file needs one column header that is labeled as Is Unsubscribed. The Is Unsubscribed field should be a boolean field, where 0 is for leads who are opted in, and 1 is for leads who are not opted in.
  
  
• Utilize first and last names. For the import to be successful, a first and last name are suggested in the event that you do not have an email address for that contact. Use both as often as possible.
  
  
• Values must match. When importing custom field values, ensure that they are formatted to match the custom field values. For example, picklist and checkbox values are case-sensitive.
  
  
• When importing data with picklist and checkbox fields, the fields must be present in the file import in order to appear. Ensure that the picklist or checkbox fields in your file exist before importing. Otherwise, the data may not import properly.
  
  
• When importing to a checkbox custom field, the data cannot have spaces between values and commas. An example of this would be value1,value2,value3. 

For more information on how to structure .CSV files and what they should contain, refer to the following help articles:

• Formatting Single-Column .CSV Files
• Saving .CSV Files
• .CSV File Troubleshooting

Verifying Lists

If a list has been rejected, evaluating the source of the list to determine if the addresses are current and have opted in to receiving email is key.

If the addresses are current, consider using a verification service—such as BriteVerify, Kickbox, or Webbula—to remove any invalid, disposable, or role-based addresses.

After list verification is complete, attempt importing the list again. If issues still occur, contact policy@constantcontact.com.

Rejected Imports

When a list is rejected, the following will occur in the Import History tool:

• The rejected list event will be viewable.
  
  
• Rejected list events cannot be deleted.
  
  
• Rejected lists will appear as Import List Name—Rejected under the Contact Imported To column.
  
  
• When hovering over Details under the Error Log column, a tooltip will display the following:
  

  The import for the list has scored in the bottom 2.5% of all lists 
  and was rejected due to quality concerns. Please reach out to our 
  compliance team or view this support article for more information.