To ensure the health and integrity of your email campaigns, it's essential to maintain the right list of who you email as well as who you don't email. This article will show you how to add an opt-out list to your Feathr account so you don't email those who have previously unsubscribed.
Prepare your list
Before importing an opt-out list to Feathr, you must have an opt-out list in the first place. While Feathr will automatically exclude any contacts who have newly unsubscribed since receiving email marketing done through Feathr, most customers have used other email marketing tools in the past.
To remain consistent (and compliant) in your email marketing practices, it's important to carry over your opt-out list from any previous email marketing tools you've used. Refer to instructions from your previous email marketing tool to find and export that list.
Once you've done that, be sure to format the list into a file compatible with Feathr. Thankfully, the formatting couldn't be simpler: the list must be a .csv or an .xlsx spreadsheet file with a single column of opted-out email addresses. It is helpful to the auto-mapping process if you also label the column "email" in the first cell, but it is not strictly necessary.
Note that you are welcome to add additional columns such as name, company, phone number, etc. These can be mapped in the import step, but are not required. Email address is the only information needed to successfully import your opt-out list.
Just like importing contacts
If you've used Feathr's email campaigns before, this step will be familiar to you. It's just like importing contacts, except these are the people you won't be contacting.
Once you're logged into Feathr, start by navigating to Community in your left side menu. Next, choose Imports in the submenu under Community.
This displays a feed of any previous imports, as well as a blue button to import data, located in the upper right. Choose that button and a dropdown menu will appear. Select 'import opt out list.'
Mapping your contacts
Now you will see a quick three-step process to complete your upload. First, choose Upload and select the opt-out list file you've prepared.
Click Next, which will take you to the mapping step. This ensures the data category you've created is mapped to the existing category in Feathr. For this purpose, you only need to make sure that you are mapping to the "email" category, which will be automatically selected if you labeled your column "email," as seen below:
Note: if you chose to add additional columns to your opt-out list, be sure to map them here. See this article for further information on mapping the columns of your upload. If you're prompted to add more than one column before you can click 'next,' you might have accidentally chosen a contact upload instead of an opt-out upload.
Once your column is mapped, click 'next' and you'll see the Review step:
Choose 'Import opt out list' and your import will begin processing. When it is complete, you will see it in your imports feed and receive an email notification.
Opt-outs are Automagic
Because your opt-out list is labeled upon import as an opt-out, there is no need to manually choose it as an excluded audience when launching email campaigns in Feathr. We know that's why you uploaded it, so we won't make you jump through any additional hoops to use it. So rest easy when running your email campaigns and know we aren't contacting anyone on that list.