Best Practices for Importing Contacts

When bringing in contacts from another system or source, it’s essential to focus on quality over quantity. On average, about 25% of a contact list becomes outdated each year, and in some industries the turnover is even higher. Importing poor-quality or unverified contacts can quickly damage your sender reputation, hurt deliverability, and lead to spam complaints.

Important: You cannot import purchased, rented, or shared lists. Only contacts who gave you explicit permission should be added.

Step 1: Exclude Unusable Contacts

Before importing, remove any contacts who have previously:

• Opted Out – unsubscribed from your communications
• Hard Bounced – email addresses permanently undeliverable
• Marked as Spam – reported your emails as spam
• Non-Marketable Status – flagged as non-marketable in your previous system

These contacts should never be re-added to your marketing list.

Step 2: Assess Contact Engagement

Once unusable contacts are removed, evaluate the engagement of the remaining list. Engagement includes:

• Opening emails
• Clicking links in emails

Engaged Contacts (within the last 30 days)

• Action: Import these contacts and begin emailing them right away.
• Recommendation: Send them through a double opt-in / confirmation sequence to verify their interest and strengthen list quality.

Unengaged Contacts (31–90 days)

• Action:
  1. Run this list through a list cleaning tool (e.g. SpamClean, Klean13).
  2. Import only those flagged as valid/good.
  3. Send a double opt-in confirmation sequence.
     1. Suppress or remove anyone who does not confirm within 14 days.

Stale Contacts (91+ days of no engagement)

• Action: Do not import these contacts into your CRM/ESP.
• Alternative: Retarget them on other platforms (e.g. Facebook, Google, social media). Drive them to a fresh opt-in page to regain Explicit permission before re-adding them to your email list.

Why This Matters

By importing only active, permission-based contacts, you:

• Improve inbox placement and deliverability
• Reduce spam complaints and bounce rates
• Protect your sender reputation
• Maximize engagement and marketing ROI

A clean, engaged list is the foundation of successful email marketing.