Importing your subscriber list into Kit is easy.
Here's how:
Importing via a dedicated importer for your platform
We have dedicated importers for importing subscribers from these email platforms:
If your subscriber list is in one of these platforms, check out the relevant guide above to learn how to import your subscribers from it (and migrate the rest of your email setup, if needed).
Importing via CSV
If we don't have a dedicated importer for your email platform, or you want to import a CSV file of your subscribers, follow these instructions:
1. Export your subscriber list as a CSV file
CSV stands for "comma-separated values" and is a type of file format.
Your CSV file should have:
A column for each subscriber field you want to import, e.g., email address and first name. There must be a column for your subscribers' email addresses at the very least.
A column for your subscribers' Tags, with each Tag separated by a comma—only if you have subscriber Tags to import
Header rows for each column
Here's an example of a correctly formatted CSV file:
From left to right, there's a column each for the first name, last name, and email address fields, and finally a column for a comma-separated list of tags. Each column also has a heading.
Be sure that your CSV file contains exactly the data you want to import into Kit—including the blank values in it. That's because when we import your data into Kit, we will replace any existing data we have on your subscribers with the data you provide in your import file.
This includes replacing existing subscriber data for certain fields with blank values if your import file contains blank values for those fields.
However, any existing Tags your subscribers have will not be replaced. If your CSV contains new Tags to be added to subscribers, these new Tags will be added to the subscribers during the import.
If the new Tags don't exist in your Kit account, we'll create them first before adding them to your subscribers.
Learn more about how we overwrite existing subscriber data during imports
Learn more about how we overwrite existing subscriber data during imports
Let's say your Kit account contains a subscriber with this data:
Then, when you import a file containing this data on the same subscriber:
We'll update the subscriber's data in Kit to:
Importing a CSV with data on existing subscribers is a great way of correcting names or issues in bulk. That's because we will use the imported data to override and replace the data you already have stored for these subscribers in Kit.
But if you don't want an import to overwrite certain data on existing subscribers, split your import work into multiple files.
Let's say your import file looks like this:
Note the blank First Name value for the subscriber with the "[email protected]" email address.
Let's also assume that you already have this data for these two subscribers in Kit:
If you were to import your current import file, your data in Kit for these subscribers would become:
To avoid losing First Name data in such a manner, you could:
Do a first import, where your import file does not include the subscribers whose First Name data you don't want to change:
This first import file doesn't include data for the subscriber with the "[email protected]" email address, as we don't want to replace this subscriber's existing First Name field with a blank value.
From the first import, we will update all your subscribers' profiles in Kit except for the subscribers whose First Name fields you don't want to overwrite.
Next, do a second import where your import file includes all subscribers, but does not have a First Name column.
In the second import, we will update the remaining subscriber profiles in Kit without touching the existing data in their First Name fields.
2. Click Add Subscribers > Import CSV
From your Subscribers page, click the Add Subscribers button, and then click Import CSV in the modal that pops up:
3. Upload your CSV file
Drag your CSV file to the import modal directly. Or, click the modal to select the file from your computer.
4. Map the columns to fields
Click the Kit field dropdown menu to select an existing field or create a new custom field (by typing into the dropdown menu) to map the data in your CSV to.
If you are importing tags, map them to the "Comma-separated list of tags" dropdown option.
Columns that are not mapped to fields will not be imported.
Click Next to proceed to the next step.
5. Optional: Organize the subscribers you're importing
Use the toggles to select whether to add your subscribers to an existing Tag, Form, or Sequence—or even several or none of them.
You can also create a new Tag to add your subscribers to. This Tag's name is "Imported [import date and time]" by default to help you keep track of when your subscribers were added to your list. But you can change the Tag's name to something else.
NOTE: Adding subscribers to Tags or Forms may activate Visual Automations or Rules that have these Tags or Forms as triggers.
For example, if you have a Visual Automation whose trigger is "When subscriber is added to the 'Interested in Course' Tag," the Visual Automation will run after you import your subscribers and add that Tag to them.
If you don't want to activate your Visual Automations or Rules when you add subscribers to their trigger Tags or Forms, pause or turn them off first.
Likewise, adding subscribers to Sequences will cause them to start receiving the Sequences' emails unless the Sequences are inactive.
6. Click Start import
Once you've added your subscribers to Tags, Forms, or Sequences (as needed), hit Start import.
The subscribers will be added to your email list in Kit, plus any Tags, Forms, or Sequences you've added them to.
You'll see this confirmation screen to let you know that your CSV is being imported. Depending on your list's size, it may take some time for all of the imported subscribers to show up in your account, but you'll receive an email once your import is complete.
Having trouble?
If you're having trouble importing your subscribers, please follow our pre-import troubleshooting steps.
If your import was successful but something seems "off," please refer to our post-import troubleshooting guide.