When to import records into a segment
Sometimes you have a specific list of people you want to target, but those contacts or leads don't share an attribute that makes them easy to identify with traditional segment filters. For example, you might receive a spreadsheet containing contacts or leads from a trade show or another third-party source. Instead of trying to find a common CRM attribute among those records, you can import the list directly into a segment. The import uses email addresses to match the rows in your file with existing contacts or leads in Customer Insights - Journeys.
Prepare your import file
Your file should contain the email addresses you want Customer Insights - Journeys to match against existing records. The import doesn't create new contacts or leads when an email address can't be matched. Instead, Customer Insights - Journeys identifies rows that weren't found so you can review and correct them separately. This distinction is important: importing a file into a segment is a way to identify and group records that already exist in your system, not a method for creating new CRM records.
Save your segment before importing the file
Before adding your CSV file, create your segment and save it. Once the segment has been saved, you have two ways to add the file:
- Add a new group and select the option to upload a CSV file.
- Drag the file directly from File Explorer into the segment designer.
Customer Insights - Journeys will upload the file and begin matching its email addresses against existing records.
Review matched and unmatched rows
After matching is complete, you can see how many rows Customer Insights - Journeys found and how many it couldn't match. For example, if your file contains 17 rows but only 16 email addresses correspond to records in your environment, the remaining row will appear as not found. Open the ellipsis menu for the imported list to download the unmatched rows. This gives you a CSV containing the records Customer Insights - Journeys couldn't identify. You can then investigate issues such as:
- An incorrect email address
- A contact or lead that doesn't exist in the system
- A record that needs to be corrected before it can be matched
After correcting errors, use the retry matching option to have Customer Insights - Journeys attempt the matches again.
Watch for duplicate email addresses
The number of matched contacts doesn't necessarily have to equal the number of successfully matched rows in your file. For example, one email address in the spreadsheet could match two contact records if duplicate contacts exist in your CRM. In that situation, 16 successfully matched rows could potentially produce 17 matched contacts. This provides another useful benefit of reviewing your imported results: they can help surface duplicate records that may need to be merged or deleted. Customer Insights - Journeys handles deduplication when sending through the segment, so the presence of duplicate contact records doesn't necessarily mean the same person will receive the message twice.
Understand the Include setting
Once you've imported your list, you can choose whether it should be included or excluded from the segment. When the imported static list is set to Include, the matched records are included regardless of the other filters you've added to the segment. For example, imagine you've imported a list of contacts and then added another condition:
- State/Province equals Minnesota
Contacts from your imported list remain included even if their State/Province isn't Minnesota. Contacts outside the imported list who meet the Minnesota condition can also qualify for the segment. This allows you to combine a defined list of people with a broader audience identified through normal segment criteria.
Understand the Exclude setting
The Exclude option works in the opposite direction. When the imported list is set to Exclude, contacts from that list are removed even when they meet the segment's other conditions. Using the same State/Province example, suppose a contact:
- Appears in your imported CSV list
- Has Minnesota as their State/Province
If the static list is configured as Exclude, that contact will still be left out of the final segment. This makes imported lists useful not only for identifying people you definitely want to target, but also for defining people you specifically don't want included in a campaign.
Combine static lists with dynamic segment criteria
The real flexibility of this feature comes from combining imported static lists with the normal filtering capabilities of Customer Insights - Journeys. You can use an imported list to establish records that should always be included or excluded, while letting your other segment conditions dynamically identify additional audience members. For example, you could:
- Import trade show attendees and always include them in a follow-up campaign.
- Import a list of contacts who shouldn't receive a particular campaign and exclude them from a broader dynamic audience.
- Combine an external list with CRM attributes such as location to expand your target audience.
- Use unmatched-row reporting to identify records that need to be corrected or added through your normal CRM processes.
Use imported lists to simplify audience targeting
Importing a CSV file into a segment gives you an efficient way to work with lists of contacts or leads that don't share an obvious CRM attribute. Save your segment first, upload or drag in the CSV file, review the matching results, and correct any unmatched records as necessary. Then use Include or Exclude to determine how your imported list should interact with the rest of your segment criteria. This provides a practical way to turn externally sourced lists into usable Customer Insights - Journeys audiences while still taking advantage of the dynamic filtering available in the segment designer.
