Official comment
Thank you for your feature request. Part of it is already possible during the import process, so I'll outline it below.
First, I would like to request an option to ignore duplicate email addresses on the import list so that we do not have to manually scrub the list for leads/customers already in our system. I'm told this is a feature already offered by other email marketing tools.
The default settings already do this. We call it "merge and underwrite" (the default) or "merge and overwrite". We index on the email address. You will find these settings in step 3 of the importer. Here's what our import instructions say about these settings:
Step 3 of the wizard — Import Settings:
- “Duplicate Contact Import Settings” — These will determine how the contacts on your .csv are imported into your account.
- Merge and underwrite with new imported data (default): This setting doesn’t change any existing data in your record, but it adds new data. For example, if you have a contact record that doesn’t have an office phone number saved, you can import data to fill in that blank field. This is the best setting for most use cases because you won’t duplicate or overwrite any info.
- Merge and overwrite with new imported data: This setting replaces the information saved in your records with your imported data. For example, if your record has a phone number saved and you import another, your import will update that phone number. Use this option with caution because it’s possible to overwrite data that you didn’t intend to.
- Create new entry: This setting always creates a new record in Ontraport for every row in your .csv. Since this option doesn’t merge any data, it can lead to duplicate records. You can always find and merge duplicate contacts, but that is a manual process.
That will work even with duplicates in the same CSV file you are importing. The contacts are added sequentially, so a contact on row 1 is added to the database and a duplicate on row 117 will be merged with it according to those settings.
Second, request an option that allows saving rules during the import process. While it appears that this would be the case given OP asks for the rule to be named, in fact, rules are not saved and must be recreated with each import.
Thank you for this request! This could be very handy for people and we'll investigate adding it!
Third, request a way to send the double opt-in email on import so that the list can be imported as an unconfirmed status similar to the automation that would occur based on filling out an opt-in form manually.
Contacts are imported as single opt-in, and you can use a campaign to send them an email with a double opt-in request. Here is a campaign you can use. Click that link to import it into your account. You can also add this campaign by going to Campaigns > Add New and searching for the campaign named "Send double opt-in email after importing contacts".
The campaign collects any contact who has the tag "Send double opt-in email" added to it. Add this tag using a rule in step 5 of the import (having the rule saved would certainly help here!)
The campaign waits 15 minutes for processing of the imported contacts, and checks to see if their bulk email status is set to "Single Opt-In". If they are, they are sent the email requesting them to double opt-in. If not, they are sent to wait for the bulk email status field to change to "Single Opt-In". This is added in case the import is delayed in processing for manual approval by Ontraport. As soon as they are approved, the campaign sends them the email.
