It’s vital to make sure you are keeping your list clean and full of engaged subscribers. If you are someone that regularly manages their list by removing your unsubscribes and inactive subscribers from your lists. Good job! You’re probably seeing higher engagement. For those that aren’t engaging in proper list maintenance - it’s time to start. We’ve got some options and directions to get started.
One option is to completely merge your lists: While there are specific business cases that might make managing multiple lists a better option, most folks can manage multiple campaigns on one list …by using tags. This is also great because you don’t have to navigate duplicate subscribers across lists. If you have been using multiple lists but would rather use tags, read on.
To properly merge one list into another, you need to first decide which list you want to serve as your ‘destination’ list. Once you have made your choice, you can start moving the others.
Click the list dropdown and choose the list you want to merge into your destination list. This will take you to the ‘subscribers’ page of that list.
From there, you’ll click on Currently Subscribed.
Make sure you click on Currently Subscribed. You do not want to move over unsubscribed addresses, as this will add them as a new subscriber to the destination list. That would not be good.
Now scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on ‘Export’. This will export a CSV file of the subscribers in your list.
You’ll need to repeat this step for each list you’d like to merge, so double check the current list name each time.
After you have your lists exported and ready to move, select the destination list from the dropdown. You’ll be on the ‘subscribers’ page.
From there, you’ll go under Subscribers>Add Subscribers.
Then choose the 'Import Multiple’ tool to add the subscribers.
Upload each exported file one at a time. As you import your files, use the Tag tool to designate where each subscriber came from.
You’ll repeat for each file you need to upload and voila! Your lists have been merged and subscribers deduplicated.
You might be thinking, “Well, what do I do with my old lists now that I just moved these subscribers?”
You can deactivate these lists if you no longer plan to use them. They will fall off your account after 30 days.
Just go under Lists>Manage Lists, and you’ll see the option to deactivate your lists. Important, historical subscriber engagement stats/data will not copy over in the merge, and will be lost and unrecoverable if you deactivate your list.
Have questions about List Merging? Let us know!
