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Importing customers to a segment

Manually import customers to a segment

Adam avatar
Written by Adam
Updated over a week ago

The import contacts tool allows you to manually add individuals or customer lists to a segment. When you set this segment as a campaign's target audience, the imported contacts are enrolled in that campaign. Below are use cases for the import contacts tool:

  • Retargeting your website visitors

  • Re-engaging your past customers or one-time customers

  • Running a curated or invite-only affiliate program

Using Klaviyo? This article includes steps on how to invite customers to your referral program using ReferralCandy. If you wish to send the invite via Klaviyo, follow this article instead.


Step 1: Choose a segment

Before importing, you must first select a segment. On the dashboard, go to Contacts > Import. Select a segment or create a new one.

Note: By default, all contacts, manually imported or not, are part of the prebuilt All Customers segment. All imported contacts are added to a static segment. Learn more about segments

Step 2: Upload or import contacts

Click the Add Contacts dropdown and select the method you want to use. You can use multiple methods together when importing.

Import From Mailchimp

This lets you import a customer list from Mailchimp. If you haven't connected your Mailchimp account to ReferralCandy yet, you will be asked to log in to Mailchimp first.

Select Import From Mailchimp from the dropdown menu and check the customer list(s) you want to add to the segment. Then, click Add List.

Upload A CSV

This allows you to upload a list of customers from a CSV file. Select Upload a CSV and click the Add CSV file button to upload the file from your device, or use the drag-and-drop method.

Once the file is uploaded, click Add Customers. The CSV file should have the following column headers:

  • first_name or First Name

  • last_name or Last Name

  • email or Email

  • locale (optional)

If you're using multiple languages, use the locale column to make sure customers receive notifications in the correct language.

Download a sample CSV file here.

Add A Customer By Email

This is a great way to invite individual customers to your referral program. This can also be used to send test emails to your email address.

Click Add Customer By Email and fill out the pop-up form.

After the contacts are selected, they are queued for importing. Review the list first before confirming the import. You can delete an imported contact or list by clicking the trash bin icon under Actions. Once you are good with your contacts, click Import.

A popup message appears with information on how you can enroll your imported contacts in your campaign. Click Next to proceed.

The system may take some time to update your contacts list depending on the volume of the imported contacts. Monitor your list of existing contacts on the Contacts > Manage page.

Step 3: Target the segment

To enroll the imported contacts in your referral program, you must set the segment as the target audience for a campaign. Once the segment is targeted by a campaign, the contacts in the segment are immediately enrolled and added to the campaign's Advocates list.

The enrolled contacts receive the invite email which contains their unique referral link, and sharing options which they can use to start referring friends. To learn more, read the article Setting a target audience for your campaign.

Using Klaviyo? If you're using a Klaviyo flow to send an email upon enrollment, you must disable the ReferralCandy invite email to avoid sending out duplicate emails to your customers.


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