Switching to EmailFig from another provider

Getting startedUpdated

Move your contacts across, keep your unsubscribes, and ease into sending from EmailFig.

Moving to EmailFig takes five steps: set up your sending domain, export from your old provider, import your contacts, set up the rest of your account, and ease into sending. The most important part is bringing your unsubscribes with you, so you never email someone who has already opted out.

Start with the domain. It’s the only step with any waiting, and that happens in the background while you get on with the rest.

1. Set up your sending domain

Go to Settings → Sending domains, click Add domain, and add the records EmailFig shows you at your domain provider. You can do this while you’re still sending from your old provider: the new records sit alongside your existing ones, and if you already have a DMARC policy, EmailFig accepts it as it is.

See Add and verify a sending domain and Publish DNS records at your domain provider.

2. Export everything from your old provider

Export three things, not one:

  • your subscribed contacts, with names and any other details you personalise with;
  • your unsubscribes;
  • your bounced or cleaned addresses.

Most providers export these as separate files. Keep them separate, as you’ll need that for the next step.

3. Create your lists, then import

  1. If your file has extra details you personalise with, create matching fields first at Settings → Custom fields, so you can map straight to them. See Create and use custom fields.
  2. Create a list at Contacts → Lists with New list. See Contacts, lists, tags and segments: which to use.
  3. Go to Contacts, click Import CSV, choose a file and click Upload & map columns.
  4. On the Map columns screen, match each column to a contact field. One has to be Email address; set anything you don’t need to Skip. Click Start import.

Addresses on throwaway email services, or on domains that can’t receive mail, aren’t added. The import summary counts them under Skipped.

Bringing your opt-outs across

In your unsubscribe and bounce files, add a column called status. Fill it with unsubscribed for the opt-outs and cleaned for the bounced addresses. On the Map columns screen, map that column to Subscription status. EmailFig never picks this mapping for you, so check it each time.

  • unsubscribed blocks the address for your account. Every campaign skips it from then on, even if a later import lists it as subscribed.
  • cleaned adds the contact as unmailable.
  • Anything else counts as subscribed.

Only a handful to block? Add them one at a time at Contacts → Suppressions instead.

More: Import contacts from a CSV, Contact statuses explained, Suppressions: why an address can’t be re-added.

4. Set up the rest of your account

  • Mailing address: Settings → Unsubscribes. You need it before you can send.
  • Unsubscribe experience: Simple one-click, or a Preference center where people pick topics. Same page. See Customise the unsubscribe experience.
  • Sending defaults: a Default from name and Default from email for every new campaign, at Settings → Sending domains.
  • Signup forms: rebuild them under Grow and swap the code on your site. See Create an inline signup form.

5. Ease into your first sends

Your domain’s reputation comes with you, but sending from EmailFig is new, so build up rather than mailing everyone on day one:

What doesn’t come with you

  • Opens and clicks. Engagement history stays with your old provider, so segments based on opens and clicks fill up once you’ve sent from EmailFig.
  • Automation progress. Rebuild your automations here. Importing contacts never starts an automation, so a big import into a list with a welcome series won’t email anyone. See Automation triggers.

Where to go next

Moving something unusual, like a domain another account has already added? Email contact@emailfig.com with the domain and we’ll help.

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