If you're importing your opt-in subscriber data in to your Sign-Up.to account it's important to have it formatted correctly.
1. Open your data using a spreadsheet program
If you're importing a large batch of data, you'll probably find it easiest to format your data using a spreadsheet program like Excel. To be recognised by Sign-Up.to, files must be saved in CSV (comma separated variable) format. Any spreadsheet program can create and save this type of file.
2. Arrange your subscriber data
When viewing your data in a spreadsheet program, it should be arranged so that each subscriber record is on a separate row of the spreadsheet. The data on each subscriber is then arranged in columns.
In the very first row, you should include a heading for each column which tells Sign-Up.to what data type is in the column. For example, if your file contained email addresses, the first row should contain 'email' in the corresponding column. If you don't include these headings in your file you'll be prompted to tell Sign-Up.to what is in each column when you upload your data.
3. Use supported column headers
Sign-Up.to supports importing a wide range of data, including your own custom data fields. The standard data types you can import are:
| Date | Heading | Format |
| First Name | first_name | Text |
| Surname | surname | Text |
| Title | title | Text (limited to a max of 10 characters) |
| Email address | Text | |
| Mobile Number | mobile | International Number (e.g. 441234567890) |
| Gender | gender | Either "male" or "female" (no quote marks) |
| Day of Birth | day_birth | Number (01-31) |
| Month of Birth | month_birth | Number (01-12) |
| Year of Birth | year_birth | Number (eg. 1981) |
| Compond Date of Birth | dob_slash | Date in DD/MM/YYYY (eg. 01/01/1990) |
| House Number | house_number | Text |
| Street Name | street_name | Text |
| Town | town | Text |
| County | county | Text |
| Postcose | postcode | Valist Postcode (Text) |
| Country | country | 2 letter ISO country code (see here) |
| Company | company_name | Text |
4. Use custom subscriber profile fields
If you've created custom subscriber profile fields in your account, you can also import data into these fields from your spreadsheet. The header will be whatever you set in the "Import header" option when creating the field; by default this will be the label/question with underscores, for instance "select_your_favourite_colour".
If your profile field is a multiple select field and you wish to import more than one option for each subscriber, your data will need to be formatted with commas between each option, for example "red,blue,green".
If your profile field is a date field, all dates need to be formatted using either standard UK format (DD/MM/YYYY) or the reverse (YYYY/MM/DD).
If your profile field is a tick box, you can use "yes" and "1" to check the box, or "no" and "0" to uncheck the box.
Please note: certain characters cannot be used as values in a CSV file, such as ampersand, double quotes and commas (which are used as separators, as above). These characters should not be used as part of the data you want to import.
5. Save your data as a CSV file
Once your data has been formatted correctly, save it as a CSV file and you're then ready to import your data into your Sign-Up.to account.
Tip: If you are using Excel to format your file and are including mobile phone numbers, be sure to select the column containing the numbers and change its data type to 'Number' with no decimal places before you save the file (right click to access the menu which contains the 'format' options). If you do not do this, Excel may convert your mobile numbers into floating-point notation which will make them unusable.