Import Your First Mailing List

Let’s walk through creating your first SendSage mailing list. Follow the steps below to set up the list, create a custom field and import your initial list of subscribers from a CSV file.

Many of the options that you have during this process are normally left at their default values. We’ve given those steps a prefix of Optional:.

Create a Mailing List

1. Log into SendSage, go to the Mailing Lists tab, and click Create Mailing List:
   
2. Give your mailing list a Name. This name will be displayed on any subscription forms you set up and on your SendSage dashboard:
   
3. Optional: You may include extra X-* headers when delivering email to this mailing list. If you wish to do so, then set Use Custom Headers to Yes, and enter your headers:
   
4. Optional: By default, SendSage directs unsubscribes to a page that looks like this:
   If you’d rather direct unsubscribes to a URL with custom content, then set Redirect Unsubscribes to Yes, and enter the URL that you wish to redirect to:
   
5. Optional: The Format Field setting can be used to control whether subscribers receive plaintext or HTML emails. It is turned off (set to No) by default, which means the following:
   1. If you’ve composed both the HTML and plaintext version of an email, then SendSage will send every subscriber a multipart message which contains both versions. Each subscriber’s email client will then pick which version to render, based on its abilities and configuration.
   2. If you’ve composed only an HTML or only a plaintext version of an email, then SendSage will send just that version to all subscribers:

   Set the Format Field setting to Yes if you’d like to allow subscribers to choose between receiving HTML or plain text emails. Otherwise leave it set to No:
   

6. Optional: Choose one or more seed lists that you’d like to send to by default. A seed list is an extra set of addresses that are sent to over the course of each campaign. For example, you could use the SendSage Monitor seedlist to monitor your deliverability:
   
7. Set your sending speed. This is the number of messages you’d like sent per hour. Entering 0 will allow your server to send as fast as it’s able to without restriction:
   
8. Enter your company name or a person’s name in the From Name field:
   
9. Enter the email address your emails should come from in the From Email field.
   
10. Optional: Enter a Sender Email address. This is normally only used by ESPs. See our Adding a New Domain page for more details on the Sender Header:
    
11. Optional: Set a Reply-To Email address if you’d like to receive replies at an address other than your From Email address:
    
12. Select the VirtualMTA that you wish to use by default when sending to this list. The VirtualMTA setting controls what IP address, relay servers, or group of IP addresses and/or relay servers are used to send emails. See our VirtualMTAs page for more details:
    
13. Choose the URL Domain to use for constructing URLs used in your emails for click and open tracking. See our URL Domains page for more details:
    
14. Select a Bounce Email address for receiving bounced emails. See our Bounce Processor page for more details:
    
15. Optional: You may enable the Split-Test Automatic Winner Selection Feature if you’d like. This feature, which is off by default causes Studio to perform a split test of all versions of a campaign, pick a winner based on a metric, such as click rate, and send the winner to the remaining subscribers who were not a part of the split test:
    
16. Optional: You may enable Google Analytics integration. This does the following:
    1. Adds Google Analytics open event tracking for campaigns and autoresponders.
    2. Adds Google Analytics parameters to links for campaigns and autoresponders.
       
17. Click Create this mailing list:
    

You’ve just created a mailing list. SendSage will now take you to a page which shows the mailing list’s details.

Create a Custom Field

If you’re going to import more than just email addresses into this list, you’ll need to add one or more custom fields to hold that data. Here’s how to set up a custom field:

1. Click Custom Fields:
   
2. Click the Create a custom field button:
   
3. Enter a Name for the field:
   
4. Choose the appropriate data Type for this field. In this example, we’re choosing the Text type. You can read more about the available custom field types in our Custom Fields page:
   
5. Optional: Choose whether or not this field should be Required. When a custom field is required, subscribers cannot be created or edited without having a value for it:
   
6. Optional: Set the field parameters for this custom field. In this example, we’re going to accept all of the defaults in this section. See our Custom Fields page if you’d like more details on these parameters, see our Custom Fields page.
7. Click the Create this field button at the bottom of the page:
   

You’ve just created a custom field. Next, we’ll import some subscribers into your mailing list.

Import Subscribers Into Your Mailing List

1. Click Subscribers:
   
2. Click the Import button:
   
3. Optional: Select a Status to apply to all the records in the list you’re importing. This should be left at the default Status of Active unless you’re importing subscribers who previously unsubscribed, bounced, generated a spam complaint, or were otherwise deactivated:
   
4. Choose whether or not to Run Autoresponders for the addresses in this list:
   
5. Set Update Subscribers to Yes if you’d like this import to be able to update existing subscribers. Select No if you’d like existing subscribers to be left unmodified:
   
6. Optional: Choose the appropriate options under Data to Update and Subscribers to Update if you chose Yes above:
   
7. Select the appropriate Field Separator, Field Enclosure and Character Set for the file you’re importing:
   
8. Specify the format that’s used for dates in the file that you’re about to import. If there are no dates present in the file, then the date format selection doesn’t matter:
   
9. Choose the correct File Source for this import. Usually the Upload a File option is used:
   
10. If you chose to upload a file in the previous step, then click the Choose File button, then upload your file:
    
11. Specify whether your CSV file has a header row. If it does, then the header (first) row’s contents won’t be imported into the mailing list:
    
12. Click the Continue with this import button:
    
13. Map the fields in your import file to the correct SendSage fields. In the example below, I matched my file’s EMAIL field to SendSage’s Email field and my file’s FIRST_NAME field SendSage’s First name custom field:
    
14. Click the Continue with this import button:
    
15. Next, schedule your import to run immediately or at another time:
    If you’re scheduling the import for later, you can enter a specific date and time or just type in a time relative to now. For example, you can enter in 2 hours, and SendSage will understand what you mean, as shown by the text that was generated underneath the text field in the screenshot below:
    
16. Click the Schedule this import button:
    
17. The import has now been scheduled, and will automatically start running at the time that you specified. SendSage will redirect you to the Jobs page, where you can see the status of the import. It will appear in the Active Jobs section of the Jobs page until complete, and which point it will be moved to the Completed Jobs section:
    

Congratulations! You’ve created a mailing list, created a custom field, and imported subscribers into the mailing list. You can move onto creating your first campaign.