Combine Audiences From a CSV File

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Combine audiences from a CSV file to make it easier to manage your audience. It will also help you save money on your monthly plan by removing duplicate contacts. To combine an exported or saved contact audience into another Mailchimp audience, import a CSV.

In this article, you'll learn how to combine audiences with an import.

Before you start

Here are some things to know before you begin this process.

  • We recommend that you back up all of your audiences before you combine them. This'll let you keep as much data as you can, although some data can't be exported and will be lost. For this reason, we recommend you don’t combine GDPR-enabled audiences. To learn more about what your backup export will and won't include, check out View or Export Your Contacts.
  • To prevent duplicate contacts in your audience, you may want to archive contacts in your old audience after you've exported and before you import to your main audience.
  • For help preparing your file for import, check out Import Contacts to Mailchimp.

Task roadmap

This is a multi-step process. You'll need to perform these steps in sequence to complete the task.

  • Decide which of your Mailchimp audiences you want to use as your main audience.
  • Export the audience you want to combine with your main audience.
  • Archive the contacts before importing them to your main audience.
  • Import contacts to your main audience.

Export

To combine a Mailchimp audience with another audience, first export and download the audience you want to merge with your main audience. We'll automatically keep your audience’s subscribed, unsubscribed, non-subscribed, and cleaned addresses in separate files, which you'll need later in this process.

Import to your main audience

To import your exported contacts to your main audience, follow these steps.

  1. Click Audience.
  2. If you have more than 1 audience, click the Audience drop-down and choose the one you want to import contacts to.
  3. Click the Add contacts drop-down and choose Import contacts.
  4. Click Upload a file, then click Continue. If your last import was a CSV with the same columns, you can click Use settings from last import, which will allow you to skip steps 8-10.
  5. Click Select a file and choose the import file from your device, or drag and drop your import file into the Drag and drop section.
  6. Click Continue.
  7. On the Organize step, check the boxes to add contacts to existing groups. Check the Update any existing contacts box to combine and import duplicate contacts.
  8. Click Continue.
  9. On the Tag step, use the drop-down to create new tags, or search for existing tags. You can also choose from popular tags.When you’re ready, click Continue.
  10. On the Match step, compare the columns in your import file to the fields in your Mailchimp audience. We'll automatically match some columns for you. For example, the column that contains email addresses will match the Email Address field.
  11. Click Show unmatched columns only to display columns we couldn’t match. Use the Select or create new drop-down for each unmatched column to find or create a new merge tag. Repeat for all unmatched columns that you want to import. Any unmatched columns won't be imported.
  12. Check the Import box for each matched column you want to import. When you’re ready, click Continue.
  13. On the Subscribe step, use the Select email marketing status and Select SMS marketing status drop-downs to choose the marketing subscription statuses of the email contacts you're about to import.

  14. If you only have email consent from your email contacts, choose Subscribed from the Select email marketing status drop-down, then choose Non-subscribed from the Select SMS marketing status drop-down.

    The available subscription statuses for email contacts are:

    • Subscribed
    • Unsubscribed
    • Non-subscribed
    • Cleaned
    • Check the box ‘I acknowledge that the contacts in this import have provided explicit SMS consent,’ to confirm you have SMS marketing consent to continue.
    • Click Finalize import to review your import settings. To go back to a step, click the corresponding header. To cancel your import, click Exit.
    • Review your import summary, then click Complete Import.

After the import is finished, we'll send a notification to the email address associated with your username. Repeat this process for each type of contact you want to import. If there are any errors, the option to view errors and make corrections is available by following the prompts to the Import History page.

Note

Subscribed email contacts being imported into Mailchimp don't go through the signup process. You’ll need to verify that you have permission to market to them.

When you import email contacts to an existing audience, we won’t include any duplicate, bounced, or unsubscribed addresses that are already stored in the audience.

Mailchimp's audiences are separate from each other. This means we can't see duplicates, bounces, or unsubscribes between different audiences. If you have the same email contacts in different audiences, you may find it helpful to put them into one main audience that uses groups or tags.

Next steps

After you've combined your audiences, make sure any signup form URLs, and pop-up, embedded, or hosted forms on your websites or social networks to match your new main audience.

Create a Mailchimp Audience

Create your Mailchimp audience so you can import and collect new contacts for your emails.

Combine Audiences to a Primary Audience Using Tags

Learn how to combine your audiences while incorporating tags into your field data.

View or Export Your Contacts

Learn how to view or export an audience or segment of Mailchimp contacts.

Use the Combine Audiences Tool

Learn how to combine multiple audiences into a primary audience with the Combine Audiences tool.