Create and Manage Contacts

Add Contacts

Note that automations will only trigger to contacts who are added to an entry criteria list after the automation is set live. Contacts who you add to a list before the automation is set live will not receive any emails in the series.

Upload a CSV

You can add contacts to a list via CSV Upload or by creating a Signup Form to automatically send signups to a list.

1. Use this CSV template to make sure your CSV is formatted correctly.
2. Click Add Contacts and then select Upload CSV.
3. Choose whether to add your contacts to All Contacts, to an existing list, or to a new list you create.
4. Upload your file by dragging it into or clicking the CSV upload area and selecting a file from your computer.
5. Click Next: Review CSV Upload.
6. On this page, all fields are listed and you can see which fields don't have a corresponding reserved or system field.
7. For each unmapped field, select a custom field from the drop-down or to create a new custom field, click Create New Custom Field.
8. When you're done mapping the fields, click Next: Add Contacts.

Once the CSV has processed, you will receive a notification email.

Add Manually

You can add your contacts manually including alternate email addresses, addresses and names from the Contacts page.

1. Navigate to Marketing and then click Contacts.
2. Select Add Contacts and then click on Manual Add in the drop down menu.
3. Choose whether to add your contacts to All Contacts, to an existing list, or to a new list you create.
4. Add your contact's email, and then any other information you may have.
5. When you're done, click Add Contacts.

Create a signup form

Use Signup Forms with the SendGrid Automation beta to capture new contacts and add them directly to an Automation list. If the list you add them to is acting as the entry criteria for a live automation, the new contact will automatically receive any emails you’ve created as part of that automation.

You can enable contacts to access your signup form either by sending them a link hosted by SendGrid or by embedding it directly into your website.

To create a new signup form:

1. Navigate to Automations and select Signup Forms.
2. Click Create New Form.
3. On the Settings tab, add a Form Name and then select the contact list you want to add new signups to.
4. Next, add a confirmation message. This field contains the text that contacts will see once they’ve clicked submit on the form.
5. Navigate to the Build tab and add a header to the form.
6. Add the intro copy to explain what the contact is signing up to receive.
7. Select the checkboxes to add the fields you want on the form.

Manage signup forms

Using the action menu on the Signup Forms page you can edit, duplicate, or delete existing signup forms.

Share Code to make your form accessible

To make your form accessible to new contacts, you can either send them a link hosted by SendGrid or you can embed code on your website that displays your form as an iframe.

To share the code for your signup form:

1. Navigate to the signup form you want to share or embed.

2. Click the action menu and select Share Code.

3. On the Integrate Form modal, copy either the Landing Page or Direct Embed link.

   • The Landing Page link can be pasted anywhere, including in an email or on a social media site.
   • The Direct Embed code can be pasted to the HTML of your website wherever you’d like the form to display.

You can also find the options to share the signup form in the form editor by clicking Share Code in the top-right corner of the editor.

Manage Contacts

Managing contacts is an integral part of your marketing campaigns lifecycle. You can create lists for contacts, as well as view and edit each individual contact within your contact database.

Viewing a contact

To view a specific contact profile, find the contact in one of your lists by searching your contact database. Then, click the contact’s email address. You will then be able to view the email, engagement data, profile information, custom fields, and list associations for this contact.

To view any custom fields you have assigned to this contact, or to view any lists that you have added this contact to, you may flip through the tabs beneath the Contact Details. You may either view all custom fields at once, or you can filter them by the following types: “Text”, “Date”, and “Number”.

Editing a contact

When you are viewing a contact, click any of the Edit buttons in the Contact Fields tab to edit the contact's information within that section. This includes the SendGrid provided reserved fields, except email, any custom fields you’ve added for this contact, and any lists the contact is associated with.

To edit the associated lists for your contact:

1. Select the Associated Lists tab.
2. Enter or select the list you would like to use.
3. Click Add.

Managing your list

Sending to a well-managed address list can drastically improve your delivery. We have put together some simple steps and guidelines that will improve any senders list.

• Suppressions
• Delete unusable contacts
• Delete a specific contact
• Delete all contacts

Identifying Suppressions

In your SendGrid Account are different Suppressions lists.

Global Unsubscribes - Addresses on this list are opted out of all mail.

Bounces - Addresses that have failed to deliver to the recipient's inbox. Once an address has been added to this list, we do not attempt to deliver further messages to it. We will instead Drop them to protect your external reputation.

Spam Reports - Addresses that have marked your mail as spam.

Blocks - Addresses that have blocked your mail temporarily, usually due to factors like a blacklisted IP address. You can attempt to resend to these addresses.

Invalid - Addresses on this list are malformed and do not have a valid email address structure. (Ex. info.sendgrid.com, info@sendgridcom, info @ sendgrid.com)

Emails sent to addresses listed in the Bounce, invalid, Spam, and Unsubscribe list are automatically dropped by SendGrid. Feel free to remove these addresses from your lists to save money and time.

Delete unusable contacts

It is common to have contacts that result in a group unsubscribe, block, bounce, invalid email address, or spam report. Attempting to send email to these contacts can negatively impact your reputation since these contacts do not want to (and will not) receive your marketing emails.

To remove all of your unusable Marketing Campaigns contacts:

1. When viewing your dashboard, navigate to the left-hand menu and click Suppressions.
2. Open a specific group, such as Bounces or Spam Reports, click the action menu in the upper right corner, then select Download as CSV.
3. Repeat step 2 for each of the groups that you want to remove (unsubscribes, spam reports, etc.) and merge each of those lists into a single CSV file.
4. Return to your dashboard, navigate to the left-hand menu and select Marketing, then Contacts.
5. In the upper right corner click Add Contacts and select Upload CSV.
6. Select Create New List and name it something obvious, like "Remove Invalid Emails."
7. Once uploaded, click the action menu to the right of that new list and select Delete.
8. Check the box indicating to delete "all contacts associated with this list."

Delete a specific contact

*To remove a list or segment, but keep the contacts in All Contacts:* 1. Navigate to your list or segment. 2. Click the checkbox to the left of your list or segment. 3. Click # selected dropdown and delete. *To remove a list or segment, and ALL associated contacts:* 1. Navigate to your list or segment. 2. Hover over the Action menu to the right of the list or segment. 3. Click on the trash icon. 4. Check the box "Delete all contacts associated with this list from my account." 5. Select delete.

To remove one or more contacts from a list:

1. Navigate to the All Contacts list.
2. Search for the contact you want to delete.
3. Click delete to remove the contact permanently.

Delete all contacts

To delete all of your contacts at once:

1. Navigate to your Contacts page and hover over the Action Menu next to All Contacts.
2. Click the trash can icon.
3. Select the checkbox to confirm that you want to delete all contacts and then click Delete.

Edit or Remove Contacts from a list

To manage your contact lists more efficiently, you can edit and remove contact lists from the Contacts page.

To edit a contact:

1. Navigate to the Contacts page and search for the contact you want to edit.
2. Click the contact you wish to edit. This takes you to the contact details page.
3. To edit any of the profile fields, click on the Edit icon to the right of the field.
4. Once you have finished making all of your changes, click Save.

To delete a contact from your account:

1. Navigate to the Contacts page and search for the contact you want to edit.
2. To delete a contact from the contact list, you can click the delete icon in the action menu. To delete a contact from the contact details page, click the delete icon at the top-right of the page.
3. If you are deleting the contact from a specific list, and not All Contacts, click Remove Contact. If you are deleting the contact from the account, select Permanently delete this contact from my account.

To remove a contact from a list:

1. Navigate to the Contacts page and search for the contact you want to edit.
2. Click the email of the contact to view contact details.
3. Click the Associated Lists tab from the contact details page.
4. Find the list you want to remove the contact from and click the delete icon.
5. When you see "Are you sure you want to remove this contact?" click Remove Contact.

Export contacts

To view the contents of a contact list, you can export the list to a CSV and download it to your computer.

To export contacts:

1. Navigate to the Contacts page within the Automation Beta experience.
2. Locate the contact list you want to export and click the action menu.
3. Select Export. The Export page appears with a list of all current and previous exports.
4. From here you can find the exported contact list and select the action menu.
5. Select the Download CSV icon next to the list to download the contact list to your computer.

Contact Management APIs

You can integrate with the Contact Management APIs to create and update lists, add contacts, manage reserved field data, export contact lists, and pull data about your contacts and lists. Learn more through the documentation for Automation Contact APIs.

Additional Resources

• Custom Fields
• Formatting a CSV