Leverage the power of the Directory to manage your personal contacts. Simply import, add tags, notes, or tasks, and include them in your marketing campaigns.

Before you start the process of importing your personal contacts, be sure to clean up your data and remember to save them as a CSV file. Custom fields and header rows are the areas you should focus on organizing before uploading.

During the upload process, you can add custom fields. If you know what these fields are beforehand, it's a good idea to add the custom fields first, within the Global Settings option. Read our article on Managing Custom Fields, Task Types & Tags to learn how to manage and add custom fields.

Header rows are not mandatory however, adding and organizing them in a way you understand will make the upload process smoother. Here is an example of how you can organize your header rows before uploading your contacts.

Navigate to the Directory from the main dashboard or by using the left-hand navigation bar. From the "Search Contacts" section select the Browse all Contacts link next to the Search button.

Upload CSV File: From within the Creative Directory, select the "Add Contact" split button located in the top right-hand corner of the screen. Browse your computer and locate your personal contacts file in CSV format. If your file includes headings be sure to leave the setting "First row has column headings" checked and begin the upload. If you do not have headings be sure to remove this option, otherwise, the first record of your list will not be imported.

Duplicates: If you want to overwrite duplicates be sure to keep this check box checked. When this option is checked, any contact found with the same email address within your personal database will be overwritten by the content of the incoming file.

The column on the left will be from the file you uploaded. If your file had headings you will see the headings listed. If your file did not have headings you will see the first record within the column. Click "Preview" to display the first five rows to help you properly map your contacts.

If you have custom fields and didn't set them up beforehand you can add them as you are mapping your fields. Click "Add Custom Field" and repeat this step as many times as needed.

Enter the custom field's name and click "Finish."

After you click "Finish" the new custom field will be added automatically.

Once this has been completed you can click "Finish and Import" and your contacts will begin to upload. Once the upload has been completed you will get an alert of how many records have been added and your list will be tagged based on your Tag selections at the beginning of the process. If no Tags were selected or created these contacts will not be associated with a Tag. You can always decide to modify your Tag selections at a later date.

Because there are many different titles it's important to match these titles to what we call the Position. A position is the parent to the title and will allow you to better search, tag, and organize your data when using the Creative Directory. If you are interested in receiving a list of the positions used in the Creative Directory to organize your CSV file before uploading, Get in Touch.

During the upload process, we will attempt to match these Positions based on the titles you uploaded. If there is an exact match in our database a Position will be selected automatically for you. If we cannot identify an exact match, the Position will be left blank. It is recommended you go into each contact and make the appropriate Position selection after the upload process. Trust us, doing the extra work now will save you an enormous amount of time in the future.

Similar to Positions it's important to list a Company Type. Having a company type listed for each of your contacts will allow you to use the Creative Directory run-time filters properly when trying to locate and tag your contacts and distribute them into targeted groups. It's recommended that a company type is added to the CSV file before you upload, but if you didn't or need to edit a company type after the fact, you can do so by editing the contact and changing/adding your selection.