Despite your business size and the volume of data to transfer, the migration process is a very complex task to handle. At the same time, it is an excellent time to re-evaluate your marketing strategies, see what needs to be improved, and consider new trends, such as contacting your customers through a different communication channel. This article walks you through the main steps in the transition process to help you migrate your customers' data and share our best practices.
Before you can start migrating, you need to connect your store to Omnisend. This integration will allow us to sync and pass the information about your customers, add our sign-up forms, and trigger automation workflows.
Important! We do not recommend closing your Active Campaign account before you transfer all of the data, re-create your automation workflows, and ensure everything works as intended.
Checklist
We would recommend sticking to this list:
Export contacts from Active Campaign
Once you connect your store to Omnisend, we start syncing the information about your customers, products, and orders they've placed. However, it is also essential to transfer the data collected with the services you were using previously, including your former ESP and any other third-party application.
Note, the instruction provided below will guide you through your contacts export from Active Campaign. However, if you have any questions or need any assistance, we recommend checking their Help Center or contacting their Support for the up-to-date information.
To export a List or a Segment from your Active Campaign account, navigate to the Contacts tab on the left panel -> go to the Contacts overview page -> click on the Export button. In the Export Options window, you must specify what fields you want to export. We encourage you to select both Default and Other fields. Once you confirm the Export, you may download the file in the Exports tab -> Download.
Important! Active Campaign keeps your Active (Subscribed), Unconfirmed (Non-subscribed), Unsubscribed, and Bounced contacts separately. To assign the proper statuses to these contacts, we recommend Exporting them to different files.
The default fields exported from Active Campaign include Email address, First name, Last name, Phone number, Status, Contact record created, IP address, User-agent, and Organization.
The other fields include Tags, List, Custom Fields, Accounts, and Scores.
Note that the default date-added field will be set to the date when this contact was added to Omnisend. It can't be mapped with the property transferred from your ESP.
Among these data, the most critical information includes:
Email address*
Phone number*
First Name
Last Name
Status - in this tutorial, we recommend exporting customers with each status to different lists and uploading them separately. Nevertheless, you may add this information to Omnisend as a custom property and use it for your customers' filtering.
Scores - since this property is used by Active Campaigns to estimate your customers' engagement, we highly recommend transferring it to Omnisend.
Note that either the email address or the contact phone number should be provided; otherwise, the customer won't be added to the platform.
Change the format of the customers' data
The file needs to have an appropriate format for your customers' data to be migrated successfully. All information about each contact should go into one separate row, and each column should contain a single type of information, e.g., First name, Last name, City, etc.
Just like in the example:
Omnisend accepts the following data types:
String or Text
Boolean
Date
Number value
Find more information on each of the data types here.
Based on our observation, the information exported from Active Campaign has the same format as Omnisend. The only problem may arise when importing the phone number, as it should be recorded in the international format: +11231234567 (+ country-code area-code phone-number).
Before uploading your contacts to Omnisend, ensure you have the country codes and the + signs in the file. To tell Excel to treat this data as a text, not a function, you may add an apostrophe ('+1 ...) or change the format of the cell to the text one.
Import your contacts to Omnisend
To import your contacts to Omnisend, go to the Audience tab -> click on the Add contacts button -> File import -> Select file.
The import process consists of the following stages:
Upload File, where you select the file to upload
Map, where you assign the fields from the file to the ones available in Omnisend
Organize, where you can choose whether you want to upload your customers with Active (Subscribed) or Unconfirmed (Non-subscribed) status. You may also select whether you want to add a tag or create a Segment at this stage.
Review that summarizes the information recorded with your contacts import.
After selecting the file to upload, you need to map the fields from the file with default properties available in Omnisend or assign them to the custom ones.
Managing your customers' data
All of the contacts added to your Omnisend account will get a source tag assigned automatically. Source: platform tag is added to the contacts imported from your store, and source: manual import to those you migrate from Active Campaign. If you upload the duplicate contacts to Omnisend, we will only update the information or add the missing one.
After we sync the data from your store, you also need to define the statuses all of your contacts had in Active Campaign. For example, the customer synced with subscribed status from your store could be unsubscribed in Active Campaign.
To solve this problem, we suggest importing all of your lists separately.
If you see the default field for the data exported from Active Campaign, it is better to use it instead of creating the custom one. For example, the Birthday date field, recorded as a custom property in Active Campaign, can be assigned to the Default field in Omnisend.
When transferring your contacts for the first time, we recommend mapping all the fields available for the import.
Organize your customers' data
At this stage, you may specify what statuses imported contacts will have for Email and SMS (if you have phone numbers in the file) channels.
If you want to import your customers with Active (Subscribed) status, you must add a checkmark. Otherwise, your contacts will be added with Unconfirmed (Non-subscribed) status.
Note that the Non-subscribed status is different from Unsubscribed. To add contacts with Unsubscribed status, we suggest uploading them with Active status and Unsubscribing in Omnisend.
Note that Omnisend pricing is based on the number of Subscribed and Non-subscribed contacts.
Manage your Segments
Once you migrate your customers and the data you have collected, you need to learn how this information can be used and managed in Omnisend. Here is the list of the Segments we would recommend creating in your Omnisend account:
Unsubscribed contacts (Unsubscribed and Bounced in Active Campaign)
Engaged contacts & VIP customers
Inactive contacts
Custom Lists & Segments
Even though you may use the information we have synced from the store or the one you've uploaded with your contacts, we might not have access to all of the info Active Campaign collected. Thus, we suggest exporting some of the Segments in solid form and uploading them to Omnisend. Check this article for the instructions on your contacts import to the Segment.
Unsubscribed contacts
All of the contacts that unsubscribe, bounce, or report your emails as spam are unsubscribed by Omnisend. In other words, we do not differentiate between bounced and unsubscribed contacts. Instead, we specify the bounce as one of the reasons for the unsubscription.
Therefore, we recommend uploading the list of Bounced and Unsubscribed contacts with subscribed status but to a different Segment. Then to unsubscribe them in Omnisend, you should open the Segment -> select all contacts, -> click on the Actions -> Unsubscribe.
Engaged contacts
When starting with a new service, it is essential to spend some time warming up your sender's reputation. You should send your newsletters to the most engaged contacts that are likely to open and click through your emails during this period. We highly encourage you to look through this instruction for more information on the warm-up plan concept.
To define the Segment of engaged contacts, you can use the Segment you've transferred from Active Campaign or create one in Omnisend. To create such a Segment in Omnisend, you can use the information imported from your store about your customer's purchase behavior and the custom fields about the Scores your customers have gained.
When using the Scores transferred from Active Campaign, keep in mind that the segment of engaged customers should include those that were active RECENTLY, have opened your emails, or click on the links in your Emails.
Migrate Templates, Forms, and Automation flows
In Omnisend, we are not only trying to develop a powerful marketing tool but also a user-friendly platform with multiple channels included. We highly encourage you to look through the options offered by Omnisend before you decide to transfer your old templates. Recreating your content will ensure that you have a responsive and well-working setup on Omnisend. Check these articles for more information:
Nevertheless, if you cannot dedicate time to recreate all the email templates and other content you created in Active Campaign, we have two options for you:
You can import HTML codes of your email templates and use them for both Email Campaigns and Automation workflows or add a custom HTML content block within the email designed in Omnisend.
Create Custom HTML signup forms.
Next Steps
Ensure all of your forms collect subscribers, and automation workflows trigger emails when intended. You can always test those workflows' performance by yourself or contact our Support Team for assistance.
Start working on building an outstanding sender's reputation with Omnisend by following our recommendations regarding the content and following the warm-up plan.
Overtake our idea of contacting your customers through the communication channel they prefer.