Considerations for Prospect Imports

Keep these considerations in mind when importing prospects to Account Engagement.

File Setup

The size of the import file can be up to 100 MB.
The first row in the import file is reserved for headings and is ignored during the import.
Import dates in YYYY-MM-DD format.

Imports begin at the top of the file and work down.
If your import file has a new email address or CRM ID, Account Engagement creates a prospect.’
Import files are available for at least 60 days.

Be sure that your import file doesn’t include spaces before or after your values. Spaces cause a value not to update correctly in the prospect’s record.
Only valid email addresses are accepted. Email addresses containing HTML or invalid characters are skipped during imports.
On Japanese keyboards, the backslash character (\) displays as the Yen symbol (¥). Because import treats single backslashes as escape characters, use a double backslash (\\) to represent a literal backslash.
We recommend that you don’t import values in all caps. When you use merge fields to customize marketing assets, prospect data appears exactly as it’s entered in our database.
In your import file, separate multi-select field values with semicolons.
If your import includes a CRM user type prospect field, you must include the CRM ID for the Salesforce user.

If your custom prospect field can record and display multiple responses, the data in the import file adds to the current value for that field. It doesn’t overwrite the value.
During an import, some fields aren’t overwritten completely. An imported prospect score is added to the existing score, and notes and comments are appended to the end of a prospect’s original value.

In business units that don’t allow multiple prospects with the same email address, Account Engagement handles duplicate email addresses in a special way. When the import file has more than one prospect with the same email address, the field values in the last entry imported are used.

To suppress prospects during import, include a Do Not Email column with values of 1 for prospects you want to suppress and 0 for all other prospects. Map the column to the Do Not Email field.
To assign prospects during import, include a column with the Account Engagement user’s username, and map it to the Assign to User field.
You can reassign assigned prospects during an import. However, if assigned prospects have a different owner in the CRM, they’re reassigned in Account Engagement during the next sync to maintain consistency. The CRM has priority in terms of the prospect owner.
You can’t assign prospects to a queue during import.
In business units that use Marketing Data Sharing, imported prospects that don’t match the sharing rules are archived automatically.