Almost all e-mail marketing programs support exporting the subscribers list as a CSV file. In this article I will show you the format in which WP Responder expects the

WP Responder supports importing subscribers in three formats:

1. FeedBurner Format – Only in WP Responder 4.9.5.1 and below
2. Generic CSV File Format.
3. WP Responder CSV File Format – Only in WP Responder 4.9.5.1 and below

In this article I will explain the syntax of all of these CSV file formats.

Important Notes About Importing Subscribers:

1. Subscription Re-Confirmation Not Required – When you import subscribers to a newsletter, your subscribers will not have to re-confirm their subscription. You can start sending broadcasts to them immediately after importing them.
2. Custom Field Values Can Be Imported Only In the WP Responder Format

The FeedBurner Format

Note: This is for WP Responder version 4.9.4.4 and below only.

The FeedBurner format can be imported only in versions PRIOR to WP Responder 4.9.5.1. This is the format of the CSV file that you can export from FeedBurner. The CSV file, when opened in a text editor like Notepad must look like this:

someone@someemail.com, 06/17/2009 09:39,Active
you@someemail.com, 06/17/2010 09:10,Inactive

and so on.

The format is:
[email address],[date],[subscription status]

1.1 Important Points About FeedBurner Format:

1.  Inactives Will Be Skipped: Subscribers with the ‘Inactive’ entry in the third column in the CSV file will NOT be imported. When the value in the third column (after the second comma) is Inactive that e-mail address will not be imported.
   For example if you had a CSV file with the following content:
   raj@someone.com, 07/07/2007,Inactive
   priya@gmail.com, 08/09/2009,Active
   sharanya@test.com, 09/02/2010,Active
   Only priya@gmail.com and sharanya@test.com will be imported. raj@someone.com will not be imported to the database.
2. Names Will Be Left Empty: FeedBurner format doesn’t have any names so names will not be imported. The names of these subscribers will be blank in the database. This means the [!name!] value replacement tag will be replaced with nothing.
   For example, if you send a broadcast with the following text:
   
   Hi [!name!],
   It will be replaced as :
   Hi ,
3. WP Responder 4.9.5.1 AND ABOVE: In versions above 4.9.5.1 the CSV file should contain only subscribers who have subscribed. The Active/Inactive field will not be processed by WP Responder. You must open the CSV file provided by FeedBurner and remove all the subscribers who are marked Inactive.

1.2 How to Import using the FeedBurner Format

1.2.1 Prerequisites

Before importing subscribers using a CSV file, you must first:

1. Create a newsletter
2. If you want to subscribe the e-mail addresses in the CSV file to an autoresponder series, you must create the autoresponder and its messages.
3. If you want to subscribe the e-mail addresses in the CSV file to a blog category you must create the blog category.
4. If you want to subscribe the e-mail addresses in the CSV file to a post series you must first create the post series.

1.2.2 Steps to import subscribers using a FeedBurner format CSV file:

Note: This is for WP Responder version 4.9.4.4 and below only.

1. Under the Import/Export section of WP Responder click on Import Subscribers:
2. Select the newsletter to which the subscribers should be imported. If you see no options in the drop down it means there aren’t any newsletters. Create a newsletter first.
3. In the screen that follows, select the subscription options for the e-mail addresses in the newsletter.
4. In the next step, click on the Browse button and then select the CSV file from your computer. Ensure you select FeedBurner for the format of your CSV file. That’s it.

2. Generic CSV File Format

The example below illustrates the format of the Generic CSV file supported:

Raj,raj@testing.com
raj,raj@someone.com

The syntax of CSV file is below:

[name],[email]

Many e-mail applications export subscribers in the following format:

[name],[email],[some field],[someotherfield]

All fields after the [email]field will be ignored.

2.1 Important Notes About Generic CSV File Format:

1. All Rows Will Be Imported – Every single row is assumed to have an active subscriber. This may seem obvious but sometimes an additional field will be added by some applications to denote whether the subscriber in that row is active.

2.2 Steps To Import Subscribers In Generic CSV File Format:

Click here to read about importing subscribers using a general CSV File

3. WP Responder Format

The WP Responder format was supported in version 4.9.4.1. Due to difficulties in using it the format was discontinued. If you installed WP Responder recently you don’t need to read about this.

The format is as shown below:

[name],[email],[custom_field_value1],[custom_field_value2]…..

Where custom_field_valuex are values for custom fields created in the newsletter if any.

3.1 Steps To Import

The steps for importing and exporting e-mail broadcasts is the same as the steps for importing the FeedBurner format. Simply select WP Responder format in step 4.