In order to know which column of incoming data should be stored in which field in Higher Logic Thrive Marketing Professional (Thrive Marketing Professional), you create a data format in Thrive Marketing Professional to store that mapping.

NOTE: If you're uploading just a list of email addresses, Thrive Marketing Professional provides a default data format that assumes that the first column is the email address.

Planning

Before you create a data format, take a few minutes to understand the data you'll be importing into Thrive Marketing Professional. If you're getting ready for a mailing and you simply want to personalize the messages with...

Dear %%First Name%%

...you only have to upload email address and first name. Easy.

But thinking beyond this immediate need, consider what other data might be useful in future. Would knowing:

• Which states your subscribers live in allow you to reference those states in a story or subject line, therefore making the content more personalized for each subscriber?
• How long each subscriber has been with your organization influence how you would write a story about the same topic?

Any data that you upload can be used for personalization and/or targeting. Doing a little bit of planning will set you up to create a better experience for your subscribers.

Uploading email addresses

If your data file contains only email addresses, you can simply follow the Default data format in Step 1 of Subscriber Upload.

Uploading multiple fields

Each column in your data file will map to a profile info field in Thrive Marketing Professional.

• Make sure there aren't any blank columns in the data file.
• Empty cells (no data in the field for that subscriber) are considered valid.
• We recommend that the first column be the email address. Although the email addresses can be in any column, this is a good way to standardize your data-file format.

Date fields

When working with date fields, consistently use the same date format. Whether you use mm/dd/yyyy or dd/mm/yyyy, just use it consistently. The subscriber upload process doesn't do any date conversion, so all incoming data is processed as a string.

Create a Data Format

1. Navigate to Subscribers > Upload > Data Formats.
2. Click Add Data Format.
3. Give your data format a name. If there are six fields or less, it's a good practice to name the data format with those field names; if you're uploading a longer list of fields coming from a standard process, then you can use a more descriptive name. Make sure that everyone on the team understands which data format is appropriate to use. All of the fields included in the data format are displayed in the X column in case there's ever a question as to what this data format works with.

NOTE: By default, Tab is the selected column delimiter. Thrive Marketing Professional prefers this delimiter.

4. Select the fields that correspond to the columns on the incoming data file. A single click moves the field from the Available Columns list to the Columns In Data Format List. The top to bottom order matches the left to right order of columns in the data file.

5. Fields can be reordered using the green handle on the field and dragging and dropping to a new location. Do this when you realize that the field order in the data format doesn't match the left to right order of the columns in your data file.

6. Click Save when done.