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Move your newsletter list from Constant Contact to Covey
Constant Contact exports contacts as a spreadsheet you choose the columns for. Unsubscribed contacts and bounces are separate exports, so there are up to three files.
A one-time move: export from your old tool, import here, replace the signup form, send a first newsletter, then cancel the old plan. Covey does not keep syncing with the old tool afterwards.
1. Export your contacts from Constant Contact
Export everyone, with their status and lists, in one file.
- Open the Contacts page.
- Select any contact, then click the "Select all contacts" link.
- Click Actions, then "Export selection".
- In the Export window, tick at least: email address, first name, last name, email status, the lists and the tags. Then click Export.
- When it finishes: the three-dot button at the top right of the Contacts page, "View import/export activity", and "Download CSV".
Choose CSV, not Excel.
The permission status column is only offered when advanced email permissions are turned on in your account. Covey does not need it.
Constant Contact keeps a download for up to 10 days.
2. Export the unsubscribes and the bounces
These are the people you must not email. Bring them across so Covey never does.
- Unsubscribes: on the Contacts page, filter the list by email status to Unsubscribed, select all, then Actions, "Export selection", Export, and download the CSV.
- Bounces: Reporting, the Emails tab, click the number in the Bounces column of a recent email, "Export Contacts", Export, "Download now".
- In the bounce report, filter to "Recommended for removal" first if you can. Covey ignores temporary bounces such as a full mailbox either way.
Bounces are exported one email at a time. Do it for your last few newsletters.
Constant Contact cannot export unsubscribed contacts you have since deleted. If you deleted any, keep your own record of them.
The filter's exact label could not be confirmed from Constant Contact's own help pages; it is on the Contacts page next to the search.
3. Upload the files to Covey
Nothing is imported at this step. Covey reads the files and shows you what it would do.
- In Covey: People, Subscribers, "Import a list".
- Choose Constant Contact.
- Add the contacts file. Add the unsubscribed file and mark it "Unsubscribed". Add each bounce file and mark it "Bounced".
- Choose what Constant Contact's lists and tags become in Covey: tags, groups, or nothing.
Contacts shown as "Awaiting confirmation" in Constant Contact never confirmed, so Covey does not import them.
If your contacts file has an email status column, Covey also reads the unsubscribes from it. Uploading the separate unsubscribed file as well does no harm.
4. Review the dry run
Check the numbers against what your old tool showed before you import.
- New subscribers: people Covey does not have yet.
- Matched: people already in Covey, such as your members. They gain the tags and a consent record. Nobody is duplicated.
- Do-not-email: addresses that unsubscribed or bounced in your old tool. They are never added as subscribers, and Covey will not email them even if they are added some other way later.
- Invalid and duplicates: rows with no usable address, and repeats.
- Tick the statement that these people asked to receive your email, then choose Import.
The "new" number should be close to your old tool's subscribed count. If do-not-email is zero and you have ever sent a newsletter, go back: the unsubscribed and bounced files are missing.
Importing the same files twice is safe. The second run changes nothing.
5. Replace your signup form
New signups should land in Covey from now on, not in the old tool.
- On a Covey website: Website, open the page, and add the "Newsletter Signup" block from the Actions group. Publish.
- On another website: Settings, Website, "Embed on your site", choose "Newsletter signup", and paste the code where the old form was.
6. Send from your own domain
Mail from your own domain is what keeps newsletters out of spam folders.
- In Covey: Settings, "Sending email".
- Add the DNS records Covey shows you at the company where your domain is registered.
- Wait for Covey to show the domain as verified before your first newsletter.
Leave the old tool's DNS records in place until you have cancelled it. They do not conflict with Covey's.
7. Send your first newsletter
Send one real newsletter from Covey before you cancel anything.
- In Covey: Messages, Newsletters, "New newsletter".
- Under "Who gets it", choose "Subscribers who are not members", and your members if they should get it too.
- Send yourself a test, then send or schedule it.
Every newsletter carries an unsubscribe link and your mailing address. People who unsubscribe are never emailed again.
8. Take down the Constant Contact sign-up forms
After you cancel, Constant Contact's forms still show on your site but no longer save anyone.
- In Constant Contact, sign-up forms are under Channels, "Sign-up forms".
- Pop-up and inline forms run from a "Universal Code" snippet in your website's footer. Remove it.
- Put the Covey form from step 5 where the old one was.
Check for the other ways people could join: the Constant Contact Forms plugin for WordPress, a sign-up landing page, lead ads, and Text to Join.
The "Channels, Sign-up forms" path is from a search extract of Constant Contact's help, not a page we could open.
9. Cancel your Constant Contact plan
Do this last, after your first Covey newsletter has gone out and you have kept the export files.
- Online: account settings, the Billing tab, scroll down to "Manage plan", and follow the prompts.
- If your account has no online option, call Constant Contact Billing Support: 855-229-5506 in the US and Canada.
- The cancellation takes effect on your next billing date. Until then you can undo it.
Constant Contact says it keeps your data for 30 days after cancelling. Download every export before then.
Prepaid months are not refunded.