Switch
Move your newsletter list to Covey
Any CSV file with a column of email addresses works. Bring the people who unsubscribed or bounced as well, in a separate file or marked in a status column.
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 list as a CSV file
One row per person, with a header row.
- In your old tool, export every contact as CSV. From a spreadsheet, use "Save as" or "Download" and choose CSV.
- Covey looks for columns named Email, First name, Last name (or Name), Tags (or Lists, Groups) and Status.
If your columns have other names, you can tell Covey which is which when you upload.
2. Export the unsubscribes and the bounces
Mailing someone who unsubscribed in your old tool is the one mistake a move must not make.
- Export the people who unsubscribed, and the addresses that bounced, as their own CSV files.
- Or keep them in the main file with a Status column that says unsubscribed or bounced.
If your old tool cannot export them, ask its support team. Every email tool keeps this list.
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 "Another CSV".
- Add the main file. Add the unsubscribed and bounced files and mark each one.
- Choose what the tags or list names become in Covey: tags, groups, or nothing.
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 old signup form
A form left on your site keeps adding people to a list you no longer send from.
- Remove the old form or its code from your website and put the Covey form from step 5 in its place.
9. Cancel the old plan
Do this last, after your first Covey newsletter has gone out and you have kept the export files.
- Cancel from the old tool's billing page, or ask its support team.
Check how long the old tool keeps your data after you cancel.