Guestfolio supports the ability to import additional subscribers for email marketing purposes. Subscribers are people who do not have any upcoming or historical stays in the hotel PMS but wish to be notified of marketing promotions and messages from the hotel. 

Any data outside of the PMS we refer to as subscribers. You are able to import files in the form of CSV (comma-separated values). 

File upload template - to ensure your data is loaded in the correct format, Guestfolio gives you the ability to download a template file which you can use to add your data to and upload to Guestfolio.

Please note: We support only the following data columns when importing this data.

• Email address
• First name
• Last name
• Title/Salutation
• Express consent
• City
• State
• Country
• Language

Express consent - To ensure you remain compliant with email anti-spam laws around the world, Guestfolio requires that consent to send emails be maintained for every recipient. For more information on consent to send emails, click here. Consent can either be implied from a business transaction (valid for 2 years in certain countries) or express (valid indefinitely). To upload a file you will be required to tick a box to indicate you have a record of consent to send marketing email to the recipients on the file you are uploading. Existing subscribers may already have implied consent through reservations via your PMS integration, however you can explicitly mark subscribers as having express consent from other sources. To do this you will need to ensure that your file has a column with a title of "Express consent". In this column if you want to mark a subscriber as having express consent, you need to enter in either "Express" "Yes" or "Y" in the column for that subscriber.

Important! - If you mark a subscriber as having express consent, you acknowledge responsibility for maintaining proof of that consent at your property indefinitely. Please note that you will be responsible if the recipient unsubscribes from other marketing sources outside of Guestfolio's control.

If the recipient unsubscribes via Guestfolio, re-uploading you file again with "express consent" will NOT affect their unsubscribed status.

1. On the Guestfolio dashboard navigate to Newsletters > Import Subscribers.

2. Click "Choose file" or drag your file into the upload area. The file to be uploaded at a minimum must include at least Email, First Name, and Last Name and if your file includes a heading title row, be sure to check "CSV headers." These columns can be in any order and some columns can be empty.

NOTE: Blank rows, rows without an email address, and other special characters may cause an error when uploading a CSV file.

3. In the next step, match column data with database fields. Make sure that all data fields are correctly labeled, e.g., Email = email addresses, etc.

4. Fill out list details:

List mode * - The upload can be done as a new list, added to an existing list or can replace and existing list. #Note any new subscribers uploaded to your database will automatically appear on your "All subscribers" list, there is no need to manually add to this list.  

Name * - Give your new list a name.

Interests - Here you can assign one or multiple interests to all entries on the list you are about to upload. For more information on subscriber interests, click here.

5. Confirm you have consent to send email to everyone on the list you are about to upload by clicking the radio button next to the statement "I acknowledge and accept these conditions." For more information regarding consent to send emails and your responsibility to maintain consent click here.

6. Select "Process import file" to complete the upload

Problems uploading a csv file?

Subscriber count sitting at zero? Immediately after you upload a file, the subscriber count will be "0." This is due to a delay while the new data is processed and uploaded to your Guestfolio database. Wait a few minutes, refresh your screen and the subscriber count will rise to the correct number.

If you are having trouble getting a file to upload we suggest the following:

• Blank rows - use the sort ascending/descending function of your spreadsheet program to find and remove all rows that have no data at all.
• Unnecessary data - any data that can not be uploaded to Guestfolio or is not required should be deleted. This might include empty columns/rows on either side of your good data or data such as phone numbers that can not be uploaded to Guestfolio.
• Non-standard characters - all fields should only contain standard "UTF-8" characters. Anything out of the ordinary such as non standard characters (from foreign languages) in email addresses should be removed.

How do I create a CSV file?

A note on subscriber interests - If your property would like to record additional segmentation for your uploaded lists we encourage you to use ‘interests’. Interests are like tags or themes. Typical interests include ‘spa’, ‘dining’, ‘sports’, etc. You can create as many interests as you like and assign those interests when you're uploading your data. The best part is that when you want to build your email campaign lists you can easily add one or all of those interests to build your perfect list.

Interests can be used in subscriber list conditions e.g. In a subscriber list add a condition choosing "Interests" equals "spa". This will include all subscribers that have been tagged with an interest of spa.

For more information on subscriber interests, click here.

If you require further assistance, send an email to support@guestfolio.com with your csv file attached. The support team will be happy to help get your files uploaded.