How to add subscribers to an existing list

You will learn

Learn how to add subscribers to an existing list by either uploading new contacts from a CSV file or using the Quick Add feature. This option is available for lists, not segments. Learn more about the difference between lists and segments. 

• If you're adding a large group of subscribers, use a list upload 
• If you're only adding a few subscribers, use Quick Add

Add subscribers via upload

1. Navigate to Audience > Lists & Segments.
2. Select the list that you want to add subscribers to. Check the Type column to ensure you are selecting a list, not a segment, as you cannot manually add subscribers to a segment. 
   
3. Click the Manage list dropdown in the upper right-hand corner of your list. 
4. Click Import contacts.
   
   If the option to import contacts does not appear, that means you either do not have the correct user permissions to upload contacts, or this is a segment, not a list. 
5. Click Upload and select your CSV file of email subscribers. 
6. Map each column from your CSV to an appropriate property in Klaviyo.
7. If a property doesn't yet exist in Klaviyo, type in a new property name and click Create New Field. 
   
8. Click Next.
9. If you have explicit permission from everyone in your CSV file to send email marketing, select the option Yes, update subscription status for all imported contacts to subscribed. If your CSV file contains both emails and phone numbers, select which channel(s) they’ve subscribed to.
10. Click Import.

Upload via copy/paste

As an alternative to uploading a CSV file, you can copy and paste a list of subscribers to upload them. 

1. Navigate to Audience > Lists & Segments.
2. Select the list that you want to add subscribers to.
3. Click the Manage list dropdown in the upper right-hand corner. 
4. Click Import contacts. If the option to import contacts does not appear, that means you either do not have the correct user permissions to upload contacts, or this is a segment, not a list. 
5. Click Copy/Paste CSV beneath the bottom-left corner of the upload tool. 
   
6. Paste contact information in this format:
   Email,First Name,Last Name
   someone1@example.com,George,Washington
   someone2@example.com,Abraham,Lincoln
7. Click Next.
8. Map each column from your upload to an appropriate property in Klaviyo.
9. If you have explicit permission from everyone in your list to send email marketing, select the option Yes, update subscription status for all imported contacts to subscribed. If your list contains both emails and phone numbers, select which channel(s) they’ve subscribed to.
10. Click Import.

Add subscribers via Quick Add

If you would like to quickly add a handful of individuals to your list, you can use the Quick Add option instead.

1. Navigate to the list you'd like to add the profile to.
2. Click Quick Add.
   
   If the Quick Add button does not appear, that means you either do not have the correct user permissions to upload contacts, or this is a segment, not a list. 
3. On the following page, fill in the Email field.
4. If the person has explicitly opted in to receive emails from you, check Profile has granted explicit consent to receive email marketing. 
5. Click Add Subscriber.

Best practices

A few things to keep in mind:

• Never add contacts to a subscriber list that have not intentionally opted in — this is against Klaviyo’s Terms of Service.
• We will automatically prevent subscribers from joining the same list more than once. This means that, if you are trying to import a file containing subscribers that are already on your list, you will notice that these duplicative records will not get added. For example, if you want to add a custom property to everyone in a list, you can safely re-upload the list with the custom property attached without creating duplicate profiles.
• We will automatically skip email address entries that do not have a valid format. A valid email address such as jane@example.com is made up of a local part, an @ symbol, then a case-insensitive domain part. If any of the required parts of a valid email address are missing, we will consider the email invalid. If there are erroneous spaces in the email address, we will also consider the email invalid.

Additional resources

• Troubleshooting list imports
• How to create and add subscribers to a new list
• Understanding the difference between segments and lists