Constant Contact
Importing your subscribers (contacts)
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Constant Contact contacts are like Buttondown subscribers.
Export your Constant Contact contacts here.
A screenshot of the Constant Contact export process Constant Contact will prompt you to select any fields you want to export. When you import into Buttondown, you’ll be able to include notes, date created, and tags - plus anything else as custom metadata.
A screenshot of the Constant Contact export field selector Go to https://buttondown.email/settings. You may need to log in first.
Scroll to the bottom of the page.
Click the Import subscribers button at the bottom of the page, then choose the csv file you just downloaded from Constant Contact.
A screenshot of the import subscribers modal.
Importing your archives (campaigns)
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Constant Contact campaigns are like Buttondown archives.
According to Constant Contact (as of November 2021), "There isn't a way to export the campaigns. The one way is to download the email campaigns as an image or PDF.”
You can save or print your email campaigns as PDFs using these instructions. Email me and I’ll help you with importing your archives.
You did it!
Once you finish all of the above steps, Buttondown will kick off an audit and migration process to make sure everything is in order. Then you should be safe to disable or deactivate your Constant Contact account.
I have multiple lists in Constant Contact. Can I have multiple lists in Buttondown, too?
Yes! There are two ways to group subscribers in Buttondown:
If you want to be able to completely separate out multiple verticals of a newsletter (and, say, keep track of different archives) or have two entirely different publications with disjoint subscriber bases, your best bet is to set them up as separate newsletters entirely. Then you can follow the import instructions above for each one.
If you want all your subscribers in one place, but you want to be able to send some messages to certain groups of subscribers, use tags and metadata. To add list names from Constant Contact as tags to your Constant Contact data before importing:
Export your Constant Contact subscribers here. (Select the lists you want to export, then chose “Export” from the Actions menu.)
A screenshot of the Constant Contact export process Choose the fields you want to export. Make sure to include “Lists”! When you import into Buttondown, you’ll be able to include notes, date created, and tags - plus anything else as custom metadata.
A screenshot of the Constant Contact export field selector If you don’t use tags in Constant Contact, you can just import the email lists as tags (see below). If you also have tags from Constant Contact that you want to import, you can open the CSV file in a spreadsheet editor, create a new column, and use a formula like =concat(E2,",",D2) to add the list name(s) to the tags, then save it as a CSV file.
Screenshot of a spreadsheet in which existing tags and list names are being combined in a new column Save the spreadsheet as a CSV file.
Go to https://buttondown.email/settings. You may need to log in first.
Scroll to the bottom of the page.
Click the Import subscribers button at the bottom of the page, then choose the CSV file you saved in step 5.
A screenshot of the import subscribers modal. When it asks you to assign tags, select the “Email Lists” column or the new column you created back in Step 3.
By the way
With Buttondown, it’s easy to export all your data:
