Why was my import rejected?

All imports are reviewed by our import specialists. A rejected import does not mean that you cannot move forward with your import. We may need information before our import team could allow your import file. We'll go over some of the most common reasons an import is rejected and how to work on them before resubmitting. 

Not enough information

Our import team is looking for more details in regards to how subscribers joined your list. Often, we need the URL for where your audience signed up. If the subscribers signed up at an event, you will need to provide: the name and dates of the event, how subscribers offered their information, and expectations in regards to what kind of content they would receive as a result of signing up. Subscribers collected through an online store would need the item sold, checkout, or store link. It might also help to include information about when you last contacted these subscribers, what platform they were last communicated with on, and the time frame when the subscribers signed up.

If specifics are hard to provide due to the age of your list or unknown origin, then this list cannot be used with AWeber. AWeber is a permission-based service, so subscribers will need to agree to hear from you. If a subscriber signed up more than a year ago or you have not contacted them in quite some time, then it becomes less likely a subscriber would remember what the signed up for. These types of addresses can damage your list and should be removed from any import files you plan to use. Be sure to confirm what lists you can use with AWeber.

Issues with email addresses

If there is a substantial number of addresses in the import that would lead to high bounces and complaints, the import will not be accepted. This decision is in efforts to protect both your deliverability and AWeber's overall deliverability from potential damage.

If you are importing these subscribers from another platform, the best route would be to start importing the newest or most recently engaged subscribers, such as those that signed up or opened your messages within the last 6 months to 1 year. These addresses will be the least likely to pose issues. You can work backwards from there and as the quality issues appear again, those files of older subscribers would be rejected.

List cleaning services like BriteVerify, Kickbox, and QuickEmailVerification can also be used to help remove these problematic addresses, but it will not be as effective as working with live data from your most recently sent messages. Keep in mind that using any such service does not guarantee a list would be approved. 

High bounce rate

A high bounce rate indicates the list has not been managed over time to remove addresses that have fallen out of use. While our system does offer automated cleanup of undeliverables, infrequent sending can create a blind spot. The first step to resolve the bounces would be to delete the subscribers under the Undeliverable filter on your Subscribers page, as these can accumulate over time and cause issues for sending. After these have been deleted, you will want to continue sending email to the remaining good subscribers for several weeks, which will allow the bounce rate to stabilize over time before importing more.

If the undeliverable subscribers were just recently imported to your AWeber account, you will want to take a careful look at how you have been maintaining that list outside our service. There are several considerations here:

• Does this other system automatically filter out bounced subscribers, or did they get exported along with good addresses?
• When were these subscribers last emailed? If the list has not been emailed in the last 6 months to 1 year, it is likely to have gone stale and will lead to issues.
• Was this list newly collected from a form on your website, but not emailed yet? If so, the form may be collecting invalid signups from spambots. The list might not be usable if these bad signups were collected, but moving forward you can cut down on those bad signups by using a Captcha.

High complaint rate

If during a review our imports team sees a high number of complaints coming from a list, then they would reject the import to prevent any further possible damage to your sending reputation.  

This does not mean that an import will never be accepted for this list, our team would be looking to see complaint rates improve before moving forward. While there is no set time required before another import can be made to this list, we do suggest continuing your marketing efforts for several weeks with the aim of decreasing complaints following the tips on this Knowledge Base article. This should improve the sending reputation in preparation for the next import.

Your form lacks certain information

Subscribers need to know what they are signing up for when they fill out a form. A vague or misleading form will lead to higher complaints from potential subscribers who may be upset about content they did not expect to receive.

For example, if your sign up form reads "Sign Up To Learn More" on a blank page, that does not give any detail about the information subscribers are going to receive. "Sign Up To Learn More About Our Fantastic Quilts and Knit Hats" gives more specific information about what content will be received upon signing up. When a subscriber signs up through a form, they will need to know exactly what kind of information they will receive.

If people came to your form or landing page from another website that provided more background information, or through an advertisement that had more information, please reference this in your import.

The list is co-registered

Co-Registration indicates that the list that you imported was shared among several parties. An example of this kind of list would be those provided at the end of a conference, or ones obtained from a contest involving collected prizes from multiple sponsors.

If you want to read more about why such lists are not good to use, you can read our article here.

Unrelated content

AWeber's import team will also look at the list you are importing subscribers into to make sure the content inside that list matches what they see or was described from the source. The list description, campaign messages, and past broadcasts are also considered to make sure subscribers are imported into a list where the information you are sending to them is what they requested.

Personal contacts/Facebook/LinkedIn/etc.

AWeber is an opt-in service, importing a list of emails gathered over time in your email account from Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections, or other social media contacts would not be accepted.

If someone is a friend or contact through social media, that does not necessarily mean they requested to join your mailing list. We request explicit permission for anyone joining an AWeber list.

For these types of contacts, we suggest sending them to a page where they can sign up directly through a sign up form.

Your import contains errors

If the import team sees anything in the file that would affect the way it loads in our system, they will request that it be resubmitted again with the proper updates. You will want to check the import file for proper formatting. You can review our article here with help with preparing a file for importing or you can contact our Customer Solutions team for assistance.