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Formatting the contact data file
Please take a look at this file the attachment below to see the columns that need to be included in your contact data file. It also includes a single example row for an email target. You’ll need to populate your own file with as many rows as you have contacts you wish to target by email.
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When your contact database is in use in an advocacy campaign, we need some way to find the right targets for a given supporter, based on their ZIP, postal code or postcode. We do this by means of a “Search ID”. Each geographical area that we are able to map is uniquely identified by one of these codes.
As an example, here there is a table attached showing all the search IDs we use for UK MP constituencies.
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To edit an existing record, simply make the necessary changes to the existing record, leaving the numeric code in the first column intact.
To add a new record, add a new row, leaving the first column blank as in your initial list.
If you want to remove any records, please pull them out and send them to us in a separate file, making clear that they need to be deleted from your database. (Just removing them from the update file is not enough – we need to run a separate upload to tell the software to remove them.)
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Lead time for custom postcode lookup databases. Our database team typically require a 14 day lead time for any custom postcode lookup contact databases that you require. This is to make sure that any additional workload can fit in with all scheduled operations. To avoid disappointment, you should ensure that you start the process as soon as possible and can deliver the completed contact file at least two weeks before your action is due to go live. |
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