Move from ActiveCampaign
Export your ActiveCampaign contacts and tags, bring unsubscribed and bounced contacts across, copy your email HTML, and rebuild your automations.
On this page›
This page takes you from ActiveCampaign to a working IGSendMail account. Contacts, unsubscribes and bounces take about 20 minutes. Templates and automations take longer, depending on how many you have.
Stuck on a step?
Reply to the email this guide came in, or write to us from the contact page. We answer migration questions by email, usually within a working day.
Using ActiveCampaign as a CRM too?
IGSendMail is for email marketing. Deals, pipelines and notes don't come across. Export them separately (Deals, the gear icon, Export) and keep them in a CRM before you close the account.
What comes across, and what doesn't#
| From ActiveCampaign | How it moves | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Contacts, custom fields and tags | Export a CSV, import it into a list | Minutes |
| Unsubscribed and bounced contacts | Filter by status, export, import into your Blacklist | Minutes |
| Email designs | Copy the HTML from the designer's code view, paste into a new template | A few minutes each |
| Automations | Share links only work between ActiveCampaign accounts; rebuild each one | 20 to 60 minutes each |
| Deals, notes, lead scores | Not part of email marketing | Export separately if you need them |
Step 1: Set up your sending domain#
Go to Sending domains, add the domain you send from, and publish the DNS records it shows you. Authenticate your domain walks through each record.
ActiveCampaign had you add DKIM records (usually CNAMEs such as acdkim1._domainkey) and possibly an SPF record. Leave them until ActiveCampaign has sent its last email, then remove them. If you add to an existing SPF record, keep it as one record.
Step 2: Export your contacts#
Start the export
In ActiveCampaign, go to Contacts, click the … menu at the top right, and choose Export.
Choose the fields
Tick the fields you want: at least email, first name and last name, plus Tags and any custom fields you use for personalization or segments. Give the export a plain name without symbols such as ! or #, which turn the file into a text file.
Download it
The export runs in the background. Download it from Contacts > Exports. The link lasts 7 days, and you can re-run an expired export with Retry.
Each user only sees the exports they ran themselves, so download it from the same login.
Step 3: Import your contacts#
Create the list and its fields
Go to Lists and create a list. Add a field under ListsFields for each custom field you exported, and a text field called Tags.
Import and map
Import the file and map each column to its field. Tags arrive in one column; map it to your Tags field and you can build segments on it, for example "Tags contains customer". Import contacts covers the mapping screen and the import summary.
Plan size
The Free plan holds 2,500 contacts. Every paid plan has unlimited contacts, so if your list is bigger than that, choose a paid plan before you import.
Step 4: Bring your unsubscribes and bounces across#
In ActiveCampaign a contact can be unsubscribed from one list and still active on another, so export by status rather than trusting a single list.
- Go to Contacts and use Advanced Search (or a segment) for contacts who are unsubscribed from any list. Export the results.
- Do the same for contacts who are bounced (hard) from any list.
- Check Contacts > List Exclusions too. If you've added addresses there, copy them into a file; there's no export button for it.
Go to Blacklist and import each file. The Blacklist import reads the email address from the first column, so move the email column to the front first if it isn't there already.
Don't skip this. Emailing someone who unsubscribed from you on ActiveCampaign earns spam complaints and may break the law. Blacklisted addresses are never emailed, from any list. Blacklist and suppression explains how it works.
Step 5: Move your email designs#
ActiveCampaign has no template file export, and its template share links only work in other ActiveCampaign accounts. To keep a design:
- Open the email in ActiveCampaign's designer and open its code view.
- Copy all of the HTML.
- In IGSendMail, create a new template, choose your own HTML, and paste it in.
If the code view isn't available for a design, rebuild it in the email builder. Most newsletters are a header, a few content blocks and a footer, which takes about 15 minutes.
Then replace ActiveCampaign's merge tags. %FIRSTNAME%, %UNSUBSCRIBELINK% and %WEBCOPY% won't work here; insert tags with the editor's personalization control, as described in Personalization tags. Check the footer has your unsubscribe link and postal address.
Step 6: Rebuild your automations#
ActiveCampaign automations can be shared only with other ActiveCampaign accounts, so each one is rebuilt by hand. Before you start, open each automation and write down (or screenshot):
- What starts it: subscribing to a list, a tag being added, a date.
- Each email and the wait before it. Copy each email's HTML while you're there.
- Any conditions or branches, and what each branch does.
Then build it under Automations. Build a workflow covers the editor, Triggers and timing covers list, tag and date triggers, and Welcome series is a worked example. Steps that update deals or lead scores have no equivalent here; leave them out.
Switch each automation on here only when you switch the ActiveCampaign one off, so nobody gets the same email twice.
Step 7: Before your first send#
- Verify the list. Old lists always contain dead addresses. Run email verification before your first campaign.
- Start with your most engaged people. Your domain is new to our servers, so send to recent openers first and build up over a week or two. Warm up a new domain has a schedule.
- Replace your signup forms with an IGSendMail form, or new subscribers will keep landing in ActiveCampaign.
- Then close ActiveCampaign, once your deals and notes are exported and your first IGSendMail campaign has gone out.
Last updated September 25, 2026