Help · Settings

Importing again

You can import from Klaviyo again as often as you like while you are still sending from both. A second press is not a second migration: it imports what has changed.

Importing again

Press Import everything a second time and it is not a second migration: it imports what has changed since last time, and then your segments, templates and automations again. A design you deleted here does not come back unless it changes in Klaviyo.

You have imported before, so this imports what has changed since then, and then your segments, your templates, your images and your automations.

A done row for segments, templates or automations also offers Import again on its own, for running just that one. Templates and automations each run a whole step at once: one press imports every design you have, or every automation, and you never get part of a step. Segments are the exception: that button asks you which ones first, and there is a section below about the tick-list it opens. A run of one of these is not the migration, and it does not reset the "since last time" clock on your people.

A second press imports only what has changed. Templates and automations resume from where they left off — so pressing Import again on Templates imports the designs Klaviyo has touched since the first run, and nothing else. What that means in practice: if you delete an imported design here, pressing the button again does not import it a second time. The only way to ask for it again is to change it in Klaviyo, so that Klaviyo's own record of it moves.

A segments press made from the tick-list is the one that does not work this way. It looks at every segment in your account, not only the ones Klaviyo has touched since last time, because the list you ticked against was all of them.

A template is imported with its images. Every image in a design is fetched and stored in your store's own images and media, so it no longer loads from Klaviyo's servers. An image we could not fetch is named on that run's report, so you know which design to open.

Every imported segment arrives with the label "Imported", and wears a quiet Imported badge on your segments index, so you can tell at a glance whose rule it is. The label is yours from then on — rename it, add your own beside it, or take it off — and the Label filter still finds the lot of them at once. And if a segment, template or automation arrives with a name something of yours already has, it keeps its own name with (imported) on the end rather than overwriting anything.

Sign-up forms are not imported at all. Rebuild them under Content → Forms.

Your own fields on a profile keep your own names. Any field holding a single value — a date, a note, a balance, a check result — arrives spelled exactly the way you spelled it, and you can build a segment on it like any other property. A field holding a list or a structure rather than one value is not imported, because a rule has nothing to match against it; that run's report names it, so you know which one to split up if you need it.

A handful of fields are the other exception, and they are the ones the import answers for itself: the email address, the name, the phone number, the Klaviyo profile id, and everything about consent. Those come from Klaviyo's own record of them, so if you also kept a field of your own called something like "Email" or "Subscription Status", the import does not write a second, older answer beside the real one. The report names those too, one line each.

A field of yours that means one of those is read as one of those. It is not only the obvious spellings: a field called "Mobile" is read as the phone number, "Customer ID" as the profile id, and "Opt In Date" as the consent date — so none of the three is written a second time as a field you can build a rule on. If one of them is holding something of your own that you need, rename it in Klaviyo before you import, and it is imported as an ordinary field.

Every profile the import creates remembers that it came from Klaviyo. It carries a property called imported_from, with the value klaviyo, and you can build a segment on it like any other property. Somebody your store already knew — from an order, your site, or a form — keeps whatever they had, because the property says where a profile started and they did not start here. Importing changes later never rewrites it.

Choosing which segments to import

Pressing Import again on the segments row does not start anything. It opens a box holding your Klaviyo segment names, a tickbox beside each one, and nothing happens in your store until you press Import at the bottom of it. The same box opens from Import on the segments row if you skipped that step during the migration.

Some boxes are already unticked when it opens — the ones that look like housekeeping rather than an audience: a do-not-send list, a bot or spam-trap list, a segment that only describes people you never email. Each of those says in a few words why it starts unticked, and every one of them is yours to tick again.

We unticked the ones that look like housekeeping your store no longer needs. Change anything you like.

A long account is easier to go through with Find a segment, the box above the names: type part of a name and only the matching segments are shown. Your ticks are kept while a name is out of view, and Tick all and Untick all change only the segments you can see. Import still does the whole list.

One press then does the whole list, both ways, and the box says so above the button:

A ticked segment you already have is updated to match the rule in your old tool, replacing any edits you made to that rule here.

An unticked segment you already have is deleted here. Only the segment goes — the people in it stay in your audience. This cannot be undone.

So a tick on something you do not have yet imports it. A tick on something you already have leaves that same segment where it is, under the name and the labels it has here, and brings only its rule up to date. An untick on something you do not have does nothing at all. And a segment you deleted here and then tick again is imported afresh — you ticked that name on a screen that tells you what a tick does.

Only what is on that screen is touched. If your account holds more segments than we could read in one go, the box says so, and the ones it never reached are neither imported nor deleted:

There were more segments than we could read in one go. Only the ones shown here are imported or deleted — nothing else in your account is touched.

Two segments with the same rule are imported once. Accounts collect copies of the same audience under different names, and there is no sense in having two of them here. One segment is made, and the report names the one the others joined — "This is the same rule as “Buyers”, so it was not made twice." The name it gives you is the name that segment carries here today, so you can go and find it.

The report says what the press did, on its Segments row: how many are new here, how many were already here and were updated to match, how many were the same rule as another segment, how many you left unticked were deleted here, and how many were left exactly as they are. A number that is zero is not drawn, so an ordinary import's row reads the way it always did.

Import everything does not ask. It is the migration, and it imports every segment in your account the way it always has, deleting nothing — the asking belongs to the segments row's own button, which is where choosing is the point.

Your segments index after an import

Every imported segment is shown on your segments index. Each one wears a quiet Imported mark, and the label filter offers the same word if you want to see only those. A segment that imported whole is an ordinary row in the table, ready to use.

A segment missing part of its rule is set apart, above the table. Some Klaviyo rules have no equivalent here, and a segment with one of those is imported without it and cannot send until you finish it. All of them are gathered under Imported segments that need a look, each with the rule that could not be imported and a Finish the rule link that opens it in the builder. Finish them when you are ready, or press Leave as is to move one into the table; either way it cannot send until its rule is finished. And everywhere you choose an audience — picking who a campaign goes to, for instance — every segment you have is listed, and one that still needs a look is shown but cannot be chosen.

A count that takes too long shows a dash, and usually fills itself in. Some imported rules are heavy enough that counting the people in them does not finish in the time the screen waits. That segment shows a dash instead of a number, and the app tries it again the next day with three times as long, which is enough for almost all of them.

Staying caught up while you run both

While you are still sending from Klaviyo, it keeps moving. Import everything is what catches your store up: after the first time, it imports what has changed since then. Nothing is kept in sync — it runs once, when you press it.

Press it whenever you like. It is cheap, it is safe to run twice, and the app reminds you when it has been more than a day.

There is a gap, and it only runs one way. Between two runs, somebody can unsubscribe in Klaviyo and this app will go on reading them as subscribed until you press the button again. So during a parallel run, press it before you send — not after.

And nothing travels the other way at all. Klaviyo will not learn about unsubscribes from your store, so export your do-not-mail file and upload it to Klaviyo whenever you import changes.

Your do-not-mail file lives under Audience → Exports. It is the same two files every export gives you, and the second one is everyone you must not email. Uploading it to Klaviyo is the only way an opt-out recorded here reaches the other tool, and it is on you to do it while both are live. This is the price of refusing to write to your Klaviyo account, and we think it is the right trade: a tool that wrote to Klaviyo on your behalf is a tool you can never be sure about.