Importing contacts, companies and leads from another CRM or spreadsheet: columns, consent, duplicates and opt-outs
Export from the old tool, fix the phone numbers, leave out opt-outs, match the template's columns, choose a consent basis that is true of the list, and import — with duplicates matched and a monday.com board importable directly.
Contacts, companies and leads move into Linkubit from a spreadsheet: export from the old CRM or tool as CSV or Excel, match the columns to the import template, choose the consent basis that is true of the list, and import. People already in Linkubit are matched rather than duplicated, any extra column becomes one of your own fields, and a monday.com board can be imported straight from its connection. Leave out anyone who opted out, and import only people you have a right to message.
What you can import
| Import | Columns it knows | Anything else |
|---|---|---|
| Contacts | Name, phone, email, company, lifecycle stage, score, country | Kept as one of your own fields on the contact |
| Companies | Name, domain or website, industry, employees, country, region | Must be a field on your company schema |
| Leads | The person (name, phone, email, company), qualification class, owner, source | Must be a field on your qualification schema |
Step by step
- Export from the old tool as CSV or Excel — most tools have it under contacts or settings.
- Clean the phone numbers. Every number needs its country code — 91 for India. A number imported without one is stored as typed, will not match the person when they write to you, and cannot be messaged.
- Remove anyone who opted out on the old tool, and keep that list somewhere you will look.
- Download the template from the import screen and match your column headings to it. Other columns can stay; they become your own fields.
- Choose the consent basis: existing customers, people who explicitly opted in, or legitimate interest. It is recorded on every contact, and it decides who campaigns may reach.
- Import. The result says how many were created, how many matched people already here, and which rows were skipped and why.
One list, one consent basis
If some of your list opted in and some did not, import them as two files with two bases. A campaign reads the basis; a list imported as "opted in" when half of it did not is how a number gets its quality rating dropped.
Duplicates
A row whose phone or email already belongs to someone here is matched to that contact rather than creating a second one. Importing the same file twice therefore does no harm. Inside the sheet, clean obvious duplicates first — two rows for one person with different numbers are two contacts until something shows they are one.
From monday.com or Zoho CRM
Connect the CRM in Settings › CRMs and map the board or module; the map's Import brings its records in as contacts with the same consent choice, matching and company linking as a spreadsheet, and links each one to its record so later syncs update rather than duplicate. The monday guide and the Zoho CRM guide cover the map — and you can keep using the CRM afterwards, in step with Linkubit.
Limits
- The Free plan holds 150 contacts; an import beyond that is refused with the reason. Paid plans have no contact cap.
- Companies and leads are checked whole before anything is written — an unknown column or an owner nobody in the workspace has is reported up front, so you never end up with half a sheet imported.
- History does not come with a contact. Notes and old messages are not imported; keep the export.
Can I import contacts from Excel?
Yes — .xlsx or CSV, from the import screen, with a downloadable template showing every column.
Can I import my WhatsApp contacts from my phone?
Only people you have a right to message. Saved phone contacts are not consent; import customers as existing customers and people who opted in as opted in, and leave the rest out.
Will importing contacts send them anything?
No. An import only creates records. Nothing is sent until you start a campaign, and a campaign only reaches people whose consent allows it.
Read next
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