Migrating to Flexmail from another platform

Switching email platforms takes planning, but it is not as complex as it sounds when you know what to expect. This article walks you through what you can bring over from your current tool, what you will need to rebuild, how Flexmail's structure maps to concepts you already know, and what to do in your first days on the platform.

The most important thing to do before your first send is import your suppression list — the contacts who have previously unsubscribed or bounced. Everything else can be done in parallel. Skip that step and you risk generating immediate spam complaints, which will set your sender reputation back from day one.

Before you migrate

From your current platform, export the following before you cancel or lose access:

Your active contacts, with all custom fields, as a CSV. Include every data column you want to keep: name, company, language, any segmentation data.
Your suppression list: contacts who have unsubscribed, hard bounced, or been marked as spam. This is the single most important export. Do not skip it.
Your email templates, as HTML files or screenshots. You will need to recreate them in the Flexmail Email builder, and having the originals as a reference saves time.
Your automation logic: document your existing workflows — triggers, conditions, actions, timing — before you lose access. You will rebuild them in Flexmail, and having notes speeds the process up significantly.
Any integrations: list the tools currently connected to your email platform (CRM, e-commerce, webforms) and note what data flows between them. You will need to reconnect these.

Important If you lose access to your previous platform before exporting your suppression list, you may not be able to reconstruct it. Sending to contacts who previously unsubscribed is a GDPR violation and generates spam complaints that immediately damage your sender reputation. Prioritise this export above everything else.

What you can bring over

Your contact list

Any contact data you can export as a CSV can be imported into Flexmail. This includes email addresses, names, and any custom field data you have stored. During import, you map the columns in your CSV to fields in your Flexmail account — either the standard fields that exist by default or custom fields you create in advance.

Before importing, create the custom contact fields in Flexmail that match the data columns you are bringing over. See 'Contact fields' for how to set these up.

Your suppression list

Unsubscribers, hard bounces, and spam complainants can be imported directly into your Flexmail blacklist. Flexmail lets you import a CSV of addresses specifically to the blacklist, so they are immediately protected from future sends without going through the normal contact import flow.

Import these before you import your active contacts, and certainly before you send your first campaign. See 'The blacklist' for the import procedure.

Contact tags and groupings

If your current platform uses tags, groups, or custom fields to segment your audience, you can carry this data over as long as it is included in your CSV export. In Flexmail, you can store segmentation data in contact fields or as interests. Once the data is imported, you can use it to build segments.

What you need to rebuild

Email templates and messages

There is no direct import path for email templates from other platforms. HTML from another tool will often render differently in Flexmail's HTML editor, and many platforms use proprietary template formats that do not transfer cleanly.

The most reliable approach is to recreate your templates in the Flexmail Email builder using your existing designs as a visual reference. The builder uses a drag-and-drop block structure, so most standard layouts — header, body, image blocks, footer — can be rebuilt quickly. If you have a heavily customised HTML template, you can also use the HTML editor to paste and adapt your existing code directly.

Automations and workflows

Automation logic does not transfer between platforms. You will need to document your existing workflows and recreate them in Flexmail's Automation module. The triggers, conditions, and actions available in Flexmail may differ from what you are used to, so treat this as a rebuild rather than a migration.

Before setting automations live, test them thoroughly with internal addresses. See 'Workflows' in the help centre for how to set up and test workflows in Flexmail.

Segments

Segment definitions — the rules that determine who belongs to a group — cannot be imported. You will recreate your segments in Flexmail using the segment builder, applying conditions based on contact fields, interests, sources, campaign activity, or contact status.

If your current platform uses dynamic segments (automatically updated based on behaviour), Flexmail segments work the same way: they re-evaluate their membership each time you use them.

Opt-in forms and landing pages

Forms and landing pages need to be recreated in Flexmail. Any embed codes from your previous platform will stop working once you cancel that account. Recreate your signup forms using Flexmail's opt-in form builder and update the embed codes on your website.

Integrations

Connections to other tools — your CRM, e-commerce platform, website forms — need to be reconfigured to point to Flexmail. The specific steps depend on the tools involved. If a native integration exists in Flexmail, use that. For tools without a native integration, Flexmail's API or a connector platform like Zapier can be used.

Campaign history and reports

Historical campaign reports, open rates, click rates, and engagement data from your previous platform cannot be imported. This data stays with your old provider. If you need it for reference, export reports before cancelling. Flexmail starts building your performance history from your first send.

How Flexmail's structure maps to your current tool

The terminology and structure of email platforms differ significantly. The table below maps the most common concepts from tools like Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign to their Flexmail equivalents.

Campaigns and messages

On most platforms, a campaign is a single object that contains both the email content and the send settings. In Flexmail these are separate: you create a message (the email itself), then use it in a campaign, an automation, or a transactional flow. The same message can be reused across multiple sends, and you can give team members or agencies access to create messages without giving them access to send campaigns. See "Messages and campaigns: how they work together" for the full explanation.

Multiple lists or audiences

Platforms like Mailchimp organise contacts into separate lists or audiences. Each list is independent: a contact in one list is separate from a contact with the same email address in another list, even if they are the same person.

Flexmail uses a single contact database. Every contact exists once. Instead of managing multiple lists, you use segments to filter and target different groups of contacts for each campaign. If you previously managed five separate audiences, in Flexmail those become five segments within one database.

Support tip This is the single biggest structural difference for people migrating from multi-list platforms. Do not try to recreate your separate lists by importing each one as a fresh batch without deduplication — you will end up with duplicate contacts and billing problems. Import all your active contacts in one go (or in clearly managed batches) and use segments to replicate the targeting logic you had before.

Groups and subscriber preferences

Contact groups or subscriber preference categories from other platforms can be recreated as interests or as a multiple-choice contact field in Flexmail. Interests work well when you want contacts to self-select their preferences via a form. A contact field works better for internal categorisations that contacts do not manage themselves.

Automations and drip sequences

Automation workflows in other tools have direct equivalents in Flexmail's Automation module. Flexmail automations are built around triggers (a contact is added, a date is reached, a campaign is opened), conditions (contact field values, interests, segment membership), and actions (send a message, add an interest, wait a period). The logic is the same as in most automation-capable platforms; the interface and available actions differ.

Double opt-in

Flexmail is a double opt-in only platform. Every contact must confirm their subscription by clicking a link in a confirmation email before they are added as an active contact. This is not optional. If your previous platform allowed single opt-in and you have contacts who never went through a confirmation step, those contacts are unconfirmed in Flexmail's terms. They cannot receive campaigns until they confirm. See 'Why Flexmail only offers double opt-in' for the full explanation.

Transactional email

If your current platform handles both marketing and transactional email (order confirmations, password resets) through the same system, you will need to decide how to handle transactional messages in Flexmail. Flexmail keeps marketing and transactional email on separate infrastructure. Transactional email in Flexmail uses a separate API and requires its own setup. See 'Getting started with the transactional API' for details.

The migration process

Work through these steps in order. Steps 1 to 3 must be done before you send anything.

Export from your current platform: active contacts (CSV with all fields), suppression list (CSV of unsubscribers and hard bounces), templates (HTML or screenshots), automation documentation, and any reports you want to keep for reference.
Set up your Flexmail account: validate your sender address, set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication for your sending domain, and configure your bounce settings. See 'Getting started with Flexmail' and 'Sender validation and email authentication'.
Import your suppression list to the Flexmail blacklist. Do this before any contact import. See 'The blacklist'.
Create your custom contact fields in Flexmail to match the data columns in your contact CSV. See 'Contact fields'.
Import your active contacts. Map CSV columns to Flexmail contact fields during the import. See 'Add contacts'.
Recreate your segments. Use the contact data you imported to build segments that replicate your targeting logic. See 'About segments'.
Rebuild your email templates in the Email builder or HTML editor.
Recreate your opt-in forms and update embed codes on your website.
Rebuild your automations and test them before setting them live.
Reconnect your integrations.
Send your first campaign to a small, highly engaged segment. Do not send to your full list on day one. See 'Understanding sender reputation' for why this matters and how to warm up your sending correctly.

Common mistakes to avoid

Skipping the suppression list import

This is the most consequential mistake in any migration. Contacts who unsubscribed on your previous platform expect not to hear from you. Sending to them is both a GDPR violation and an immediate source of spam complaints. Import your suppression list before anything else.

Sending to your full list on day one

Your new Flexmail account is sending from an IP address with no history. ISPs treat this cautiously. Sending a large campaign immediately from a cold IP is one of the fastest ways to damage your sender reputation before you have built any positive signal. Start with a small, engaged segment and scale up over several weeks.

Trying to recreate multiple lists as separate imports

If you managed multiple separate audiences on your previous platform, the instinct is to recreate each one as a separate import. In Flexmail's single-database model, this leads to duplicate contacts and bloated active contact counts, which affects your billing tier. Import all active contacts once, with deduplication, and use segments to replicate your targeting.

Not testing automations before going live

Automation logic that worked on one platform does not automatically translate correctly to another. Test every workflow with internal email addresses before enabling it for real contacts. A misconfigured automation can send duplicate messages or fire in unintended sequences.

Cancelling your old account before you have everything

Once your old account is closed, access to your data is usually gone. Export everything you might need — contact data, suppression lists, templates, reports, automation documentation — before you cancel. It is much easier to export data you end up not needing than to lose data you needed.

Next steps

See 'Getting started with Flexmail' for the full account setup checklist.
See 'Sender validation and email authentication' to set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC before your first send.
See 'The blacklist' for how to import your suppression list.
See 'Understanding sender reputation' for how to approach your first sends without damaging your deliverability.
See 'Contact fields' and 'Adding contacts' to set up and import your contact data.
See 'Why Flexmail only offers double opt-in' if you are moving from a single opt-in platform.
See 'Messages and campaigns: how they work together' for an explanation of why messages and campaigns are separate objects in Flexmail.