Each client holds its own lists, so an agency has as many exports as it has clients, and none of them came from the agency's own signup forms. Provenance is somebody else's answer.
Getting the addresses out of Campaign Monitor
Within the client, Lists and subscribers, choose the list, then Export.
Before onboarding a client's list, as a condition of accepting it. The sending reputation risk lands on the agency login rather than on the client who supplied the data.
What Campaign Monitor does with the file you bring back
The import rules decide what a re-import actually changes, which is worth knowing before you upload.
The short version
- Imports match on email within a list and update the subscriber.
- Previously bounced addresses are not re-added.
- Custom fields import alongside.
- Each client is billed separately, so verification costs are attributable per client too.
The mistake to avoid
Some addresses come back unresolved, and that is a fact about the receiving server rather than a gap in the check. We label those and never bill for them. What that means, and why roughly 28% of business addresses land there, is set out on our page about catch-all domains.
Five client lists, 12,000 rows, 7,400 people
Say you take on a restaurant group whose previous agency built five lists: a newsletter, an events list, a VIP list and two regional ones. Together they hold 12,000 active rows. Campaign Monitor's billing help says an address is counted once for each list it's active on, so the same diner on all five is five subscribers on that client's bill.
Merge the five exports and 7,400 unique addresses remain. Check those and suppose 610 are invalid and 350 are unknown. Rebuild the client as one list with segments for region and VIP status, import 6,440 confirmed addresses plus the 350 unknowns in a holding segment, and the billable count has fallen from 12,000 to 6,790. The verification itself fits a 10,000 pack at $25, and the 4,600 duplicate rows in your merged upload aren't billed by us.
The unsubscribe setting hiding on each list
Every Campaign Monitor list has its own unsubscribe setting with two values. One removes the person from all of that client's lists, and the other removes them from this list only. Inherited clients often have a mix, which means someone who left the newsletter may still be active on events. Open each list's settings and make them agree before you import anything.
Suppression is handled per client. Hard bounces, unsubscribes and most spam complaints land on the client's suppression list, and you can add addresses to it by hand, so paste in the invalid ones from your check and no future import can mail them.
If the client has a developer, ask one question. The subscriber API accepts a Resubscribe flag, and when it's set to true it re-adds people who were unsubscribed or suppressed, which is how a website form integration quietly undoes your cleanup.
Questions people ask
Should an agency verify every client list?
Every inherited list, certainly. You did not collect it, you cannot vouch for it, and the sending reputation risk lands on your account rather than the client's.
How should verification be billed to clients?
As a line item at cost or close to it. At our volume pricing a 50,000-address check is $89, which is small next to a campaign fee and easy to justify.
What if a client refuses verification?
Then you are deciding whether to put your sending reputation behind data you cannot inspect. A small test send is the minimum compromise worth accepting.