> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.hamla.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Import your customers
> Most businesses arrive with a list already. Getting it in — and getting the two things right that decide whether it is worth anything — takes about five minutes.
You almost certainly have your customers somewhere already: an export from your old tool, a booking system, a spreadsheet a receptionist has been keeping, the contacts on a phone.
Hand it to Hamla and it becomes something you can segment, message and measure.
## What you need
* The list, in any common shape — CSV, a spreadsheet, TSV, JSON, or exported phone contacts
* An honest answer to one question: **do these people expect to hear from you?**
## Do it
Attach the file, or paste the rows straight into the conversation.
> Import this list of customers — here's the file
Hamla reads the columns, works out which is a name and which is a phone, tidies the data — phone numbers into international format, countries filled in, first and last names split, duplicates within the file merged — and then **shows you what it found and stops**.
Nothing is written until you say go. You see the proposed mapping, a cleaning report, and a few sample rows. If a column landed in the wrong place, say so and it re-maps.
> Yes, import them
**Up to 25,000 rows per import**, and you can run more than one. If a file is larger than that, split it — the two halves merge into the same contacts.
## The part that decides everything: consent
This is the one thing to get right, because getting it wrong is silent.
Hamla will ask whether you have permission to market to these people. **If you do not say yes, they import as leads you can see but cannot message** — and every campaign you point at them will reach nobody, with no error and no warning.
So answer it honestly:
> Yes — these are customers who bought from us and opted in at checkout
or
> They signed a paper form at the counter, so yes for email but not for WhatsApp
Consent is per channel. Email, SMS and WhatsApp are recorded separately, because permission usually is.
If a list is already in Hamla without consent, you can record it afterwards in **Contacts → Contacts Management → Consent**.
**Hamla will not assume it.** Importing a list is not evidence of permission, and Hamla is deliberately built not to infer it — because the cost of guessing wrong lands on your domain reputation and your customers' patience, not on Hamla's.
## Bring the history too, not just the people
This is the step most businesses skip, and it is the one that makes everything else work.
A customer list tells Hamla **who** people are. A sales, booking or invoice export tells it **what they did** — with a date and an amount on every line.
> Import their order history as well
Without it, Hamla knows you have 4,000 contacts and nothing else. With it, on day one:
* "Customers who spent over 1000" is a real audience, not a guess
* Win-back timing works, because Hamla knows when each person last bought
* Revenue and value comparisons in your reports have something to compare
The same applies whatever "a transaction" means for you.
| You run | The second file to import |
| --------------- | ------------------------------- |
| An online store | Your order export |
| A clinic | Past appointments, with the fee |
| A restaurant | Past bookings or covers |
| A SaaS | Subscription payments |
| An agency | Invoices |
| **Yours** | |
## Two things that will not happen
**Importing history does not send anything.** A year of past orders will not fire a year of messages. Imported history goes down a deliberately quiet lane — no campaign triggers, no audience-entry blast. It fills in the past without pretending it is the present.
**Re-importing the same export is safe.** Each row is matched by what it says — who, what, when, how much — not by where it sits in the file. Export again next month with the new orders on top and only the new rows land. Your lifetime revenue does not double.
## After it lands
> How many contacts do I have now, and how many can I actually message?
That second half is the one to check. If the answer is "4,000 contacts, 0 messageable", consent was not recorded — fix that before building anything.
Then:
> Segment my customers who spent over 1000 and haven't ordered in 90 days
## Related
The first thing to do with a list once it is in.
The campaign an imported history unlocks immediately.
Keeping it current after the one-off import.
Turning an imported segment into a Meta audience.