Temporary files are completely separated from your global database. They are useful when sending sporadic campaigns to an external target, such as contacts gathered from a specific event, without having to import them permanently to your database.
When should you use temporary files in a campaign?
We always recommend to upload your contacts into the database (existing or new contacts). However, if you are uploading data for a very specific campaign and don’t want to erase / edit your own clients’ information, using the temporary file option can avoid overwriting your database.
While temporary files can be included or excluded in campaigns in the same way you would with a filter or list, they cannot be used in TARGET (the contacts cannot be part of filters).
Things to bear in mind before the upload:
- Please note that you must specify the unique key of your universe in your file for the import to work correctly.
- Your temporary files' columns can be used as variables to personalize your designs, as you would for your database contacts: if you wish to use variables in a design that is sent to both your database and a temporary file, make sure your file's columns have the same name as your database fields.
Temporary files and exclusion handling
When a temporary file is imported, the contacts are treated as unique and won't be present in the Splio database. This point can change the behavior of the platform when a temporary file is used as an inclusion in a campaign target.
When a temporary file is used in a campaign and without another population (such as a list, a filter or a group), the platform will treat the temporary file contacts as unique ones.
If you use the below populations as exclusion while a temporary file is used as an inclusion in your campaign, here’s what will happen:
- another temporary file as an exclusion: the common contacts between inclusion/exclusion will be excluded during the send out.
- a filter as an exclusion: the platform will apply the exclusion only if all the fields used in the filter are present within the temporary file
- a list or a group as exclusions: common contacts between inclusion/exclusion will not be excluded during the send out.