When should you use temporary files in a campaign?
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.
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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.
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.
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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.