Why an uploaded recipient list produces fewer recipients – GiveCampus University

For school administrators using GiveCampus Outreach. Controls can differ between the classic email editor and the New email editor.

A recipient count lower than the number of rows in your CSV is usually expected rather than a failure. Rows without a usable contact value are dropped while the file loads, and the remaining audience is then deduplicated, so one uploaded row does not always become one recipient. Compare the recipient list and its exclusion reasons against your file before uploading again; re-uploading the same file repeats the same result. Unsubscribes are only one of several causes and usually explain a small part of the difference.

Which rows never become recipients

In your file	What happens
No value in the contact column	The row is skipped while loading. The contact column is `email_address` for an email outreach and `phone_number` for a text. Values in the other columns do not keep the row.
A row the CSV parser cannot read	Skipped as malformed, without stopping the rest of the file.
Every column blank	Removed before the file is parsed.
Required headers missing or renamed	The upload is rejected. Email uses `external_id`, `first_name`, `last_name`, `email_address`. Text uses `external_id`, `first_name`, `last_name`, `phone_number`.
File larger than 120 MB	Rejected, with a message asking you to remove empty columns or split the list.

How the audience is deduplicated

For an email outreach, recipients are grouped by normalized email address, so one address produces one recipient within that outreach. Rows that differ only in letter case or spacing collapse together.

For a text outreach, numbers are formatted before grouping, so repeated or differently formatted copies of one number also collapse. Additional copies are kept on the list as excluded recipients with the reason Duplicate phone number rather than being discarded silently.

Recipients that appear but are excluded

An excluded recipient stays visible on the list with a reason, and no message is attempted for it. Reasons generated while the audience is built include:

Invalid email address, for an address that fails format validation.
No matched constituent, for a text source row that matched no constituent record.
Constituent has no phone on file, for a matched constituent with no usable number.
Duplicate phone number, as described above.

Opt-outs and exclusion rules add further excluded recipients. Because excluded recipients remain on the list, the gap between your row count and the included count is larger than the gap between your row count and the total recipient count. Check which of the two numbers you are comparing.

What to check before uploading again

Open the outreach's recipient list and compare the included and excluded counts with the row count in your file.
Review the exclusion reasons shown for that outreach; the recipient export reports status but not detailed reasons.
In the file, look for blank contact cells, addresses or numbers that are duplicates once normalized, and header spelling.
Correct the file first, then upload it again.

A count difference alone does not establish that recipients were lost. Confirm the reasons on the list before asking for a resend.