Prepare campaigns for import

3 min

Note

This is a paid service and not self-serve or included with onboarding. Contact your Customer Success or Onboarding Engagement Manager for assistance.

You can import your existing campaigns into Optimizely Content Marketing Platform (CMP) for a holistic view of your past, present, and future marketing plans. If you import historical articles, having previous campaigns in the system lets you structure and organize the articles for your organization's platform users.

Prepare the campaign import spreadsheet

The CMP campaign structure is a parent-child structure of campaigns, using a parent campaign to represent an overarching theme and child campaigns supporting initiatives. See the screenshot below for an example:

Start your spreadsheet with the parent campaigns to import your campaigns properly, then assign child campaigns to parent campaigns.

CMP provides a campaign spreadsheet where you list your campaigns. Metadata accompanies your campaigns in the columns listed below.

Parent Campaign Name – The name of the parent campaign. Only use this column if the row is for a child campaign.

Format – Alphanumeric. Symbols accepted.

Sample value – Events 2025

Campaign Name – The name of your campaign to display in CMP.

Format – Alphanumeric. Symbols accepted.

Sample value – Event | Sirius Decisions Summit (Austin)

Campaign Color – The hex code of the color you want to assign to the campaign.

Format – Hex code (selected from a drop-down list).

Sample value – #ec2e3b

Description – The short description of your campaign that is displayed in the tile view.

Format – Alphanumeric. Symbols accepted.

Sample value – Platinum sponsor for Sirius Decisions 2025 Summit in Austin

Start Date – The start date of your campaign. Leave empty if ongoing.

Format – MM/DD/YYYY

Sample value – 12/01/2024

End Date – The end date of your campaign. Leave empty if there is not one.

Format – MM/DD/YYYY

Sample value – 09/20/2025

Journey Stage – A standard field. You get to decide the values. Ensure values do not contain commas.

Format – Alphanumeric. Symbols accepted except full stop (.), forward slash (/), or commas (,).

Sample value – Middle of Funnel

Content Pillar – A standard field. You get to decide the values. Ensure values do not contain commas (which are separators).

Format – Alphanumeric. Symbols accepted except full stop (.), forward slash (/), or commas (,). The values can be comma-separated.

Sample value – Content Marketing, Integrated Marketing

Content Format – A standard field. You get to decide the values. Ensure values do not contain commas (which are separators).

Format – Alphanumeric. Symbols accepted except full stop (.), forward slash (/), or commas (,). The values can be comma-separated.

Sample value – Article, Graphics

Target Audience – A standard field. You get to decide the values. Ensure values do not contain commas (which are separators).

Format – Alphanumeric. Symbols accepted except full stop (.), forward slash (/), or commas (,). The values can be comma-separated.

Sample value – Marketing Operations, CMO

YourField1 – Placeholder for fields you create, such as Campaign Type. Ensure values do not contain commas (which are separators). Your implementation partner will fill this in with your taxonomy.

Format – Alphanumeric. Symbols accepted except full stop (.), forward slash (/), or commas (,). The values can be comma-separated.

Sample value – Sponsored Event

After you complete your spreadsheet, notify your CMP onboarding team to begin importing. Depending on the volume of campaigns, this may take up to four weeks to complete.

Assign campaign colors

In the calendar, you can assign a color to each campaign to classify campaign themes or types (such as Sponsored Event or Product Launch). To do so, select a color (hex code or the displayed color) from the drop-down list in the spreadsheet.