Short answer: Don't import a list of emails into Dynamics 365 as contacts or leads. Create a separate, email-enabled table in Dynamics 365 just for the list. This keeps the addresses fully isolated from your real CRM data while still letting you email them through a tool like Touchdown, a marketing automation platform for Dynamics 365 that can send to more than just contacts and leads.
If you run your business on Dynamics 365 CRM, you've probably got a list like this sitting somewhere outside your CRM. Mine was in MailChimp. 5,200 email addresses, costing $156 a month, roughly $1,900 a year, just to sit there. I wanted it moved into Dynamics 365 so I could stop paying for it and still have the ability to email it whenever I needed to.
I brought the problem to at P2 Automation, who manages the he built for the CRM Software Blog on the Dynamics 365 platform.
I told Steve what I had and what I wanted to do with it. The idea to build a standalone table, and the whole approach came from him. I just handed him the mess and asked what to do with it. As it says on his website, “You have enough to do. We’ll handle your CRM.”
Here's how he solved it, and why the obvious approach (just importing the list as contacts) would have been the wrong one.
Why You Shouldn't Import an Email List as Contacts into Dynamics 365 CRM
A contact record in Dynamics 365 is built around structure. A name. Usually a company. Often a title. My MailChimp list didn't have that. A lot of the addresses went back over a decade, plenty had no first or last name attached, and almost none had an organization tied to them. Dumping a list like that into Contacts creates two problems.
It pollutes your real CRM data. Once those 5,200 addresses are sitting in Contacts, they're mixed in with your actual customers and prospects. That raises the risk of the import interfering with existing records, or someone on your team accidentally including old, unqualified addresses in a campaign meant for real customers.
It breaks personalization. Without first names, you either send a broken "Dear ," email or you don't personalize at all. Neither is a good look.
The Right Way: Build a Standalone Table in Dynamics 365 CRM
Instead of forcing the list into the contact structure, the better move is to create a new table in Dynamics 365 built specifically for that list. Not a contact, not a lead, just a clean table with an email field and whatever custom fields are actually useful. Call it something like "Newsletter List" or "CRM Software Blog Subscribers," whatever fits your use case.
Once that table is created, it gets marked as email enabled. That's the step that lets my Touchdown system send to it directly, the same way it sends to a list of contacts or leads.
Why Touchdown Makes This Possible with Dynamics 365
This only works because of how Touchdown handles email sending inside Dynamics 365. Some marketing tools, like ClickDimensions, are built to send campaigns to contacts or leads only. If your data isn't already structured as one of those two record types, it won’t work.
Touchdown is built differently. It can send to essentially any table in your CRM, which means a list like this doesn't need to be forced into a shape it was never meant to have. The list stays completely separate from your real CRM data. Zero risk of it mixing with an actual customer record, and adding more addresses later is as simple as running another import into that same table.
Touchdown is also a CRM Software Blog member, so if you want to see what else it can do for Dynamics 365 marketing automation, you can check out their profile page.
Why I Let P2 Automation Handle the Import to Dynamics 365
This is exactly what the from P2 Automation is built for. I didn't want to be the one experimenting inside my production CRM with a 5,200-record import, and I didn't have to be. I described the problem, Steve asked how I actually planned to use the list, and that one question is what led to the standalone table instead of a messier, riskier import straight into Contacts. That's the real value here: someone who thinks through the problem before touching anything in your CRM, instead of just executing whatever you asked for.
Quick FAQ – Importing Lists into Dynamics 365
Can I import an email list into Dynamics 365 without making everyone a contact or lead?
Yes. Create a new, email-enabled table specifically for that list and import into it instead of Contacts or Leads.
Will this work with any email tool?
Not automatically. You need a marketing automation tool that can email tables beyond contacts and leads. Touchdown supports this.
Does this list need an organization or company attached?
No. That's the whole point of using a standalone table instead of Contacts, which typically expects a company relationship.
What if I want to add more addresses later?
Just run another import into the same table. No restructuring needed.
If you're paying a monthly fee to store an old email list you're not using efficiently, this same approach works whether it's a MailChimp export, an old event attendee list, or a batch of addresses pulled from a tool like ZoomInfo. You don't need to force it into your CRM's existing structure. You just need a clean, dedicated place to put it.
If you want help setting this up in your own Dynamics 365 environment, are worth a look.
