Importing Leads from Spreadsheets, PDFs, and Images

Badge-scan vendors, past events, partner lists, and exhibitor directories all end up as files. Lead Import brings any of them into Conference Hero cleanly: it maps your columns, splits names, and skips duplicates so you do not end up with the same person three times.

Click Lead Import on the Leads page toolbar, on your Home page, or in step 5 of the conference wizard. Campaign Hero workspaces use the same importer from Lists. See lead lists.

What happens next depends on the file you drop in:

• A spreadsheet (.csv or .xlsx) goes to column mapping. You check how each column imports, and AI can help if you want it to.
• PDFs, Word docs, and images (exhibitor directories, speaker bios, sponsor lists, scans, screenshots) are read by AI, which pulls out every person for you to review.

Spreadsheets: map the columns

Step 1: Upload

Drop in your file. It's parsed in your browser, which handles the usual mess: comma, semicolon, or tab separators, and quoted fields with commas inside them. Large files are chunked automatically, so a file of several thousand rows imports without you babysitting it.

Step 2: Map columns

Match your spreadsheet columns to lead fields: first name, last name, company, title, email, phone, website, industry, company size, location, LinkedIn, and notes. The importer guesses from your header row, so most mappings are already correct when you arrive.

Headers that are unusual or not in English? Click Map with AI. AI reads your headers and a few sample rows and suggests a field for every column. It's optional, and you can change any column afterwards.

If your file has a single full name column, choose "Full name (split)" and it's split into first and last name for you.

Columns can also map to your workspace custom fields (under "Custom fields" in each dropdown), and a column whose header matches a field's name maps itself. Admins can create a new custom field right there with + New custom field. Manage them in Settings -> Custom Fields; see custom fields.

Step 3: Options and results

Before importing, set:

• Conference - which event these leads belong to, or none.
• What is this file? - choose "Badge-scan export" to mark them as badge scans, which applies the same scoring bonus as a live badge scan. Otherwise they are tagged as a CSV import.
• Scoring - every imported lead is scored against the conference's Ideal Customer Profile right after the import. Map columns like industry, company size, and location to give it more to go on.

Before you import, a line under the options says what will happen to every row: how many new leads are created, how many existing leads are updated or kept as they are, and how many rows are skipped. The Import button says the same thing, for example Import 12 new leads. If every row is a lead you already have and you chose to keep the existing ones, the button says Nothing to import, unless you picked a conference or list to add them to. While it runs, the progress line counts the new leads imported, not every row in the file.

When the import finishes, you get a results summary: how many leads were created, how many were linked to existing leads, and how many rows were skipped, with the reason for each skip.

PDFs, Word docs, and images: AI reads them

When your source isn't a clean spreadsheet, drop it in anyway. You can add up to 5 files (4 MB in total), pick the conference they belong to (optional), and add context such as "only extract speakers from pages 3-5". Click Find leads with AI. It extracts everyone it can find, with no fixed cap; the number of leads is driven by what's in the document.

Nothing is saved until you review the list. What you get beyond plain extraction:

• Priorities and reasons. Each lead gets a priority, a one-line reason they're worth meeting, and a suggested opener. People at your conference target accounts are boosted to High automatically.
• Duplicates flagged before you import. Leads already in your workspace, or repeated across your files, are labeled. Already-in-workspace leads are unchecked by default.
• A confidence signal on each lead, and invalid emails marked, so you know where to look.
• Owners as you go. Reassign owners per lead or all at once, so a booth team can split the list.
• Opt-in enrichment. Works the same as for spreadsheets, see Enrich imported leads below.

Leads read from documents are scored against the conference's profile like any other import.

For a clean spreadsheet, the column-mapping path above is faster and doesn't use AI credits, so a single .csv or .xlsx file always goes there.

Duplicates: review and choose which to keep

Before anything is saved, Lead Import checks your file against the leads already in your workspace, on both paths:

• Same email - always the same person, since a workspace has one lead per email.
• Same full name - often the same person, but could be a namesake.

When it finds any, you see a warning with how many of each. Click Review duplicates to step through them. Each one shows two cards side by side, your import and the existing lead, with differences highlighted. Click the card you want to keep. The one you picked is outlined and marked Keeping this, and the next duplicate opens.

• Keep imported (the "In your import" card) - the existing lead is updated with the details from your import. Blank cells don't erase anything, and its notes, activity, and meetings stay.
• Keep existing (the "Already in workspace" card) - the existing lead stays as it is and is added to this import's conference or list. Nothing new is created. It shows up right away on that conference's Leads tab and under the conference filter on the Leads page.
• Keep both (the button under the cards, name matches only) - they're different people, so this row becomes a new lead.

Use Apply to all to set every duplicate at once. The option you pick stays highlighted with a checkmark, so you can see it took effect, then click Done. Once you close the review with Done, the warning turns into a green Duplicates reviewed note with your choices and a Review again button in case you want to change anything. If new duplicates show up (for example after you change the column mapping), the warning comes back for them. Reviewing is optional. If you skip it, email matches keep the existing lead and name matches are imported as new leads. The results summary tells you how many existing leads were updated or linked.

Enrich imported leads

Imports never look people up on their own, even if automatic lookups are on in Settings. Before you import, tick Enrich to find missing emails, titles and LinkedIn profiles for the new leads.

The box shows how many new leads can be looked up and how many credits you have left. A lead can be looked up when it has a first and last name, a company or an email, and is still missing an email or LinkedIn. Leads that already exist in your workspace aren't counted. Only a match uses a credit, and lookups stop when your credits run out.

Lookups run in the background after the import, so emails and titles fill in over the next few minutes. The results screen tells you how many leads were queued.

Data check: emails and missing names

Before a spreadsheet imports, the Data check under the column mapping shows what will happen to each row:

• Cleaned up automatically. Common formatting mess is fixed for you: a "mailto:" prefix, "Name ", quotes, stray spaces, trailing commas, capital letters, or several addresses in one cell (the first valid one is kept).
• Emails that aren't valid, such as "ana@acme" or "ben at globex.com", are listed with their row number. Choose Skip these rows (the default) or Import them without the email.
• Rows with no name are skipped.
• Emails repeated in the file become one lead.

The same rules run again on the server, and the results summary reports every skipped row with its reason. On the PDF and image path, an email that isn't valid is marked in the review list, and the person is imported without it unless you fix it.

Confirm you can contact these people

Every import asks you to confirm the contacts were collected lawfully and your company has a legitimate reason to contact them. For example, you met them at an event, they shared their details with your team, or they're existing customers or partners. Lists bought or scraped without people's permission don't qualify. Import stays disabled until you tick the box.

Conference Hero keeps a record of each confirmation:

• Audit log. Admins see one entry per import in Settings -> Audit Log: who imported, the date and time, the file, how many leads were created, updated, linked or skipped, and that the confirmation was ticked.
• On each lead. Leads created by the import show Import consent next to Source in the lead drawer, with who confirmed it and when.

Limits

Spreadsheets import up to 5,000 rows per file, sent in chunks of 100 rows automatically. For a bigger file, split it and import in batches. Imports only use enrichment credits when you tick Enrich. AI reads up to 5 files and 4 MB at a time, and returns up to 300 people per run.

Tips for a clean import

• Put clear labels in your header row so the auto-mapping guesses correctly and you have less to fix.
• Make sure the email column holds one valid address per row. Email is what identifies a duplicate for certain, and what follow-up depends on.
• Try a new file with a small sample first, so you can spot mapping mistakes before importing everything.
• Remove the password first. A password-protected Excel file, Word doc or PDF can't be read, and the import tells you so. For Excel, open it, go to File -> Info -> Protect Workbook -> Encrypt with Password, clear the password, save, and upload it again (or save it as a CSV). For a PDF, open it with the password and save or print it as a new PDF without one. A PDF that only blocks printing or copying still imports fine.
• Re-export from your badge vendor rather than editing their file by hand; hand-edited spreadsheets are where stray commas and broken rows come from.

Related

• Capture methods - live capture at the booth.
• How lead scoring works - how imported leads are scored, and re-scored when you import more details.
• HubSpot integration - keep imported leads in sync with your CRM.