Hi Lukas,
I agree with you about keeping workarounds to a minimum. Since Braze and Klaviyo don’t have a supported integration where you could sync your lists automatically, your best option is to migrate your profiles via CSV upload, as you’ve already started doing.
To help clarify the different aspects of your CSV prep for you… In the case of being able to send someone an email, the $consent field is the backend data point that tracks someone’s optin status. So it’s like two sides to the same coin.
IF someone is unsuppressed, THEN they’re opted-in AND subscribed - it’s basically just one status in Klaviyo. I say this with the assumption that you have one master list to store all your emails. The exception would be if you have multiple lists in Klaviyo that require distinct optin, but I would not recommend this unless you have a scenario like one of my clients where they have a Master list of consumers as their default customer-base, then a secondary list for Dealers of their products.
IF they’re suppressed, THEN they’ve unsubscribed OR their email bounced too many times and Klaviyo suppressed the profile automatically to protect the integrity of your sender reputation. Anyone in the existing CSV you’re trying to migrate with a prior tracked status of “unsubscribed” should be removed from the CSV that you’re importing if you want to check the Klaviyo import box that says “all of these people have consented to receive emails” - that will automatically mark each of those profiles as unsuppressed and opted-in subscribers. If you want to preserve the data of your list for analysis, then you could upload a separate CSV of any unsubscribed email into the “suppressed profiles” section of Klaviyo. Suppressed profiles have no impact on your billing, since you’re not sending them emails.
The only instance where you would need the workaround I describe is IF you already have a Welcome Series flow that’s live and sending emails, based on the trigger of someone subscribing to your master list. If you don’t have that running yet, then just import your CSV as-is.
Side note for later: That concept of a list_merging or list_cleaning property will still be applicable for any following bulk import to your master list. For example, if you do a giveaway and have a CSV of new emails to import into the list - they shouldn’t get your default Welcome Series. Instead, they should be sent a specific Welcome Series flow that reminds them of how they found your brand and the giveaway they entered.
My perspective is that the double-optin status isn’t high priority information to maintain as part of this migration. It’s primarily a list cleaning tool, which helped you confirm the quality of each optin when you built that initial list.
If you want to simplify your migration, then disable the double optin setting on your list while you import the CSV of migrated profiles into your master list. Once you’ve imported the initial CSV, then you could turn the double optin setting back on, if you still feel strongly about using it going forward.
Hopefully this helps you better understand how all the pieces work together!
Warmly,
Gabrielle