How do I use Mailchimp with NeonCRM?

Why use the integration with Mailchimp

Mailchimp is a third-party service that allows you to design great-looking email newsletters and share them on social networks. Establish this integration so that you can, with the push of a button, send Neon audiences to Mailchimp. You'll also see Mailchimp stats in Neon. Sweet!

Mailchimp offers three pricing plans (including a free option) based upon the number of emails plan to send and the number of people that you plan to send to. Any Mailchimp fees are in addition to your NeonCRM fees, but use of the integration is free of charge. If you do not already have a Mailchimp account, click here to create one.

Some things to keep in mind:

1. The Mailchimp integration does not replace NeonCRM's Email Campaigns. With the integration, you can use NeonCRM and/or Mailchimp to send these emails.
2. The Mailchimp integration is strictly for campaign (mass) emails. System Emails must still be sent via NeonCRM.

How to establish the integration

Easy: generate an API Key, paste the key into Neon, and test to make sure it's working.

1. Generate an API Key in Mailchimp.

   1. Log in to your Mailchimp account. In the upper-right corner, click on your name, then Account.
      

   2. Click on your name to find Account Settings. In the Extras tab in the navigation menu, find the link labeled API Keys.
      

   3. Under Your API keys, click Create A Key. A key will be generated in the API Key column. Copy the API Key

2. Paste the Key into NeonCRM.

   1. In NeonCRM, go to Settings Icon > Global Settings> Third-Party Integrations > Mailchimp.
      

3. Click Test Mailchimp Connection to ensure the connection has been set up correctly.

If you see "Everything's Chimpy" you have set the foundation to begin using the two systems together.

How to use the systems together for the first time

Let's say you have one email list in Mailchimp now. I recommend you collect the recipients in NeonCRM and write/send the email in Mailchimp. Do the following.

• Export your list from Mailchimp.
• Archive the emails from the list. Do not delete the emails or the list itself. This is very important.
• Create a Neon email audience. 
• Upload the list to the Neon Email Audience . 
• How will future list subscribers get on this audience?
  1. Search your database for the people who should be on here. This will dynamically update.
  2. If you're going to allow new people to sign up too, create a distribution list and push it to the email audience. 
• Click Send Audience to Mailchimp. 
• Open up Mailchimp. See the new recipients in the old list.
• Create & send the email from Mailchimp. 
• See the results in the MailChimp Email Statistics Widget and on the recipients' accounts. 
  

How to use the systems together subsequently

If you successfully set up your NeonCRM email audiences to automatically contain new subscribers, sending your next email to this mode is easy. 

1. In Mailchimp, archive all emails from the list you want to send to (you don't have to do anything to the list itself.)
2. In Neon, navigate to the relevant email audience. Click Send Audience to Mailchimp. This will add back any archived emails that still fit your NeonCRM audience criteria, and add any new emails that have come into your database since the last push.
3. Open up Mailchimp. Create & send the email from Mailchimp.

Advanced Scenarios

Why is keeping the Mailchimp list so important? What's up with unsubscribes?

Mailchimp and NEON track unsubscribes separately. For Mailchimp, a constituent unsubscribes from a specific list, while in Neon, a constituent opts out from all campaign emails. Due to this difference in logic, Mailchimp unsubscribes are not passed back or marked on NeonCRM accounts, however, they will not receive any subsequent Mailchimp emails from that unsubscribed Mailchimp list.

When you resend an email audience from Neon to Mailchimp, use its corresponding Mailchimp list each time. Any new email addresses in your email audience will be added, Mailchimp will automatically de-duplicate your list to ensure that duplicates do not occur, and anyone who has unsubscribed from that MailChimp list will remain unsubscribed.

If someone opts out of a list in Mailchimp and you believe they would not like to receive any further blasts from you (even from within Neon), you can download Mailchimp's unsubscribes list and update those accounts in Neon as unsubscribed. Here is a guide with steps for updating accounts using the import manager.

Report-only Lists

Need more information passed to Mailchimp? Use a report-only list. 

All three Audience Types (Standard Email Audience, Distribution List, and Report-Only List) can be sent to Mailchimp. However, if you want to send any data beyond simple contact information (Name, Prefix, Suffix, Email), you will need to select Report-Only List.

Report-Only Lists are slightly more complex, but give you a great deal of power for including constituent data as tokens in your email campaigns. Refer to our guides on Audiences for more information.

Large Lists

Encountering errors? System(s) timing out? Your list may be too long.

From our experience, do not push email audiences larger than 5,000 rows to Mailchimp. Larger audiences will take a long time to transfer between systems, and may encounter errors.

If you need to send a large list, try breaking it into smaller parts for transfer.

Map Email Data Columns

When pushing a list to Mailchimp, after clicking Next, you will be presented with a page where you must map your fields. Mapping is how you tell NeonCRM to arrange your data on the Mailchimp list.

Use the drop-down menus to select the destinations for your data. If you are moving a field that exists in NeonCRM, but does not exist in Mailchimp, you can select Create this field in Mailchimp. Doing this creates a new field in your Mailchimp list and adds in the data you have selected.

Q. If I archive all emails from a Mailchimp List before I update it with a push from Neon, will it delete the email communication history and statistics for the previous Neon accounts?

A. No. Email statistics stored in NeonCRM that were pushed in by Mailchimp will not change.  Those stats are "email campaign" related, not audience related.

Q. I do not see a Mailchimp Email that I sent to a constituent in that person's Mailchimp Email Communication History. Why is that?

A. Mailchimp Statistics typically take a day to appear in Neon. After that period has elapsed, however, all emails sent from Mailchimp to Neon constituents should appear in their Sent Emails > External Emails. 

Q. I see a Mailchimp Campaign Email that I sent to a constituent in that person's Mailchimp Email Communication History, but I don't see any opens or clicks even though they appear in the reports I pull from Mailchimp. Why is that?

A. Mailchimp Statistics will only be pulled into Neon for the first 3 days after the campaign was sent. If a recipient opens or clicks on your Mailchimp email after 3 days, it will not be recorded in Neon. For a complete view of all activity related to your campaign, run the reports available from your Mailchimp account.

Q. Can I use segmented Mailchimp lists with NeonCRM?

A. NeonCRM does not support segmented Mailchimp lists.