We know many of you like the capabilities of MailChimp and want to be able to use the HTML templates, open and click-through tracking. MatrixMaxx has now added the ability to integrate with MailChimp so you can take advantage of these features. This integration gives staff a 1-click easy solution to export list(s) in MatrixMaxx to associated lists in MailChimp.
You may choose to use MailChimp for some of your e-mails because as a general AMS, MatrixMaxx does not specialize in list emailing; it made sense to offer an easier way to export data out to a 3rd party who does specialize in this. Outside list services, like MailChimp, offer robust reporting, advanced HTML templates, and other advanced functionality.
We chose to integrate with MailChimp because MailChimp offers a robust, clean API that was easy for the MatrixMaxx team to use in development of Sync functionality. Also, MailChimp is already used and enjoyed by several MatrixMaxx clients for some of their marketing emails, so it seemed a good fit.
INSTRUCTIONS:
- Obtain a MailChimp account if you don’t already have one
- Account creation is free, and a certain amount of volume is free, but then MailChimp costs will apply
- There is no discount for MailChimp by linking to your MatrixMaxx AMS; it is simply a benefit provided by each system to making working together easier
- Create the new MailChimp list(s) that you want to populate with data from MatrixMaxx
- Link your instance of MatrixMaxx to your MailChimp account
- A staff member with SiteAdmin rights should go to Admin → Integrations to add the MailChimp API key
- If you are unsure of your MailChimp API key, log into your MailChimp account and you will be able to retrieve it there: Account → Extras → API keys https://us4.admin.mailchimp.com/account/api/ )
- Create or Identify a MatrixMaxx list that you want to export to a list in MailChimp
- This list does NOT need an associated email list in MailingMaxx, unless you actually want to be able to send email from either MatrixMaxx or MailChimp.
- From the list view page on the MatrixMaxx Intranet, go to the MailChimp section
- Click “Sync this list with MailChimp” to access the available lists in Mailchimp.
- Look in the dropdown for the MailChimp list you want to connect this MailingMaxx list to; any Mailchimp lists not already synched with a list in MatrixMaxx will show here
- Sync the two lists
- MatrixMaxx initially sent Primary Email (not alternate email), First Name, and Last Name from MatrixMaxx to MailChimp. As of the 1643 release in December 2016, we are sending the following fields for all clients (and can send custom fields by request).
- First Name
- Last Name
- Primary Email
- Title
- Membership Type (Individual Type trumps Organization Type, if an individual is both)
- Is on a Committee? (Y/N)
- Organization Name
- Organization Type
- Is Primary Contact (Y/N)
- Username
- Nickname
- [NOTE! if you do not see any of these fields in your Mailchimp, use the ‘Toggle Columns’ function when you are in a list to turn these columns on in your view.]
- [Internal note: MailChimp prefers an empty string and not a null value; see internal WR 115257]
- Send to your MailChimp list just as you normally would
- There is currently no connection between MatrixMaxx and MailChimp that allows us to stamp a communication that an email was sent to them from MailChimp
- However, you can manual do a communications stamp by using the bulk stamper (Communications Module → Bulk Communication Stamper)
- Keep your MailChimp list up-to-date by syncing it prior to usage
- Go to the MatrixMaxx list, in the Communications module
- Click “Update List” to make sure that the master MatrixMaxx list has pulled the most recent data for all of its criteria
- Then “Synch this list with MailChimp” to make sure that all the most recent adds/edits/changes are synched between the two systems [Available Add-on: An automated nightly sync of all lists paired to MailChimp. Contact Matrix for more details!]
- If an email address is no longer on the MatrixMaxx list, we DELETE that record from the MailChimp list
- If an email address has been UNSUBSCRIBED from the MailChimp list, we EXCLUDE it from the MailingMaxx list
- Any individuals who have the ‘do not send e-mails’ set to yes in their demographics will not be sent to Mailchimp UNLESS the list in MatrixMaxx has been set to ignore this flag.
- NOTE: as of fall 2019, we started seeing behavior in MailChimp that is not good for the association market and indicates to us they may be flagging individuals who are no longer on an API-updated list in a special way that impacts behavior. e.g., an individual was on a list in MatrixMaxx and had been sync’d successfully to Mailchimp. Then, this individual was inadvertently marked ‘do not email’ in Maxx (or their membership lapsed and they went off the list) and the list was rescynced to Mailchimp, thus removing the individual from the MailChimp list. When the issue was corrected, or the member renewed, and the Maxx list resynced to Mailchimp, the individual was NOT added back to the MailChimp list. BUT if the list was synced to a brand-new Mailchimp list, the individual was properly included. This indicated to us that some sort of flag had been set to that email in the original list noting that is was not to be included anymore. We are still investigating this behavior and how to work-around it. In the meantime, here is a work-around that one of the MatrixMaxx powerusers provided to us in summer 2020:
1) Create a new list (aka ‘audience’) in Mailchimp
2) Change the list connection in the MatrixMaxx list to the new Mailchimp list/audience and do a sync between this MatrixMaxx list and MailChimp … ALL of the individuals should properly sync over (unless they are set as do-not-email in some way)
3) Merge (aka Combine) the the new Mailchimp audience (list) into the old/original Mailchimp audience (list). Be sure that the original audience (list) is the ‘winner’ (the keeper. the one that remains), especially if you have any sort of workflow or triggers or campaigns connected to that original audience/list. TWO NOTEs: 1) This merge is hard to find … under Audience Overview you can Combine Audiences, and 2) The loser/newlist doesn’t disappear; it stays in place and becomes an empty audience
4) Do another sync to check all is well, and it should still be including all the individuals you expect!
Important: MatrixMaxx is the MASTER contact record BUT the MailChimp is the UNSUBSCRIBE master
- Any changes to the 3 fields that we send from MatrixMaxx to MailChimp — First Name, Last Name, Primary Email — that are made in MailChimp will be overwritten during the next synch
- Example: William logs into MailChimp and changes his name from William to Bill. In the next synch with MatrixMaxx, it will change back to William.
- Example: EMAIL
- However, because MailChimp must keep itself off blacklists, if a particular email/record gets unsubscribed from a list, it is IRREVERSIBLE. There is nothing you as a staff admin can do to get that email back onto that particular list.
- Example: John Smith (jsmith@organization.org) is on the All-Member-List. A staff person accidentally unsubscribes him in MailChimp. He’ll get tagged as ‘excluded from list’ in the next Sync, and there is no way to reverse this. If you re-add him in MatrixMaxx, he’ll get excluded again with the next sync. And there is no way in MailChimp for an admin to undo an ‘unsubscribe’
- Note that an UNSUBSCRIBE is different than a DELETE in MailChimp
- If an email gets UNSUBSCRIBED from a list in MailChimp, that puts a flag on that email forever.
- If an email record gets DELETED from a list in MailChimp, the next Sync from MatrixMaxx will restore that record.
IMPROVING DELIVERY WITH MAILCHIMP
MailChimp provides information about how the MailChimp system automatically authenticates email campaigns using DKIM, and they ensure that emails will pass SPF checks. As MailChimp writes, “It’s not possible to turn off MailChimp’s authentication. However, you can set up your own authentication instead, which provides some additional deliverability benefits.”
If you would like to take advantage of MailChimp’s custom domain authentication, which could potentially improve deliverability, continue reading.
The first step in the entire process is to obtain a MailChimp account. Once you have a MailChimp account established, login to your MailChimp administrative portal and follow this path: Account → Settings → Verified domains. On the ‘Verified Domains’ page you will find set-up instructions by following the link listed in the ‘Authentication’ bullet point, titled ‘View set-up instructions.’ Clicking the ‘View set-up instructions’ link will provide you with a pop-up dialog box containing technical information you need to supply to whomever controls your organization’s DNS.
As noted, MailChimp provides instructions to guide you or your network administrator through the custom domain authentication process, and also provides specific instructions for how to accomplish the task of editing DNS records with some of the popular domain providers (like Amazon Web Services, GoDaddy to name a few).
If your organization does not control your own DNS, contact Matrix Group or whomever controls your organization’s DNS to implement MailChimp’s custom domain authentication.
Be aware that MailChimp notes that some hosting providers DO NOT support MailChimp’s custom authentication standards.
To learn more about MailChimp and Email Authentication, read MailChimp’s Knowledge Base articles, found here:
- About Email Authentication: http://eepurl.com/b43Lpb
- Set Up Custom Domain Authentication: DKIM and SPF: http://eepurl.com/b43Lqb
To read more about how using a free domain (like aol.com, yahoo.com, or mac.com) may affect your delivery, read the following MailChimp Knowledge Base article:
- How Free Email Providers Affect Delivery: http://eepurl.com/b43LoD
Important MailChimp limitations and guidelines
- MailChimp’s list count doesn’t appear to be in real-time, based on our testing. Don’t be alarmed by this.
- Example: You have a list of 3 people, you remove one and resynch with MailChimp. When you go to MailChimp, the list count sometimes still says 3 records, but when you click to view the list it only actually has 2.
- MailChimp filters out ‘general’ email patterns
- If any individuals in your database have emails like webmaster@, info@, support@, help@, etc., then MailChimp will not allow these records to be imported.
- For more info, see: http://blog.mailchimp.com/role-addresses-are-not-people/
- In MailChimp, the email address is the ‘master’ not the individual name or iD
- Ramifications if an email is used more than once in MatrixMaxx; i.e., more than one individual in MatrixMaxx has this email:
- One of the first/last name combos on one of the records will be chosen to go into MailChimp
- e.g., if Jane Smith and John Smith both share the email jsmith@company.com, then it might be Jane Smith who ends up as first/last name.
- Ramifications if an individual’s email address is changed in MatrixMaxx
- What this means for integration purposes is that if an individual’s email address changes in MatrixMaxx, you are simply modifying their record. There is just one edited record at play.
- But in MailChimp, that original record (email1@domain.com) will be deleted (along with any notes or MailChimp-specific info) and it will be replaced with a new/clean record (email2@domain.com), even though in reality this is the same person with simply a new contact address.
- That original record is deleted. If you later change that person back to their first email address (e.g., email1@domain.com), it will create yet a new, 3rd record in MailChimp. It will not restore the original MailChimp record with any notes or history that may have been attached to it.
- Ramifications if an email is used more than once in MatrixMaxx; i.e., more than one individual in MatrixMaxx has this email:
- The MailChimp import will fail if too many emails on the list are tagged as ‘unsubscribe’
- The MailChimp import will fail if a null value, as opposed to an empty string, is passed during a list sync (Internal WR 115257).
- MailChimp is ‘free’ at low volumes, but starts to charge at certain levels of subscribers and certain amounts of email: http://kb.mailchimp.com/article/what-is-the-maximum-number-of-subscribers-i-can-have-in-a-list and http://mailchimp.com/pricing/
- Deleting a list is frowned upon. i.e., deleting a list and remaking it to ‘reset’ unsubscribes would be frowned upon
- This is one reason we are currently not allowing you to edit/change the connection between a list in MatrixMaxx and a list in MailChimp once the connection is made.
- From MailChimp: When you delete a list, the entire list history is lost (including unsubscribes, abuse complaints and bounces) as well as the historical subscriber activity (like opens and clicks). Since we treat each list independently of every other list in your account, lists aren’t able to share any data and there is no overall account (global) suppression list, which means that people who already asked to be removed from a list can be added back to a new list if data isn’t managed carefully. When that happens it tends to cause abuse complaints.
Intro Video
If you are just looking at this function for the first time, check out our introductory video on YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCrEdncZfAM&list=PLeuPOG106H6ck8PFBsjDSomVXzudcCrIE&index=2