Hi,

I've set up a Mailchimp paid account and linked from ECT.

Mailchimp seems to set up more contact lists as a starting point so that means the display in the ECT Admin is a bit different to the documentation.

The display includes a list called "Ecommerce Plus Database" but that isn't actually a list in Mailchimp, so it is perhaps a little confusing? It reflects the total count of confirmed contacts in the ECT d/b so it could be created as a list in Mailchimp and then synched across.

I used Mailchimp to create a new list from that side, refreshed the ECT Admin to show the new (empty) list, and did the Sync All against it.

That worked for a while and then gave Error 500. Mailchimp showed that the list had gained 500 contacts.

Trying again from ECT and another 500 went into Mailchimp and another Error 500.
...and again, to give a total of 1500 visible in Mailchimp, but after that it failed to give any/many more.

I had almost 4,000 contacts to bring across so I gave up on the Sync feature and, instead, dumped the contact list from ECT as CSV, reformatted that to suit Mailchimp (mainly separating first & last names) and imported it into Mailchimp.

Then all OK.

Using Mailchimp subsequently may raise some issues: People could unsubscribe from Mailchimp but that is not communicated back to ECT. And vice versa. If we have 'new signups' still set against the original "Ecommerce Plus Database" list, will that cause any 'unsubscribes' to be lost/reinstated if we do a Sync All over to Mailchimp at a later date? (I suspect that will not work for contact lists with >500 members due to the timeout(?) error above so it may be academic for us.) FYI The red highlight is showing on that same "Ecommerce Plus Database" List, and the dropdown menu only has "Add new signups..." available, even though it already has the red highlight in the display? I'm wondering if that "Ecommerce Plus Database" list should really be separated out to represent the ECT side of it and to avoid it being shown amongst the Mailchimp lists???

Thanks,

Steve.

Pragmasis Limited
https://SecurityForBikes.com

Hi Steve

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That worked for a while and then gave Error 500. Mailchimp showed that the list had gained 500 contacts.

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Did you want me to take a look at this? If so, can we set up a test on your test site?

quote:

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The display includes a list called "Ecommerce Plus Database" but that isn't actually a list in Mailchimp

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This is just the contents of the ECT database though so you can make that a MailChimp list by just syncing the entire database.

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People could unsubscribe from Mailchimp but that is not communicated back to ECT.

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Is there a way in MailChimp to export the email addresses of those who have unsubscribed?

Vince

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Hi Vince,

Thanks.

Re the Error 500/timeout issue, I'm a bit flat-out atm so perhaps we can come back to that later, please. (I've got all the contacts across via CSV so it's not urgent for me any more, but perhaps for others?)

Re the Mailchimp Unsubscribers, yes, within Mailchimp you can select Audience-Current Audience (or select a different one)-Export audience (on the right, above the list of contacts. *Not* the Manage Audience dropdown Export options, yet. Then, wait for the export to complete (they e-mail when it's available) and it should then show in Manage Audience-Export History, where you can download a Zip file of all members within that audience. The Zip file includes a file of the Unsubscribers, as CSV. That CSV has lots of stuff but the first columns are: Email Address, First Name, Last Name. Perhaps you can do a CSV import of unsubscribers and key onto the first column, only, to flush those out of the ECT side?

The Mailchimp export contains 4 files: the 'Cleaned' contacts (?), the 'Nonsubscribed' contacts, the 'Subscribed' contacts, as well as the unsubscribed ones. I don't know enough about Mailchimp to explain any more about how they all relate :-(
I don't know if the 'Nonsubscribed' ones would effectively be another category of those that should be purged from the ECT side?

Parallel to all that flushing back unsub's into ECT, I don't know if there is a reliable way of only adding new contacts that have been added to ECT, into a preexisting and pre-used list in Mailchimp, _without_ reviving people that have unsubscribed from the Mailchimp side??? This is obviously critical as we'll get hammered if we e-mail someone that has unsubscribed themselves! I would hope that Mailchimp can deal with that by only overwriting contacts that have not unsub'd themselves, but I'd be rather wary of finding out that it's not that smart...

Thanks,

Steve.

Pragmasis Limited
https://SecurityForBikes.com