Mailchimp: grow your list and email the right customers
Your site knows who signed up, who ordered, and who has not been back in a while. Mailchimp is where you turn that into emails: a welcome series, a "we miss you" nudge, a new-menu announcement. Connect the two, and your list builds and sorts itself.
What the connection does
- Every signup lands in your audience. Email signup forms on your site, and new customer accounts if you choose, add the address to your Mailchimp audience. Every signup goes through the site's spam checks first. See Spam checks: keep fake signups and bounced emails out.
- Contacts get tags. Tags tell you who is who: a subscriber, a customer, where they signed up, how many orders they have placed.
- Your site keeps Mailchimp in step. When a customer opts out of marketing or changes their email, the site can update Mailchimp to match.
Getting connected
Connecting your Mailchimp account is a one-time setup we do with you. We link your account and the audience your contacts go into.
To see the setup, go to Manage Site > Integrations and click Manage MailChimp. The Configuration section shows whether Mailchimp is Enabled on this site, and the account details we set up.
The Tag Library
The Tag Library lists every tag your site can put on a Mailchimp contact, with its EFT Key, its current name in Mailchimp (Mailchimp Tag) and its Mailchimp ID. Your site starts with tags such as:
- Eat•Fresh Subscriber: signed up for your emails.
- Eat•Fresh Customer: placed an order.
- Eat•Fresh Sub-From--Home-Banner and Eat•Fresh Sub-From--Menu-Closed: where they signed up, on the home page banner or on the "orders closed" page.
- Eat•Fresh 1 Orders, Eat•Fresh 2 Orders and so on: how many orders a customer has placed, up to the number your site counts to.
To add your own, click Add New Tag, type a Tag Name such as "VIP", and click Add Tag. The site makes the tag's key from the name. If Mailchimp already has a tag with that name, the button reads Link Existing Tag, and the site links that tag instead of making a second one.
Keep the library in step with Mailchimp:
- Rename changes the tag's name here and in Mailchimp. Automations that use the tag keep working.
- Change Tag points the tag at another tag in your Mailchimp audience. Automations that use it apply the tag you pick from then on. Contacts who already have the previous tag keep it, and nothing changes in Mailchimp.
- Remove takes the tag out of the library. The tag and its contacts stay in Mailchimp. A tag that an automation uses stays in the library until you change that automation.
When a tag is renamed in Mailchimp, the library shows Mailchimp's name, and Use Mailchimp's name saves it here too. A tag that was deleted in Mailchimp shows Not found in Mailchimp; use Change Tag to pick another. Adding, renaming, changing and removing tags needs the Manager or Owner role.
Putting tags to work: Automations
Tags do nothing until something applies them. That is the job of Manage Site > Automations: "when this happens on my site, do that in Mailchimp". For each trigger you can:
- Apply tags, or remove them.
- Sync a list member, so the contact's details in Mailchimp are current.
- Unsubscribe an email, for example the old address when a customer changes it.
See Automations: when this happens, do that.
Recipes that work
- Welcome series. First order placed → add "Eat•Fresh Customer". In Mailchimp, a Customer Journey starts when that tag is added.
- Win-back. No order placed for a few weeks → add "Lapsed". Send a "we miss you" email with a discount code.
- Milestones. Fifth order → add "Regular". Thank them, or invite them to your referral program.
- Menu-closed signups. People who signed up on the "orders closed" page want to know when you reopen. Email that tag when the next menu goes live.
- Clean list. Marketing opt-out → unsubscribe in Mailchimp, so nobody gets an email they asked not to get.
No Mailchimp?
You can still collect signups on your site and export them, and pull first-time customers from a report. See How to send emails to new customers (with or without Mailchimp).
Keywords: email marketing, newsletter, email list
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