Migrating to Mail Chimp - Best Practices? Any Remaining Issues?

[delcorsets]

I've had my eye on the thread(s) discussing some of the initial problems with the new Mail Chimp integration. I'm wondering if the bugs have all been squashed at this time?

I currently have my email list on a different service, but my intention is to switch to Mail Chimp once things are running smoothly with the new Miva MailChimp module. My biggest concern is that I do not want my current subscribers to be changed to a status of "This person is only eligible for transactional emails" as I saw happened to someone else on another thread. (https://www.miva.com/forums/forum/on...-all-customers)

I am starting with a blank slate on Mail Chimp, so I can do any steps in any order.. just wanting to make sure I use this situation to my advantage, and don't cause problems by doing things out of their suggested order..

What would be the best order to do things, and are there any particular settings that should be in place to make this transition happen correctly?

1 - Is it best to FIRST import my subscribers to Mail Chimp from my old email service before setting up the Miva Integration?

Or should I set up the Miva Integration with my MailChimp account first and then import the subscribers from my old service?

2 - Should I have different list segments created ahead of time... would it be beneficial to have a segment for my existing list subscribers and another segment for customers pushed in from Miva?

3 - Do I need to have any particular settings in place so that existing subscribers will not be changed/effected if those same subscriber email addresses are in my Miva customer list as well?


OR, are there still some unresolved issues that would perhaps make it a better option to wait until the next Miva update before switching to Mail Chimp?

Thanks in advance for any insights.

Psydde

[oliverands]

I was the one inquiring about a problem with the module, and that's been resolved now. It turns out it was an issue in my MailChimp account configuration that was causing new customers to be added as transactional only. (Currently, you'll need to not have any fields other than email address set to be required in MailChimp for Miva to successfully add new customers as subscribers.) The module is currently working fine for me.

I would recommend that you start by setting up your MailChimp account and importing subscribers from you current service. Once subscribers are in, you can import unsubscribed contacts too to maintain your history of those who have opted-out and to ensure that someone who unsubscribed in the past isn't re-subscribed when you do your Miva sync. There is a chance that if you import a large initial list, MailChimp will flag it for a list import review. That's fine. Do what you need to do to resolve the issue with MailChimp. Once your list is cleared, your MailChimp account is good to go.

Then you can set up the module in Miva. Before you do that, you might want to make sure you have product images set up in the Miva image management system so that they can be synced to MailChimp. (I wasn't using image management and had to go back to do a fully sync a second time to get product images to display in my MailChimp reports.) You should also decide if you want to use MailChimp's abandoned basket automation. (I opted to use the native Miva function because MailChimp limits you to using one of their templates and their content blocks for this automation. Using the Miva version provided me more control over design and content of the abandoned basket email, although I did lose the performance reporting that MailChimp provides.)

Once you configure and enable the module in Miva, you can run the full sync scheduled task. In my case, this took about an hour to complete. It will upload all customers in your store and their transaction history to MailChimp. For customers already on your MailChimp list (if you started by importing your current list to MailChimp), it will add transactions to their MailChimp record. For customers not on your list, it will add them as either subscribed or transactional only, depending on the option you have chosen for how Miva should handle customers. This initial sync also adds product images to MailChimp reports so you'll see those when you look at someone's transaction history.

I think that covers your first question, right?

Regarding your second question, you can't have Miva add customers to a segment. Segments are attributes of a list. You'll need to create a list and tie your Miva store to a list. Customers will then get added to your list, rather than to a segment. In MailChimp you can create segments of your list based on transaction history to identify customers within your list vs. your existing subscribers who have not purchased, but all Miva customers will get pushed up to a list, not a segment. (You can have more than one list in a MailChimp account, but the Miva module will only sync to one list which you select during setup.)

Regarding your third question, there shouldn't be any change to your customer status when you do your initial sync from Miva. If a customer in Miva is already on your list as a subscribed member, status will not change. Transaction history will be added, but they will stay as a subscribed member. Miva does make one change to list member status, but it's not terribly important. If your existing MailChimp list has an address that is unsubscribed and that person has purchased from your Miva store in the past, their status in MailChimp will get changed from "Unsubscribed Contact" to "Non-Subscribed Contact" to show they have purchased from you but have opted not to receive communication other than transactional information. I was a little confused when I did my initial sync because I saw a new group of a couple thousand contacts show up in my MailChimp list, but I eventually figured out that these were just members of my "Unsubscribed Contacts" group that had transactional history in Miva who were moved over to a new group that hadn't existed in my MailChimp list before.

[delcorsets]

oliverands Thank you so much for sharing your experience with the module and for such a thorough response to my questions. I'm very glad to hear that everything is now working for your store and that it should be a smooth transition.

Because of the closeness of the holidays I'll most likely wait until the beginning of the new year to make the switch, but I feel more confident in doing so now.

Thanks!

[elcucococo]

@oliverands Thank you! I also feel confident moving forward thanks to you sharing your experience!