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Mailchimp is one of the more popular mass email marketing tools and, while there are other options on the market, such as MailerLite and CampaignMonitor, most of the time, the tool that we are asked to integrate with Salesforce is Mailchimp. Because of this, we are introducing a two-part series on Mailchimp integrations with Salesforce. In this first post, we will go over why clients should consider integrating Mailchimp with Salesforce and we’ll also cover a significant change that has recently occurred with the free integration tool that Mailchimp used to offer. The second post in this series will be a comparison piece on the two main integration solutions (now) available for Mailchimp. The two products we will feature are Mailchimp for Salesforce by Beaufort 12, and SyncApps by Cazoomi. Both products are quite similar in what they do, but we’ll go into more detail about their capabilities in the next post. Our aim here is to help you be a little more informed about what is possible when it comes to integrating Salesforce and Mailchimp.
Why Should Clients Integrate Mailchimp with Salesforce?
In our opinion, there are four key reasons to integrate Salesforce and Mailchimp:
Contact Synchronisation Between the Products
When integrating Salesforce and Mailchimp, arguably the top and most important benefit is synchronisation of Contacts between the products. In our second post, we’ll detail this a little more, but with both Beaufort 12 and SyncApps offering this feature, you get the ability to synchronise and map contact data between Salesforce and Mailchimp in both directions in near real-time. This synchronisation allows you to ensure your data is clean and up-to-date before sending out email campaigns.
Synchronisation of Tags and Segments
One of the other major things you can do with the integrations on the market is sync your Mailchimp tags. For example, if you have tags based on your Contacts’ interests (such as volunteering), you can use Salesforce to set those tags in Mailchimp. How this works differs slightly depending on the integration tool, but in essence, what will happen is that on a set cadence, the integration will update which tags are listed against your Contacts. One of the key limitations in this area is the removal of tags. We will cover this more in the next post, but it is worth noting that tags may not be able to be removed in a sync.
Advanced Reporting and Analytics
Because the integration is tied to Salesforce, you can use Salesforce’s comprehensive reporting framework to report on stakeholder engagement in your email campaigns. This is obviously limited to data retrieved from Mailchimp and stored in Salesforce. For example, if you want to report on how many people are linked to which tag, you can build a report that lists that.
GDPR Compliance
You can also use Salesforce to ensure that the information you have for a Contact is fully compliant with GDPR. You can keep this in sync with Mailchimp by syncing a Contact’s opt-in status from Salesforce. As a result, you can use Salesforce to control a Contact’s opt-in status for Mailchimp. You can enhance this process by linking it to an online form to control the registration process and to set up a preference centre.
An Update on Mailchimp for Salesforce
Recently, we came across some news relating to the Mailchimp for Salesforce app provided by Mailchimp. As of the end of May 2024, the free app built by Mailchimp has been de-listed publicly from the AppExchange. Mailchimp’s stance is that their recommended integration tool going forward is Beaufort 12’s offering. As a result, Beaufort’s app has been renamed to Mailchimp for Salesforce (it was previously named Email for Salesforce Made Easy) and is listed on the AppExchange as THE OFFICIAL MAILCHIMP INTEGRATION FOR SALESFORCE.
What does this mean going forward? To answer this question, we must consider clients currently using the free app and those seeking to integrate Mailchimp with Salesforce for the first time.
To help answer this question, here is Mailchimp’s official position:
“All new integration users will need to use the Beaufort 12 official Mailchimp for Salesforce app. Clients currently using or who have already downloaded Mailchimp for Salesforce (not Beaufort 12) can continue to use the integration.”
New Integrations Between Salesforce and Mailchimp
If you don’t already have a dedicated integration set up between Mailchimp and Salesforce, our opinion is that you should consider choosing either Beaufort 12 or Cazoomi. We’ll detail the cost differences in the next post; however, Beaufort 12 is considerably cheaper than Cazoomi until you reach approximately 50,000 Contacts being synced between Mailchimp and Salesforce. Both vendors offer a Nonprofit discount, which again we’ll detail more in part two.
Currently Existing Instances of the Free Mailchimp for Salesforce App
For clients currently using the free Mailchimp for Salesforce app, our opinion is that you should consider whether you want to continue using the app. The reason for this is that you open yourself to the risk of the app being fully retired and, therefore, unsupported. The change to Mailchimp’s preferred solution has not been formally announced by Mailchimp at the time of writing, so it is entirely possible that the app will stop being supported by Mailchimp with little or even no notice. Therefore, it is worth considering whether you still want to integrate Mailchimp and Salesforce and, therefore, would you have it in your budget to migrate to a paid solution such as Beaufort or Cazoomi?
Other Third-Party Options
Alongside Beaufort 12 and SyncApps’ offerings, there are a host of other third-party options. For the purposes of this post, we won’t go into detail about these options. However, we will provide a brief list for your awareness and information.
Here are some possible third-party options for integration between Salesforce and Mailchimp:
There are a few other solutions available on Salesforce’s AppExchange as well, but we can’t cover them all in this series; we will just be covering the main three that we use.
If you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch with us.
