Mailchimp Salesforce Integration Guide

Emails offer a direct form of communication that allows business owners to maintain a constant channel or point of contact with customers. Therefore, email marketing performs an integral role in the digital marketing of a business, and continues to be the most preferred form of communication with maximum reach.

Mailchimp is a web-based all-in-one marketing platform that helps business owners initiate and manage communication with targeted audiences. The Mailchimp approach focuses on healthy contact management, aesthetically designed campaigns, and powerful data analysis.

App integration and syncing enable companies to maximize productivity and profit reducing costs. Salesforce is a cloud application that enables a business to manage its contacts and sales leads while Mailchimp helps design, send, and keep track of email marketing campaigns.

Salesforce CRM (with its subscriber lists) integrates with Mailchimp to manage Salesforce activities and sync with campaigns, tags, etc. As a result:

There are Data Sync and field mapping options that allow you to link and share data collected via email campaigns with the Salesforce team.
Lead Creation and Customer Retention with the help of customized information sharing to attract and retain customers.
Creation of segments that helps group your clients according to specific criteria.
Less tedious updates thus increasing productivity and reducing overall human data error costs.
Better tracking across systems and it helps view and manage Mailchimp campaign activities and subscriber lists from Salesforce, and import Salesforce contacts to Mailchimp.
Efficient Management by way of using Mailchimp subscribers to generate Salesforce leads, build segments in the Mailchimp list, share data and streamline communications, all to better engage the customer base.
Mailchimp Salesforce integration will help users by adding tracking options to your campaign builder that will not only provide solutions but also provide the ability to keep track of subscribers/prospects.

Options for Integrating Mailchimp with Salesforce

Mailchimp Salesforce integration can be carried out by either using the app way or the API way. While the former requires a simple installation and a little configuration of the app in Salesforce, it is not as flexible as the latter. Since the API method needs a lot of custom codes for seamless integration, let us now look at understanding to do it via the Salesforce App Exchange.

Mailchimp Integration with Salesforce App Exchange

Install and configure the app in Salesforce.
Once this is done, add Mailchimp sections to the lead/contact layouts. (Setup > Leads/Contacts > Fields > Layouts).
Go to the Visual Force page in the layouts option. Now drag and drop the “Membership Contact” section to the layout, previously created by the Mailchimp app you just installed.
You need to add the MC subscriber field from the fields section in the Layout Designer (for professional and Group edition users).
You also have the provision to alter the fields available in the search layout. This can also be done by navigating to Setup > Leads/Contacts > Fields > Search Layouts.
Move the Mailchimp subscription field to the selected fields section.
Click save at the end of each step.

Configurations in Mailchimp

Sign up with your Mailchimp account.
Open “Accounts Panel” from Mailchimp.
Click on Integrations > Salesforce.
On clicking Connect, the Salesforce authentication login page will pop up.
The next step will be logging in, which will automatically redirect you to the integration page. If the screen shows you a success message then you are confirmed for a successful integration or else the above steps need to be repeated.

Import Contacts from Salesforce

After the successful integration of the two solutions, we now have to import contacts and leads into Mailchimp.

Go to the List page in Mailchimp.
Create a new list and then select Import in the drop-down next to the list created.
Click on the integrated services.
You will be provided with a list of services that you can integrate with Mailchimp; click to select Salesforce.
The next step involves mapping the fields.
Import Fields setup and select the SFDC fields that need to be added.
Click on Import and Map Salesforce fields with Mailchimp list fields. Click on review and then continue the import.
Repeat the entire process for a new list of different contacts if need be.

Integrating a Mailchimp account with Salesforce will lend you an added edge of tracking options and provide the connected solutions to keep track of the subscribers or prospects.

However, do note that it is feasible only when tracking is turned on in Member Activity or Campaign Stats under Salesforce tracking options. This is an additional advantage of all the other campaign information being synced with Salesforce in real-time. Any campaign member activity can be attached as a note and managed via the Notes and attachment section in Salesforce. However, you may most probably have to export and import new subscribers in Salesforce if the list is built-in Mailchimp.

Third-Party Integrations Such as Zapier and Automate.io

Each of the aforementioned tools are additional integration tools with a stamp of approval by Salesforce that allow users to create custom integrations by choosing from an exhaustive list of triggers and actions. For example, if you want to add a new contact to your Salesforce campaign automatically whenever a new subscriber is received in Mailchimp, you would need custom integration by choosing a trigger for that particular action.

Automate.io allows businesses to connect different cloud / SaaS applications and automate workflows across marketing, sales, and other internal processes. Additionally, it allows businesses to create simple one-to-one integrations to sync data or complex workflows across multiple applications. It helps create workflow bots over a hundred cloud applications such as Salesforce, Google Apps, Trello, Hubspot, Quickbooks, Shopify, and many more.

Zapier helps automate existing web services that are in use daily. It is a blueprint for a task you want to do repeatedly. This means when there is something new in A, B needs to be executed. The first part is the trigger and the second part is the action. One can pick fields from the trigger service and what must go to the action service. Zapier regularly checks your trigger for new data and automatically performs your action for you.

Before You Begin the Mailchimp Integration Process

Ensure that the following points are understood before the app is downloaded from the App exchange to get the ball rolling on Mailchimp Salesforce integration.

Mailchimp account will need Manager access or higher to complete the integration.
Salesforce integration with Mailchimp requires an Enterprise, Unlimited, Force.com, Developer, Performance, or Professional edition of Salesforce. Those using the Professional edition should ask their Salesforce Account Executive to enable API access before installing the Salesforce integration.
You can only connect your Salesforce account with a single Mailchimp account.
To ensure a successful connection, it is recommended to complete installation all at once.

Step 1: Install the Salesforce Integration

You may follow these guided steps given below to begin implementing the Salesforce integration. Begin with the installation of the integration app in your Salesforce account.

Navigate to the Salesforce integration’s AppExchange listing.
Click “Get it now.”
Click “Login to the AppExchange.”
Click “Install in Production.”
On the “Confirm Installation Details” page, check the box next to “I have read and agree to the terms and conditions” and click “Confirm and Install.”
Choose “Install for All Users” and click Install.
In the “Approve Third-Party Access” pop-up modal, check the box next to “Yes,” grant access to these third-party web sites, and click Continue.

After the installation process is complete, you will be taken to the Install Wizard where you will then authenticate your Mailchimp account.

Authenticate Mailchimp

The following steps are necessary to authenticate the Mailchimp account:

Log into your Salesforce account.
Click the App Launcher drop-down menu and choose Mailchimp for Salesforce.
On the Lists tab, click the Sync Setting drop-down menu to choose an option for each connected audience. The “Keep Activity” settings sync subscriber activity such as campaign opens, clicks, and sends. The Sync Subscribers Only setting syncs audience and group data for subscribers.
Click the MC Setup tab.
Click Login.
In the pop-up window, click OK.
Input your Mailchimp username and password and click Log In.

Lead creation

This step is required to allow Mailchimp to create leads in Salesforce from a list of your Mailchimp subscribers not already in your Salesforce contacts or leads. If this feature needs to be enabled to create new Leads in Salesforce, then follow these steps:

Check the box next to “Allow Mailchimp to create Leads in Salesforce?”
Click “I am Ready to Map Fields.”
However, if you do not want to allow lead creation at this very moment, one can skip ahead by leaving the “Allow Mailchimp to create Leads in Salesforce” blank and click “I am Ready to Map Fields”.

Map Fields

To ensure that the correct Lead and Contact fields from Salesforce match up with their corresponding fields in Mailchimp, this step helps users choose map Salesforce data fields to their corresponding Mailchimp audience field. Users can choose to map Salesforce fields to existing Mailchimp audience fields or to add new fields.

Follow these steps to map fields:

Click the drop-down menu under “Salesforce Lead Field” and “Salesforce Contact Field” to match them to an existing Mailchimp Field.
If you don’t wish to map a field to a Mailchimp audience, leave it blank and click Save to move forward in the process.

Step 2: Enable Permission Sets

The next step is about assigning the right user permissions to Salesforce account users. There are two different permission set assignments:

Mailchimp Users – with this permission setting, you can view Mailchimp data in Salesforce.
Mailchimp Admins – with this permission setting, you can view Mailchimp data and use the Query Builder to build queries in Salesforce.

Step 3: Choose Sync Settings

Mailchimp data can usually take up a lot of space and, therefore certain features may start malfunctioning if you exceed the Salesforce data limits. To ensure that these limits are not reached, users must choose settings to determine what they wish to sync with Mailchimp audiences. This can be done by choosing to only sync subscribers from a certain audience, or even limiting how long Mailchimp activity is stored inside of Salesforce.

Go to the MC Setup page.
On the Lists tab, click the Sync Setting drop-down menu to choose an option for each connected audience. The “Keep Activity” settings will sync subscriber activity such as campaign opens, clicks, and sends. The Sync Subscribers Only setting will sync audience and group data for subscribers.
Click Save.

Step 4: Turn on Data Sync and Lead Creation

After completing step 3, turn on “Data Sync” in the Settings tab to enable Mailchimp and Salesforce to regularly correspond and communicate data. In the setting tab, there is also an option to “Allow Mailchimp to Create Leads in Salesforce”. Toggle this function if you would like this to be enabled and have not already.

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