Email Marketing - Integrating with MailChimp

The ab commerce Platform is automatically integrated with MailChimp.  This means that when users opt-in to receive emails on your website (e.g. during the Checkout or when they click JOIN to become a member of your website), they will automatically appear in your MailChimp account under a list called _ABC_WebsiteSubscribers within 48 hours.  You can then send emails to this list.  And if users unsubscribe themselves, their status will automatically change to Unsubscribed within 48 hours.

 Setting up the Integration between your website and MailChimp

To set up your email integration, take the following steps:

1. Go to https://mailchimp.com/ to view the features of Mail Chimp and if you are happy with their pricing and features, create an account with them.
2. Log into the account and click on the Profile link in the screenshot below under your login name in the top right corner of the screen.
3. Then click Extras and click API Keys.
4. Under API Keys, click Create a Key which will create a new record in the table and then click into the LABEL textbox on this record and enter the words ab Commerce.
5. Then copy the API KEY generated and email this into the Help Desk and they will set up the integration from your website to Mail Chimp.

To send an email to your customers who have opted in, just follow the steps outlined by MailChimp for sending an email with the following specific steps:

1. When selecting the LIST, select _ABC_WebsiteSubscribers
2. Before sending the email, the MailChimp template will have the following at the bottom of the email.  Change the text "You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list" to be "You can unsubscribe from this list" and set the UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS LIST link at the bottom of the page to be the following url: https://www.yourdomainname.com/unsubscribe

 (Change www.yourdomainname.com to be your website url)

GDPR Warning - Unsubscribe Link

The reason we insist you need to add a different Unsubscribe link instead of the options offered by MailChimp is that the user unsubscribes through the website and then the website notifies MailChimp to change the status of the email to "Unsubscribed".  This is to comply with GDPR guidelines so that the website has a master copy of all emails subscribed and unsubscribed and when this occured.

This means that you can only use this unsubscribe link on emails sent to ABC_WebsiteSubscribers so if you have other lists in MailChimp that you want to send emails to, this unsubscribe link will not work.

 Checklist for Sending out an Email

Before sending out an email, ensure that the following are in place:

1. If this is the first time sending out an email, you will see that there is a new list called ABC_WebsiteSubscribers - go into the settings for this list and ensure you have entered everything you want including your company name, address and the default from name, from email, subject and language.
2. Send yourself a test email first and ensure that:
   
   1. The from email is correct and tested 
   2. Ensure the unsubscribe link goes to the UNSUBSCRIBE page on your website and NOT the mail chimp unsubscribe page.