MailChimp: Integrating with MailChimp

AB Commerce 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 Account Section and select the Profile option below under your login name in the bottom 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.
6. Create a subscriber list called _ABC_WebsiteSubscriber

Ensuring that your Email Campaigns are tracked in Google Analytics

It is important that Google Analytics show you what traffic to your website came from emails, which emails generated the most traffic to your website, and which emails generated the most revenue to your website.  Please follow this article to set this up within Mail Chimp:

https://mailchimp.com/help/integrate-google-analytics-with-mailchimp/

Sending out an Email

To send an email to your customers who have opted in, just follow the steps outlined by MailChimp for sending an email & ensure you select _ABC_WebsiteSubscribers

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. eg yourwebsite.com/unsubscribe

Ensuring your Email does not go into SPAM folders

The following article explains how to set up Mail Chimp to prevent your emails going into your customer's spam filters.  This improves the chances of your emails being delivered to your subscribers. 

https://mailchimp.com/help/set-up-email-domain-authentication/

As part of this you will need to add DNS records.  Help Desk can add domain records to your DNS records (provided you have given us access) .