MailChimp and Shopify breakup: what to do?

At the end of March 2019, Mailchimp announced the termination of cooperation with Shopify and asked to remove its application from the Shopify App Store. There some opinions why MailChimp left Shopify. It is stated that this decision has been taken because both parties could not reach an agreement on confidentiality issues.

However, the owners of Shopify stores are interested not in the reasons of disagreements between companies, but rather in the answer what those who have long and successfully used the MailChimp API integration application in their store should do now. And this question is very acute because, since May 12, 2019, MailChimp applications on the Shopify platform no longer work.

Here we will show you two of the most affordable and fast solutions to this problem. To continue using email marketing as an effective sales and lead generation channel from the Shopify platform, you can do the following:

1. to integrate Shopify and MailChimp through third-party applications;
2. to switch from Mailchimp to another similar application.

What to do to continue sending emails to Shopify

1. Shopify and MailChimp integration through third-party applications

To continue using MailChimp, you need to use the integration application to connect the Shopify store to Mailchimp.

The following integration applications are available in the Shopify App Store to solve this task:

• MailChimp Connect (Seguno)
• MailChimp от OneSaaS
• ShopSync

MailChimp offers to use third-party integration tools such as Zapier or Automate.io. They are on a fee-paying basis and the most expensive of all above-listed and do not support a number of important functions.

We recommend using the most popular, easy-to-use and free integration ShopSync app. At the same time, the list of supported functions is much wider than for Zapier and Automate.io.

If you intend to continue using Mailchimp, then note that this solution has one significant disadvantage: Mailchimp's client data will not be synchronized with the data in your Shopify store. Here is a practical situation when this is very important. If one of your customers unsubscribed from the ads in an email sent from MailChimp, you will need this information in Shopify so that other applications do not resend emails to this particular client. However, now, because of the lack of synchronization of client data with MailChimp, you can get into a bad situation by continuing to send advertising letters to the users who have unsubscribed from them. And this may spoil relations with your client. In addition, in some parts of the world, ignoring unsubscribe requests is prohibited.

Therefore, we recommend switching from Mailchimp to another alternative application.

2. Switching to alternative email marketing applications

It is worth switching from Mailchimp to another similar application if you want to work comfortably and use all the possibilities of email marketing. There are excellent alternatives that can help you with that, and most of them provide the tools and support to ensure a smooth migration process.

In the Shopify App Store, you can find email marketing applications that are suitable for this purpose.

Here are the applications you should consider:

• SmartrMail;
• Klaviyo;
• Jilt,
• Spently;
• Privy

They all include an easy-to-use editor and report writing, offer basic customer segmentation as well as an abandoned shopping cart notification, and a series of welcome letters.

If you have more advanced requirements for the organization of email marketing, then it is better to choose an application such as Klaviyo with Shopify, Conversio, Marsello, Omnisend, Springbot. In addition to the basic functionality, they provide more advanced customer segmentation, the possibility of regular information distribution, and collecting email addresses in your Shopify store.

Each of these applications is focused on a variety of needs in the organization of email marketing, and it is quite difficult to decide on which one to stop. We recommend that you should pay attention to Klaviyo in Shopify.

Here are the arguments in favor of using this application:

• Klaviyo is integrated with Shopify and collects all the data you need to personalize your marketing.
• Klaviyo is also integrated with many other e-commerce and marketing applications, such as Facebook, Recharge, Zendesk, Swell, Smile.io, Aftership, and others, which will help you collect all possible data about your customers.
• Klaviyo automatically adds the code necessary to track online behavior so that you understand your customers beyond their purchase records.
• The possibility of the list segmentation. This is one of the most powerful Klaviyo for Shopify tools. You get several default lists, and you can also create your own lists and segmentation based on a specific group of purchases, or on what action the customer has performed on your site.
• A wide selection of letter templates. Many of the templates are themed, which means that you can find a ready-made template that is perfect for your industry. If the finished template does not suit you, you can use the mail template editor.
  

• (Source: apps.shopify.com/klaviyo-email-marketing)
  
  
• Powerful marketing functionality and simple customization of e-mails on abandoned shopping carts, which can be optimized with advanced split functions and filters to target your messages.

How to migrate the contacts from MailChimp to Klaviyo?

Step 1: Register in Klaviyo

Step 2: Find the Integration tab on the left side of your Klaviyo account and find the Shopify integration there.

Step 3: You will be redirected to the target page of the Klaviyo application in your store, where you need to insert the URL into your store and click “Connect to Shopify”. After that, you will get to your Shopify account, where you need to click “Install application” to synchronize Shopify data with Klaviyo.

Step 4: Get back to the Integrations tab in Klaviyo and find the MailChimp integration.

Step 5: You will be asked to enter an API key. To find it, log in to your MailChimp account, go to the “Account” section, then to the “Advanced”  section and click on “API Keys”.

Step 6: Generate an API key and paste it into Klaviyo.

Step 7: Click Intergate.

It is done!

Conclusions

Both solutions to this problem are effective, but they require certain time and financial efforts. Therefore, before changing the service or integrating third-party applications, we recommend that you should contact our experts for advice. Without through analysis of the process, you may just lose your customer data.

If you want to work with the service of sending messages on a long-term basis, we recommend that you should change the platform to one of the above-mentioned, as it guarantees you less chance of failing to work with emails.

If you are very attached to MailChimp, study the integration of Shopify and MailChimp using third-party applications.

Consider each decision well, as your customers' data is one of the most important components of your eCommerce business. Every entrepreneur strives to obtain it, therefore, do not lose it while implementing our solutions.

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