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Mailchimp Sync

New members land in your Mailchimp audience on their own

What it does

When a new reader becomes a member of your site, this plugin adds their email address to the Mailchimp audience you choose. It runs on the member signup event, so it covers people who join through the email sign-in link, accounts created during checkout, and subscribers brought in by a CSV or migration import. The member's display name is sent to Mailchimp as the first-name merge field. It also keeps Mailchimp in line afterwards: if a reader opts out through the unsubscribe link in your newsletter, is auto-unsubscribed after a hard bounce or spam complaint, or you delete their member record, the plugin marks that address as unsubscribed on your audience. It never deletes the contact from Mailchimp. Each attempt is recorded against the member as a success or a failure.

Who it's for

Site owners who already run their email campaigns from Mailchimp and want the VeloCMS member list to feed it without exporting a CSV every week. It suits a blog or small shop where signups happen on your own site and the newsletters go out from Mailchimp. If your newsletters are sent from VeloCMS itself, you do not need it.

How it works

You paste your Mailchimp API key and the Audience List ID into the plugin settings and save.
A new member signs up on your site, through the email sign-in link, at checkout, or by import.
The plugin sends the email address and display name (as the first-name field) to the Mailchimp data center named at the end of your API key, and adds them to your audience as subscribed.
If the address is already on the audience, Mailchimp's reply is treated as a success and nothing is changed.
When that reader later unsubscribes from your newsletter, hard-bounces, or their member record is deleted, the plugin sets the address to unsubscribed on the audience.

Settings you configure

Mailchimp API Key: Found in Mailchimp under Account, Extras, API Keys. It ends with a data center suffix such as us21, which the plugin uses to pick the right host.
Audience List ID: Found in Mailchimp under Audience, Settings, Audience name and defaults. Both fields are required to save.

What it can access

The plugin reads the email address and display name of each new member at signup, and nothing else about them. It does not ask for access to your posts or orders. Outbound calls go only to your Mailchimp data center on api.mailchimp.com. Your API key is stored encrypted and is not shown again in plain text.

Permissions

Read new member email and name at signup
Make network calls to api.mailchimp.com
Store your Mailchimp API key encrypted

External network access

This plugin makes requests to the following domains:

*.api.mailchimp.com

Capabilities

members:read
network:fetch
ui:settings
member:afterSignup
member:beforeDelete
member:afterUnsubscribe

Screenshots

Honest limits

Only members created after you install and configure the plugin are synced. Existing members are not copied over.
The sync is one way. Unsubscribes, bounces and cleaned addresses in Mailchimp do not flow back into VeloCMS.
The plugin only creates new contacts. It never changes the status of an existing one, so a contact who unsubscribed inside Mailchimp is not resubscribed.
New contacts are added with the subscribed status directly. The plugin does not send a Mailchimp confirmation email.
It sets the email address and the first-name merge field only. Tags, groups and other merge fields are not sent.
If Mailchimp is unreachable or rejects a request, the failure is logged and the signup still goes through. A failed signup sync can be retried by hand with the Retry sync button on the Sync activity page in your admin.

Frequently asked questions

Where do I find the API key and the list ID?

Create or copy a key in Mailchimp under Account, Extras, API Keys. The audience list ID is under Audience, Settings, Audience name and defaults. Paste both into the plugin settings.

Will my existing members be added?

No. The plugin acts when a new member is created, so people who joined before it was installed stay out of Mailchimp unless you import them there yourself.

What happens when someone unsubscribes?

When a reader uses the unsubscribe link, or you delete their member record, the plugin changes that address to unsubscribed on your Mailchimp audience. The contact and its history stay in Mailchimp.

Which Mailchimp data center does it call?

The one named at the end of your API key, for example us21. The plugin builds the host from that suffix, so you do not enter a region anywhere.

Specifications

Category: Marketing
Price: Included
Version: 1.0.1
Source: First-party

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