Using MailChimp for Email Marketing
Email Marketing Overview
Our Mailchimp integration caters for adding Contacts to Audiences and is included as standard for any website.
This includes the following:
A customer can opt in during registration
A customer can opt in during checkout
A customer can opt in via a Signup widget in the footer of the website
For more information on this integration please create a ticket in our Help Centre, or follow this guide as it will instruct you on how to create a MailChimp account and how to export your Straightsell Buyer File to create a mailing list.
Signing up for MailChimp
You can sign up for free at mailchimp.com
A free Email Marketing plan is available for up to 250 contacts. Email sending limits apply on all plans with ‘overages’ if the limit is exceeded.
The MailChimp API Key, Audience ID and Signup Form URL
In order to link your Straightsell website with your MailChimp account and list, we require an API Key and Audience Name (was called List Name). Follow these MailChimp help articles to obtain these details:
About API Keys: https://mailchimp.com/help/about-api-keys/
Find Your Audience ID: https://mailchimp.com/help/find-audience-id/
To obtain the Signup Form URL to provide to Straightsell:
Add an Embedded Signup Form to Your Website: https://mailchimp.com/help/add-a-signup-form-to-your-website/
Share Your Signup Form: https://mailchimp.com/help/share-your-signup-form/
Exporting your Customer Data to MailChimp
Before you can start setting up email templates to send out to your customers (review user guides here) you must first extract your data from the Control Panel and export it to MailChimp.
Downloading Your Buyer File
You can download your Buyer File from the Straightsell CMS (Administration >> File Upload/Download):
Click on the Download Files tab
Select Buyer File from the first dropdown menu
Click on Download Data File
You will now have a file of all your customer data that can be exported to MailChimp
Exporting to MailChimp
Once you have created a list for your customers you can import your customers into that list:
Refer to the screenshot below for how to start this process
Select CSV or tab-delimited text file and click Next >
Browse to your Buyer File and click Next >
Match your customer data to existing MailChimp columns (or create new ones) and click Next >
Categorise the imported contacts as Subscribed and click Import
Your contacts will now appear in your MailChimp mailing list
Advantages of MailChimp
MailChimp offers email analytics, whereas our Email Marketing platform does not:
Email analytics enables a review of an email that has been sent, who opened, who clicked through, who bounced (did not receive the email), and who unsubscribed, this data can help you:
assist with refreshing your campaign database, and
tailor your email marketing campaign to better suit your customers' habits
Below is a screenshot of some of the analytics that is made available to you after you send an email campaign:
Some useful stats from the above:
Open Rate: % of recipients who opened your email (can also be seen as Total Opened)
Click Rate: % of recipients who clicked on any links in your email (can also be seen as Total Clicks)
List Average: How the Open and Click Rate compare to your previous email campaigns
Industry Average: How the Open and Click Rate compare to those of your contemporaries
Successful Deliveries: How many of your emails were received by active email addresses (can also be seen as number of Bounced emails)
Unsubscribed: Number of people who unsubscribed from your mailing list after receiving the email
24 hour performance: Track at what times people are opening your email