Nexternal: Mailchimp Integration
Pamela Topper avatar
Written by Pamela Topper
Updated over a week ago

Product: Nexternal

Nexternal’s integration with Mailchimp makes it easier than ever to leverage one of the most powerful email marketing services available. If you activate the auto-sync feature, every 3 hours Nexternal's eCommerce platform will automatically push updated customer and affiliate information into predefined Mailchimp Lists. This precludes your having to manually export the customer data from Nexternal and then import it into Mailchimp. When you’re ready to send an email campaign, you can rest assured that your primary Mailchimp list is up to date. You will also have the option to push segmented customer lists to Mailchimp for targeted email marketing, or you can segment within Mailchimp. (Note we recommend segmenting within Mailchimp whenever possible, for cost-efficiency because Mailchimp charges by the number of list members there are in the system overall.)

To set up the integration:

To begin, you’ll first need to set up a Mailchimp Account here. Follow the steps to set up your account and complete the verification process required by Mailchimp. After you’re all set up and verified, log in to your Mailchimp account to get the information required for the Nexternal integration.

Create Customer & Affiliate Audiences:

After logging into Mailchimp, from the Audience Dashboard screen, you'll need to create an Audience (an audience is your email list). Name the Audience, fill in any of the details, and click Save. You may want to fill out 2 lists; one for your Customers and if you’re using Affiliates you may want to set up a list for them as well.

Add & Copy API Key:

We’re going to need the Mailchimp API Key which you can find by clicking your Name > then Account in the left-hand menu. Next, click the drop-down menu for Extras and Select API Keys. Here you can then click “Add a Key”. Copy the 37-character API Key as we will need to enter this into the Nexternal Order Management System (OMS) to get the two programs to communicate with one another.

Enter API Key and Sync Lists:

Now log in to your OMS. Follow the steps in the Guided Tutorial called "Integrate Mailchimp into Nexternal". (Guided Tutorials are accessed separately from the Support Center in Foundry, through the link to Guided Tutorials in the system navigation. In the legacy standalone version of Nexternal they can be accessed through the Guided Tutorials link in the left navigation.)

When you sync your lists, this will automatically add all of the customers and affiliates currently in the Nexternal OMS to your respective Mailchimp lists. The following customer data will be sent to Mailchimp:

  • Email

  • First Name

  • Last Name

  • Customer Number

  • Address

  • City

  • State

  • Zip Code

  • Country

  • Customer Type

  • Last Order Date

This customer data push can take up to 3 hours before it’s visible in Mailchimp but once it’s complete, your Mailchimp audiences (lists) will be current for future mailings. Any new customer that purchases from your online store or partner that signs up to become an affiliate will be automatically added to their respective list during the next data push.

At this point, you’ve completed the basic Nexternal Mailchimp integration set up. You’re now ready to start sending some marketing emails, but read on to add even more power to the connection.

IMPORTANT!!!

In order for this integration to work, the field names and field types of your Nexternal customer data must not be adjusted in Mailchimp.

Note that if you have multiple sources (such as additional newsletter signup forms, and other marketing sources) pushing subscribers into the same Mailchimp List that you are pushing your Nexternal subscriber data into, you must not set any data fields as "Required" on the Mailchimp side, with the exception of Email (Mailchimp does this by default). Setting additional fields as required will cause your list syncing to fail.

Each list has a maximum of 30 fields of data available for that list in Mailchimp. Mailchimp's Pro level accounts allow 80 fields.

Sending eCommerce Order Data to Mailchimp

Nexternal’s integration with Mailchimp provides you the opportunity to combine the powerful eCommerce tools provided by Nexternal's eCommerce Platform with the advanced Email Marketing and Email List Management features offered by Mailchimp.

To push your eCommerce order data into Mailchimp, select the "Sync orders with Mailchimp" box. Enter the earliest date of the orders you would like to sync over, as the Sync Start Date. You have the option to include or exclude orders that were placed using the Bulk/Wine Club Order feature or Subscription Orders with their respective checkboxes.

In the Store ID field, enter either "Nexternal" or the exact name of your Nexternal account (what you use when you log into the system at www.nexternal.com/myYOURACCOUNTNAME).

In the Store List Name field, enter the name of your Customer List you selected above in Customer List Name. Click finish.

Once this is complete, when you include links in your marketing emails, you'll be able to track revenue generated from those campaigns in the Campaign Reports section of Mailchimp. You'll also be able to set up automated email drip campaigns based upon purchase activity.

Please check out this video regarding Automated Marketing with Nexternal and MailChimp. Although Mailchimp no longer calls their functionality "eCommerce 360", the functionality is still there, it's still powerful, and this presentation will give you some excellent ideas about how to capitalize on all of this power.

rev: 3/10/23

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