How To Integrate Affinity With Mailchimp

How-to — task-oriented recipe.

Level up your email marketing workflows by integrating Affinity with Mailchimp.

Getting started

Once you’ve checked the prerequisites and enabled proper access to Mailchimp, click Settings on the global navigation bar.

Click Integrations on the left side, then select Mailchimp.

Now, select one of integrations to follow step-by-step instructions.

Integration 1 - Mailchimp Audience

For all list entries (including blocklisted people) within a specific Affinity people list, they will continuously sync to a specific Mailchimp audience of your choice. Note: The All People directory is not supported for this integration.

Once you click on Mailchimp Audience, click Get Started.

Please make sure that you’re assigned the Manager role for your Mailchimp account, and that you have permission to write Audience members - otherwise, the integration will not work.
Read through the tips as needed, then click Allow at the bottom.

Under the Affinity List and Mailchimp Audience section, select an Affinity Person List to continuously sync and update the Mailchimp Audience. Then, click Save.

Under the Sync Settings section, you’ll notice both checkboxes already filled - we highly suggest that they remain checked to ensure that your Mailchimp audience is up-to-date:
1. Checkbox 1: When a person’s primary email address changes in Affinity, create a contact in Mailchimp with the new email address
2. Checkbox 2: When a person’s name changes in Affinity, update their name in Mailchimp Note: Checkbox 1 must be enabled in order to enable Checkbox 2.

Optional: Feel free to add filters if you’d only like specific individuals from the people list to get synced to your Mailchimp audience.

Important: Last but not least, please make sure to click Enable to complete the setup.

Once the Status field changes to Active, you’re all set.

Important Callouts for Integration 1

This integration will only sync from your Affinity people list (including blocklisted people) into your Mailchimp Audience list.
- Any changes made directly within your Mailchimp Audience list will not update your Affinity people list.
Not all people who get added to the Affinity people list for this integration will get added to your Mailchimp Audience for one of the following reasons:
- If a person does not have an email address associated with their profile on Affinity, they will not get added to your Mailchimp Audience.
- To respect email subscription compliance for those who may have previously been unsubscribed or deleted from your Mailchimp Audience.
Removing a person from your Affinity people list will archive that person in the Mailchimp Audience list.
The All People directory is not supported for this integration, only people-type lists.

Integration 2 - Mailchimp Campaign Activities

For all Mailchimp campaign activities (e.g. open, click, and bounce data), Affinity will create global fields to sync and surface these activities accordingly on all Affinity people lists and person profile pages.

Once you click on Mailchimp Audience, click Get Started.

Please make sure that you’re assigned the Manager role for your Mailchimp account, and that you have permission to read Campaign Activities - otherwise, the integration will not work.
Read through the tips as needed, then click Allow at the bottom.

Important: Last but not least, please make sure to click Enable to complete the setup.

Once the Status field changes to Active, you’re all set.

To confirm that the integration is working, you should now see three global fields created: Mailchimp Campaign Opened, Mailchimp Campaign Clicked, and Mailchimp Campaign Bounced.

When to use Affinity’s Mailchimp integration over the bulk email feature

We highly suggest leveraging Affinity’s Mailchimp integration over the bulk email feature if you/your team use Mailchimp and have the following use cases:

For marketing teams that create branded and stylized email campaigns.

For investor relations teams that send out newsletters with embedded images regarding investment updates and portfolio activity.

Announcements on new initiatives and events - often used by marketing/investor relations teams at larger firms.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does Affinity choose to create a new contact in Mailchimp when there’s an email address change in Affinity?

In Mailchimp, a given contact can only have one email address, which means that “updating” a Mailchimp contact’s email address would amount to deleting the old one. How often does Affinity sync updates with Mailchimp?
Mailchimp Audience: Updated every minute.
Mailchimp Campaign Activities: Updated every hour. Is there a limit to the number of Mailchimp configurations you can make for each integration?
Mailchimp Audience: No limit.
Mailchimp Campaign Activities: Only one since it syncs all campaigns from your Mailchimp account. Can you integrate with more than one Mailchimp account?
Yes. By clicking Create new configuration for either integration, you will be able to authenticate with a different Mailchimp account if you’d like. What happens when a person unsubscribes from a Mailchimp audience?