MailChimp helps you design email newsletters, share them on social networks, and track your results. It's used by millions of people, and is one of the most popular apps for businesses like yours.

Method allows you to easily export your contacts to MailChimp, so that MailChimp can handle the sending of your email marketing instead of Method.

Why use MailChimp with Method?

Method has built-in email marketing, so why would you use MailChimp instead of Method's built-in email marketing? Good question!

• You may already be a user of MailChimp, and have existing mailing lists you want to keep using.
• You may prefer the nicely designed email template builder that comes with MailChimp.
• There are analytics features, suchs as those that help you discover open rates (% of emails being delivered and read).
• You use MailChimp's SMTP server, instead of specifying your own SMTP server in Method.

Don't have a MailChimp account?

If you don’t have a MailChimp account, click here to create your account. Tell them Method sent you!

Linking your Method account to your MailChimp account

1. In Method, go to Campaigns > List Builder.
2. In Step 1: Fill your list, click Use MailChimp.
3. Click Connect to your MailChimp account.
4. Enter your MailChimp User Name and Password, and then click Log In. (if you aren’t already a MailChimp user, you’ll first need to sign up).
5. Your Method account will now be connected to MailChimp, and redirected to the Insert contacts into MailChimp screen.  Now that the accounts are connected, you won’t be asked to enter your MailChimp User Name and Password anymore.

NOTE: if your List Builder screen has been customized, and you don’t have a Use MailChimp button, you can either revert back to the standard CRM_ListBuilder (for QB Desktop) or CRMQBO_ListBuilder (for QB Online), or customize your screen and place your own Use MailChimp button on there. Your button just needs one action, a Load Web Page action with the Target “Replace current screen” and the URL “../../speciality/spzMailingListInsert.aspx”.

Exporting your contacts from Method to MailChimp

WARNING: Your contacts will receive an email from MailChimp asking them to confirm their subscription to your list. Therefore, do your testing wisely! We recommend making a tag called ‘MailChimpTest’ and assigning it to a few internal test contacts, and only choosing this tag when exporting. Remember that MailChimp sends the emails to your contacts, not Method, so as long as you're using the same list, only new additions to the list will be emailed. 

1. In Method, if you are not already in the Insert contacts into MailChimp screen, go to Campaigns > List Builder, and click Use MailChimp.
2. Choose the MailChimp list you want to send your contacts to. If you do not have a list, you’ll have to create one directly in MailChimp first.
3. Choose what type of contacts you want to export from Method to MailChimp. Pay close attention to tags to Include, especially if you are limiting your list to a test group.
4. Click Export / Update contacts to MailChimp. All the contacts that match your criteria will be inserted (if new) or updated (if existing) in MailChimp.  This can take a long time, especially if you are exporting a large number of contacts.

How it works

• Method first connects to MailChimp and downloads any email from your bounce list in MailChimp. Emails that bounce will not be sent again.
• Method next pulls down any emails from MailChimp that have requested to Unsubscribe. The Opt Out of Marketing is updated in Method to reflect the customer’s request.
• Method next assembles a list of all contacts that match your criteria, and sends them to MailChimp. If they already exist in MailChimp, they are updated, otherwise they are inserted.

Disconnecting your MailChimp account

If you no longer want Method to have access to MailChimp, or you want to temporarily disconnect, no problem! If you disconnect Method CRM you can easily reconnect at a later time.

1. In MailChimp, go to Account > Extras > API Keys & Authorized Apps.
2. Click Remove next to Method CRM.

Known Limitations

These are some shortcomings and limitations we are aware of, and aim to address in a future version of the integration.

1. Saving your preferences - each time you export your list from Method to MailChimp you need to reselect the criteria. Ideally, we’d save and then recall the criteria per list.
2. Custom fields and tags - right now we send just the FirstName, LastName and Email of the contact to MailChimp. It would be helpful to match up fields in Method with custom fields in MailChimp, so that you can use MailChimp to target a groups of contacts.
3. Export speed - since we’re sending all contacts every time, the export can take a while.
4. Integrating analysis - we don’t pull down campaign details from MailChimp about success or failure of campaigns.
5. Delivery - we don’t pull down delivery of an email from MailChimp into Method and make an Activity in Method.

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