Mailchimp to recognise in-store purchases
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George Shipman
Mailchimp can currently see when a customer has purchased something from our online store and can create triggers based off of this data. I have been told that it is possible for CL to create integration that will pull in-store purchase data into mailchimps eCommerce integration. This will mean customers who purchase in-store can also get emails based off when they purchase a bike, service reminders, product recommendations etc. This is a key marketing avenue which we cannot utilise, so I am keen for CL to be the first company to make this work.
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Info
I can't believe how many posts there are about Mailchimp, some of them going back as far as 2019, which really points to the fact that the integration and the way email data is handled requires a major improvement.
It's all very well for CL to be advertising seamless Mailchimp integration but the reality is, is that it doesn't work very well and costs a fortune. I have been trying to get somewhere with Customer Support with both CL and Mailchimp but not getting very far.
I have created a request about this and would suggest that you put your weight behind it a vote on it so we can get these much needed improvements underway.
https://citruslime.canny.io/citrus-lime-backoffice/p/centralised-and-combined-customer-data
Neil McQuillan
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Neil McQuillan
This work is complete and the default for all MailChimp integrations. We upload all transactions via MailChimps ecommerce API and you can create automations off the back of this.
Neil McQuillan
Merged in a post:
Mailchimp Integration with Cloud POS Data
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Ben
Is there any plans to sync Cloud POS data to Mailchimp with the new integration?
In particular the following data:
- New Customers & GDPR status
- Item purchases (for re-marketing and follow up emails)
- Last purchase, total spend and total visits data (for sending customer review emails to)
Neil McQuillan
Quick Update - Work on this is progressing well. Launch will be in the New Year.
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Paul
Neil McQuillan: Is there likelihood that the cloudpos data syncing will be delivered this year?
Neil McQuillan
Paul: this is available now, the helpdesk can switch it on for you.
Neil McQuillan
George Shipman All Customer Rewards accounts (which is basically anyone with an email address) are in MailChimp now, if you are comfortable with a purchase making it 'OK' for you to email a customer under GDPR (some of our customers legal bods are, some are not) then they'll be on the list, and you can last purchase but not the item purchased instore.
I will raise a new Canny to get the upload of data from ecommerce to Canny more immediate. Any purchases are uploaded immediately with the account, but any newsletter signups are done daily I'll describe this in the Canny and @ you into it.
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George Warehouse
Neil McQuillan: Hi Neil, this definitely helps us be able to target more customers with our auto mailers (if we can get around the GDPR issue), although it doesn't give us everything we would like.
Thanks for your thought on this.
Do you think that this will be developed further in the future? Specific purchases would be the key here I.E. a service, a bike fit, a road bike etc.
It seems to be quite a popular request.
I've also seen your separate Canny post, thank you.
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Karl -2
This would be great, especially if they could be imported with a Tag along the lines of "in store customer"
Neil McQuillan
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Neil McQuillan
All,
The new Rewards platform will add any Rewards customers to the list, and update balances, last purchase etc. It will not upload sales data however.
Nor does this constitute a GDPR opt in, which for those which don't consider a sale legitimate commercial interest might prevent you marketing effectively.
We're talking to a provider who has an API which better suits uploading data from Cloud POS then Mailchimp, who would also work out more cost effective for our clients, we shall see where this goes in the coming months.
We also want to find a way to automate workshop reminders, we've found an API which would allow us to send these as postcards as well which is super exciting.
Lots going on as always and beyond the Customer Rewards 2.0 stuff we have no firm plans but I thought worth letting people know we've been doing some research in this area off the back of this thread.
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Pauls Cycles
Neil McQuillan: Hi Neil - Is it recognised that potentially the mailchimp integration needs to be overhauled generally rather than just in one specific area? I have learnt from another canny post that the data fed through the API with mailchimp is not realtime also which limits effective use of automations for customer onboarding workflows.
Neil McQuillan
Pauls Cycles: MailChimp was fully rewritten about six months ago, the areas which need to be realtime now I believe are.
Baskets and orders from ecommerce are uploaded in realtime.
Customer Rewards 2 points and activity is uploaded as they occur (there maybe a delay of a few hours).
We upload new Mailchimp subscribers once a day but anyone with a basket or purchaser will hit sooner. This could be altered if there was a commercial reason to do so.
With Customer Rewards 2.0 we do a full balance refresh once a month for each account, so after go live on CRv2 it will be wise to avoid using automations based on points data for a month - but as yet we're not training and advising people on this for that reason. But future transactions after this get sent quickly. The balance refresh is there for any updates MailChimp failed to process which is good practice.
Ben Allen will be leading this charge in the Autumn. Can you provide a link to the other post I will review?
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Pauls Cycles
Neil McQuillan: https://citruslime.canny.io/citrus-lime-api/p/mailchimp-api
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Pauls Cycles
@Neil McQuillan Im not sure if this is specific to our account or a wider issue also however anyone with a basket or a purchaser are all being added to our mailchimp via the API as "Subscribers" even when they have not opted in themselves. Theres no differentiation as to what type of audience member they are which does create challenges when you are trying to use automation as part of your strategy. Is that the case for the integration as a whole?
Neil McQuillan
Pauls Cycles: Hi if they opt in the GDPR consent tickbox will be set. To use basket abandonment or other transactional functionality they need to be on a list regardless of opt in, so anyone who provides data will be on the list, this is also important for bombproof opt-out.
If your advice says you must not send marketing emails to purchasers (this varies within our customer bases various legal eagles) then you would not send to those who have not provided consent.
Most our customers seems to think basket abandonment and messages related to purchasing events are OK without GDPR opt in but we cannot provide advice in this area.
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Pauls Cycles
Neil McQuillan: Hi Neil, yes understood. However we found numerous examples where our customer had not opted in and yet was flagged as "subscribed" in our mailchimp account so i am not sure how I go about targeting them separately. I will raise it again as a helpdesk issue for someone to look into in more detail for us.
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Peter S
An update done at the start of January seems to have removed most of the Mailchimp functionality you describe above which was working for ecommerce and is now not working for any part of Citrus. While it would be good to have the in-store purchases working as well getting the ecommerce functionality back up and running is pretty essential.
Abigail Doughty
Peter S: Which update was this? I keep getting told the API that was broken is working again but a lot of the functionality as you say has totally disappeared. Frustration as it was and is an essential element of marketing.
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Peter S
The update where it was broken was on 7th January. I understand they have now fixed the product category element of the ecommerce API but the link to Cloud POS is still disabled.
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