Email integration with Constant Contact and MailChimp

Purpose

Enable simple export of patron records to third-party email marketing services to allow for more flexible email marketing. With this integration you gain the benefit of robust marketing tools including HTML templates, click through tracking and more. Our email export feature works with Constant Contact and MailChimp.

What does it do?

The email marketing integration feature exports patron records from your Arts People account to the third-party service. After you’ve created an account with MailChimp or Constant Contact, you can add it to your Arts People system and configure lists to export with the service. You can configure individual lists to be exported, or export your entire patron list at once.

Once you’ve configured Arts People to work with an external marketing system, you should not send marketing emails through Arts People. The email tools in Arts People will still be available for urgent communication with patrons, but patrons may be opted out your external marketing system and not in Arts People, so it should not be used for marketing communications as that could be considered spam. 

Setup Instructions

1. Create a MailChimp or Constant Contact account (free or trial account options are available, please note that MailChimp's free account is limited to one single list)

• MailChimp: https://login.mailchimp.com/signup?

• Constant Contact: https://www.constantcontact.com/services-trial/signup.jsp

Linking your Arts People system to your external system

• In Arts People, go to Setup > select the “Marketing Services” option

• Add the MailChimp and/or Constant Contact accounts to the screen

• Constant Contact doesn’t require an API key, but will prompt you to log in and authorize the Arts People app access during the set up process

• When adding MailChimp, you will need your account’s API key. To find it, follow these instructions:

• Log in to your MailChimp account

• Click on your user name at the top of the page then click on Account

• Click on the Extras link in the navigational menu then click API keys

• Click on Create a Key. Select and copy the API key that appears in the text field
  
  

Setting up Lists

• Patrons get exported from the Arts People system to “lists” in MailChimp (*see below) and/or Constant Contact. While Constant Contact allows for the automatic creation of lists on their side, you must create one or more lists manually in MailChimp before you can export patrons.

• *MailChimp functionality update 
  • As of late 2019 Mailchimp updated how it handles lists and contacts.
  • Now, to best utilize Mailchimp's features users should export only a single All Patrons list to Mailchimp rather than upload multiple lists.
  • The reason to avoid export of multiple lists is to avoid how Mailchimp handles a list that contains a contact that already exists in its database - Mailchimp will now count that incoming contact that already exists as a duplicate - this duplicate will add to your total contact count and will drive your contact count up and cause your plan/cost to increase. 
  • In Arts People the exported All Patrons list to MailChimp is constantly being refreshed with new patrons, and isn't re-exporting patrons that have already been exported.
  • Within Mailchimp use Mailchimp client support and help documentation to learn the best way to utilize the tag and other features to create lists that you can then send to.

• Your CC lists can be empty prior to exporting from Arts People

• It's important not to require any fields for your list in MailChimp or Constant Contact that Arts People does not require. Arts People only requires First name, Last name, Email address. Any requirements other than these that you set on your MC or CC lists will cause exports not to work. If you have trouble exporting to your MC or CC list, confirm no other non-required data field has been set as a required field for your list.

Exporting Patrons

• In Arts People, go to Marketing > Exported Lists.

• Click on Add Exported List.

• Select the service, the Arts People source list, and the list at the third party. You might have to click Refresh Lists if you have added or changed a list in your marketing service and it isn’t appearing.

• Source and target list do not need to have the same name, and are not exclusive -- if needed, you can set up one Arts People list to export to multiple lists at the third party.

• You can also choose to export family members which are other patrons who are linked to the list member via the household member connection.
• Choose Export Type: Overwrite or Add. 
  • Overwrite replaces the list in CC or MC with the list you're exporting from Arts People
  • Add just adds any patrons that are on the Arts People list that aren't already present on the list in CC or MC.

• Once you've chosen the options you want for the export, click the Export button.

Ongoing Exports

• After you’ve set up an export, you can run the export again at any time from the Exported Lists page to update the external system with any additions you may have made to the list.

• Ongoing changes to lists can be automatically exported nightly if you choose the "Nightly Export" option, but you can also manually export the list at anytime by clicking the Export Now button for any list that you want to export. 

• Exports are a one-way push. We do not import data into Arts People from the external system during the export process.  (See Import option below.)

• When a list is re-exported, it will be exported using the same export method you chose in the initial set up: either Add or Overwrite.
  • In "Add" mode, the system will export patrons to your list and leave any other list members intact, while "Overwrite" mode will remove any other list members to ensure that the list matches your Arts People list exactly.

• Once you begin using an external service (CC or MC) for your Marketing emails note that the Unsubscribe choice of your contacts in CC or MC t isn't registered by Arts People so it's important to continue to use only that external service CC/MC for your marketing email sending. If you begin using Arts People for marketing emails while still using CC or MC you could be sending marketing email to patrons who have opted out in MC or CC and aren't opted out in Arts People.

• In Constant Contact only there is a field name on the Contact's record that cannot be edited. This field is named Custom_Field_1. This field displays the Patron ID of the record in Arts People. Changing the name of this field to any other name causes incorrect exporting from Arts People.
  

FAQs

Q: What data is exported to MailChimp/Constant Contact?

A: First name, Last name and email address. It's possible to see additional information, like address or phone if the subscriber you are importing was previously a subscriber in Constant Contact or MailChimp and had additional contact info in their record OR if you import your AP data using a file (e.g. Export Raw Data from Marketing screen then Add Contacts > Add from file on CC side).

Q: What information is updated when a list is exported?

A: If you change a subscriber's name or email address in AP then re-run the export, the subscriber's record will update in CC & MC. Additionally, if the subscriber is on multiple lists in CC and you update their name or email address in AP then re-export to one of the lists in CC, the subscriber's info will be updated for all lists that subscriber is on. If, however, you change their address in AP it will not update the info in CC since that doesn't export.

Q: How come all of my patrons aren't on my list in MailChimp/Constant Contact?

A: There are several things that can affect the number of subscribers that get imported into your 3rd party marketing service.  Duplicate email addresses, email addresses that are deemed invalid, if a subscriber that is on the Arts People list has previously unsubscribed from email on the MailChimp or Contact Contact side, they will not be re-added.  The likelihood that some subscribers will get filtered out increases if your export list is large. These are some of the reasons why the total number of subscribers in your MailChimp or Constant Contact list might vary from the number reported in Arts People.

Q: How long does it take to complete an export?

A: That depends on a number of factors. The main factor is the size of the list.  A larger list with thousands of subscribers can take an hour or longer. MailChimp tends to export quickly with lists in the thousands taking less than 10 min.  Constant Contact takes longer to export but the export runs as a background task, allowing you to continue working in the system while the export is processing. Once the Constant Contact export is complete you will see a message in the Background Task status section on the Exported List page indicating that the export is complete.

Q: If I delete the Exported List, will I lose my data?

A: No, the exported list is simply the connection between the source list and the target list. Deleting it will have no affect on the data in either list.

Q: How come I can't see the Exported List page when I log into my Arts People Admin account?

A: The Export feature is only available to primary users.

Q: If a subscriber is on multiple lists in MailChimp, does that count against my maximum number of subscribers?

A: Yes. MailChimp's service plans limit the number of subscribers you can have, depending on what plan you choose. If a subscriber is on more than one list in MailChimp, each list the subscriber is on counts against the maximum number of subscribers.

Handling of opt-outs and No Email flag

• If a patron is in Arts People and is marked “no email,” they will not be exported to Constant Contact or MailChimp.

• If a patron opts out of all mailing lists in Constant Contact or MailChimp, they will no longer receive emails sent from the service, but the patron’s record in Arts People will not be affected -- this is because the import is unidirectional, meaning data that changes at the third party is not exported back to Arts People.

Discount Pricing

pricing subject to change at any time

Constant Contact: Discount pricing

MailChimp: Security and Non-Profit Discounts