Mailchimp Integration - YourMembers/yourmembers GitHub Wiki

This guide is designed for use with Your Members - Mail Manager version 1.6 or higher.

Prerequisites

To use the MailChimp integration you must have the following installed on your machine:

Your Members 1.9.2.4 or higher
Your Members - Mail Manager 1.6.0 or higher
MailChimp Gateway version 2.0

note: Your server must be accessible to the web to receive unsubscribe notifications

Installing and Activation of the gateway

Once Your Members and Mail Manager are installed and activated, go to: Your Members Admin -> Mail Manager -> Gateways and click use MailChimp

If you do not see MailChimp in your top box, look in the Your Members - Mail Manager shop, it will be available to purchase at $0 and you can simply install it by hitting the install button and following the automated instructions or downloading the zip.

Syncing contacts

Once activated Mail Manager will prompt for your API key (this can be attained from MailChimp site, via a link on the Mail Manager page and choose a pre created list (on the Mail Chimp side to join). Once inserted you are taken to the settings page to select a template, if you have created a custom template in Mail Chimp this will be selected but you can select a different one. note: you must select a base template Once selected hit save and this will begin syncing.

During the syncing phase the following information is passed to Mail Chimp:

Every user in the WordPress database fname, lname, email
All Your Members custom fields are set up as merge vars and users with custom field data, this data is populated
Every account type is created as a static segment, and any users with that account type is assigned into that segment
Every subscription is created as a static segment, and any users with that subscription is assigned into that segment
A web hook is added, to monitor new subscriptions and unsubscriptions automatically

WARNING - This process can take a very long time if you have large user base (2000 or more subscribers)

Once this has been done, new users will automatically be assigned to the various static segments, this happens automatically and you do not need to rerun the sync when a user is created however you do have to run the sync when you create a new custom field, account type or subscription. However the sync is run once a day, should you forget.

Once the sync is completed the setup process is completed and you can now make use of Your Members data in Mail Chimp or you can continue to use Your Members - Mail Manager interface.

Using Your Members data on Mail Chimp site

You can use MailChimp campaigns and auto-responder as you would do normally.

Sending to an account type or Subscription

Create your new campaign or Autoresponder
After selecting the list choose "send to segment"
Select from the left hand drop down list "Static Segment"
Select the account type or subscription you wish to use

Sending to a custom filed

Create your new campaign or Autoresponder
After selecting the list choose "send to segment"
Select the custom field from the drop down list

You can mix and match, so for example you could create a mail shot to gold account types excluding people in the uk (via custom country field) and on the 1 month for $1 subscription

Using custom fields in emails

Within the visual editor you can select custom fields as merge vars using the drop down list (they appear in member data) or alternatively you can use *|xxxxxx|* with the name of the custom field.

Using Mail Chimp with Your Members - Mail Manager

The Mail Chimp integration can be used with most of the Mail Manager features, if a feature is not compatible it is greyed out or Mail Manager will default back to Wp Mail currently this occurs for:

Custom WordPress welcome email
Invoicing
Subscription Reminders

All other features use MailChimp note:MailChimp Integration does not allow sending emails to commenters this feature is disabled if using the MailChimp Gateway

Sending A broadcast

A broadcast is Your Members Mail Manager version of Campaign in Mail Chimp. to send a broadcast:

Select Broadcast in Mail Manager
Select a recipient group
Select a subject line
The various sections of your selected template will become available and need populating
Mail Chimp specific - Authenticate and Time Warp features can be enabled see Mail Chimp site documentation for more details
Hit Schedule
Shown Preview option to send test mail or schedule
Schedule mail to go by a future time (note if set to past will be sent straight away) or send now
Clicking View Emails will allow access to stats

Note Broadcast cannot do advanced segmentation, if you wish to send to more then one segment you will need to use the Mail Chimp site!

Sending a Series

As above, but when scheduling, set the number of days from joining the list, note this is a very simplistic auto responder for anything more complex you will need to use the Mail Chimp site.

Other Settings

In the Mail Chimp Settings page there are three additional options:

Double Optin - by default set to no as by default all users will be WordPress users and therefore under gone double optin.
Send Welcome Letter - by default set to no as users would have received WordPress welcome letter.

Dealing with unsubscribes

The final option is what should happen when a user unsubscribes your list how should Your Members handle the unsubscriptions by default it deactivates the user which maybe more suitable for free users however the other options include doing nothing or notifying the admin user.

Large Lists

The MailChimp integration uses the REST API to add users and custom fields, on first sync this means per user it is making up to 3 HTTP requests, with a reasonable server setup this means each user takes between 2 to 3 seconds on the initial run, during this time depending on your server setup you will either see each line processing or you will simply see a page loading sign. With large lists you have 2 choices:

Run the list in the browser as normal - this may not always work and the page may hang
Run the list via the command line - Email us for the script, you will need ssh access and PHP CLI installed

If neither option works is available for you we can manually add your users using our systems, and give you modified version of Mail Manager specific to your site as this requires a fair amount of our time we can only do these as chargeable custom jobs.