Connecting Mailchimp lets Rhythm send targeted lists from your saved queries to your Mailchimp audience. You never enter your Mailchimp password in Rhythm.
Prerequisites
- A Mailchimp account you can sign in to and use to approve third-party access.
- Your organization’s postal address, plus a default campaign sender name and address. Mailchimp requires these for every new audience list.
- Access to System & Security in the Console. You do not need a separate permission for this connection.
Connect Mailchimp
- Go to System & Security › Integrations, then choose the MailChimp card.
- Choose
Create Mailchimp Account. Rhythm sends you to Mailchimp’s sign-in and approval page, so you never type your Mailchimp password into Rhythm. - Sign in to Mailchimp and approve the connection. Mailchimp then returns you to Rhythm so you can finish setup.
- Enter a
Namefor the connection. - Optionally, tick
Hide duplicate name fieldsif you do not want Rhythm’s first- and last-name fields to appear beside Mailchimp’s built-in name fields. See the section below for details. - Under Contact Information, enter your organization’s
Company, address, city, state, zip, country, and phone number. Mailchimp requires these details for every audience list it creates, though you can change them later in Mailchimp’s list settings. - Under Campaign Defaults, enter a
From NameandFrom Emailfor your campaigns. - Choose
Save Changes.
Result
Rhythm saves the connection and shows it in your list of Mailchimp accounts. The connection is ready to receive integrated queries as lists.
Approve Mailchimp Before Starting
Create Mailchimp Account appears only when your Rhythm account does not already have a Mailchimp connection. If you do not complete the approval step, or if you return to an incomplete form, go back to the Integrations page and start the connection again instead of continuing with the partial setup.
Stop Duplicate Name Fields
When Mailchimp receives a contact from Rhythm, it automatically fills some of its own built-in fields. This includes first name, last name, phone number, and a fully completed preferred address. If your integrated query also includes those same source fields (first_name, last_name, a phone field, or a complete set of preferred-address fields), Mailchimp can show the values twice: once in its own built-in fields, and again as separate merge fields from your query. This is most noticeable with first and last name, so the fields can look duplicated in Mailchimp.
Turn on Hide duplicate name fields to send first and last name only once, using Mailchimp’s own name fields, FNAME and LNAME. You still need first_name and last_name in the integrated query for those values to populate. The setting removes the extra Rhythm-specific merge fields; it does not create the name values on its own. When the query includes first_name and last_name, Rhythm maps them directly to Mailchimp’s predefined FNAME and LNAME fields instead of also sending them as separate custom merge fields.
To confirm names arrived correctly, check Mailchimp’s Audience settings and merge tags to verify that FNAME and LNAME already exist as built-in fields. Use FNAME and LNAME when you reference someone’s name in a Mailchimp campaign, not a custom first_name or last_name merge tag. After you confirm the data appears correctly in Mailchimp’s own fields, you can remove any duplicate custom name fields you find.
Tip
If your Mailchimp audience uses different merge tags for names, such as custom fields instead of FNAME and LNAME, the synced names can look like they are missing even though Rhythm sent them. Check the audience’s actual merge tags before you conclude that a name sync failed.
Merge Fields and Field Types
Mailchimp field names and types affect how your query’s values map into Mailchimp, separate from the name-field behavior above.
- Merge tags are limited to 10 characters. Mailchimp merge field tags can only be 10 characters long, and Rhythm custom field identifiers are often much longer. Rhythm shortens a long custom field name to fit that limit, and it generates each shortened tag to keep similarly named fields distinct. If a Mailchimp field seems to show a value you connect with a different Rhythm field, check whether two custom field names shortened to the same or a very similar tag.
- A wrong-field mapping can sometimes be fixed by renaming the field in Mailchimp. If a query value seems to be filling the wrong Mailchimp field, changing that field’s name directly in Mailchimp can resolve the mismatch.
- Merge field types must match the values Rhythm sends. A Mailchimp merge field created as text will not correctly accept a value Rhythm sends as a number. This especially applies to fields such as contact number, which Rhythm sends as a numeric value. A numeric Mailchimp field can also block updates for a value Rhythm sends as text, such as a Yes/No communication preference. Some older Mailchimp fields may still be typed as numbers from when Rhythm sent 0 and 1 for a Yes/No value. If Rhythm now sends Yes/No text for that same field, the mismatch can block updates until you recreate the field. If updates to a specific merge field stop working, compare its type in Mailchimp with the kind of value your query sends. Deleting the merge field, or changing its type directly in Mailchimp, lets the next sync recreate or populate it with the correct type. The same fix applies to any other Yes/No field that was created in Mailchimp as a number by mistake.
- Never map a field into Mailchimp’s own subscriber status field. Sending a custom or status field from your query into Mailchimp’s reserved subscriber status field can overwrite valid Mailchimp values, such as subscribed or unsubscribed, and can cause the audience sync to fail. Keep your custom fields separate from Mailchimp’s built-in subscriber status.
- An older field mapping may not match current field names. If your Mailchimp merge fields were set up some time ago, the field names Rhythm sends may have changed since then. Compare your existing Mailchimp merge fields with the fields your integrated query currently outputs, and update any that no longer match.
Settings
| Setting | Options | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
Name | Text, required | Empty | Identifies the connection when you choose where to send an integrated query |
Hide duplicate name fields | Ticked or not | Not ticked | When ticked, first and last name appear only once in Mailchimp, using Mailchimp’s own name fields, instead of also appearing as separate Rhythm fields |
| Company, address lines, city, state, zip, country, phone | Text, all required except the second address line | Empty | Provides the contact details Mailchimp requires for every audience list it creates |
From Name, From Email | Text, both required | Empty | Sets the default sender name and address for your Mailchimp campaigns |
Change an Existing Connection
Open your Mailchimp account from the list and select it to edit the name, contact information, campaign defaults, or duplicate-name-field setting. You do not need to repeat the Mailchimp approval step. Save your changes to apply them.
How Mailchimp Sync Works
After you integrate a saved query with your Mailchimp account, Rhythm keeps sending the query results to Mailchimp.
- Sync timing. Rhythm resyncs your Mailchimp lists roughly every hour, picking up the current batch of updates shortly after each hour begins. A change you make in Rhythm, whether to a query, a contact record, or a connection setting, is not sent to Mailchimp immediately. Wait for the next hourly cycle before you check whether it arrived.
- Batch size. Rhythm sends records to Mailchimp in batches of up to 500 at a time, so a very large list can take more than one batch to finish updating. An unusually large one-time send can occasionally take longer than a single cycle to finish or time out partway through. If a very large batch does not complete, wait for the next sync cycle or contact Support rather than assuming it failed outright.
- Contacts need an email address. Rhythm does not send a contact to Mailchimp at all when the contact has no email address on their Rhythm record. If a contact is missing organization, role, membership type, or other fields you expected in Mailchimp, first confirm they have an email address. Without one, none of their fields are sent.
- Certification custom fields are not contacts. Values stored in a certification application’s custom fields are not Rhythm contact records. They cannot create Mailchimp contacts for automated emailing; only actual Rhythm contacts sync to Mailchimp.
- Mailchimp can reject records on its own. After a sync, your Mailchimp audience may hold fewer records than your Rhythm query returned. Mailchimp rejects some records for its own reasons, such as an invalid or malformed email address, or a duplicate. Compare the audience with the query results before assuming Rhythm failed to send someone.
- Blank and null field values are left out, not sent as empty. The sync sends only the contact fields that actually have a value. It does not send a blank value for every mapped field. If a contact has no role assigned in Rhythm, for example, the Mailchimp field for role stays blank instead of showing an empty update. Membership expiration date is not included in the Mailchimp payload at all, and no part of the sync makes decisions based on it. This can matter for lifetime memberships, which have no expiration date to send.
- A field that goes blank later may not clear in Mailchimp. If a query previously sent a value for a field and a later run of that same query returns it as blank or empty, Rhythm may leave that field out of the update instead of clearing it. In that case, Mailchimp keeps the older value. Setting a default value on the custom field can help avoid this. Some setups instead send every field the query currently returns, blank or not, so a cleared value does reach Mailchimp. You may see either behavior depending on your setup, so check the actual value in Mailchimp rather than assuming either way.
Subscribers, Preferences, and Suppression Lists
A contact’s Rhythm communication preferences and Mailchimp’s own subscription status are related, but they are not the same thing.
- Communication preference fields sync as data, not as subscribe controls. You can include communication preference fields in your integrated query, and Rhythm sends their values to Mailchimp with the rest of the contact’s data. Mailchimp does not treat those values as instructions to subscribe or unsubscribe the contact. The integration was not built to read Rhythm communication preferences that way.
- The Email Opt-Out field does not unsubscribe someone in Mailchimp by itself. Setting a contact’s opt-out field in Rhythm does not, by itself, unsubscribe or exclude them from your normal Mailchimp sends. To keep opted-out contacts out of Mailchimp, create a saved query for contacts with Email Opt-Out set to yes, and add that query to your Mailchimp integrated queries as a suppression list.
- A suppression list keeps a group out of ordinary sends, but how Mailchimp reflects that afterward can vary. In some cases, contacts on a suppression-list query are sent to Mailchimp already marked unsubscribed. In others, a contact who was already synced and later becomes suppressed is removed from the Mailchimp audience instead. Check the audience in Mailchimp after you add or change a suppression list rather than assuming a specific result.
- A suppression list does not fix every kind of missing preference. If several of a contact’s selected communication preferences are not all reaching Mailchimp, a suppression list will not solve that separately. Check that your query’s output includes a field for every communication type you send through Mailchimp.
- Mailchimp unsubscribe status does not write back to Rhythm. When someone unsubscribes through Mailchimp, Rhythm does not update that person’s communication preferences as part of the sync. The two preference controls stay independent unless you build your own query logic around Rhythm fields to reflect it.
- A contact must be in the integrated query to have preferences appear in Mailchimp at all. A contact who is not returned by the integrated query is not sent to Mailchimp, so any communication preference they selected will not appear there either. In that case, the gap is the missing contact, not a lost preference.
- One Mailchimp audience with segments does not give independent unsubscribe control. Segments are subsets of a single Mailchimp audience, and unsubscribe works at the audience level. If a contact unsubscribes from a mailing built on a segment, they stop receiving mail for that entire audience, not only for that one segment or communication type.
Inactive in Rhythm Does Not Mean Unsubscribed in Mailchimp
A contact who becomes inactive in Rhythm, or who no longer matches the query feeding a Mailchimp audience, is not automatically unsubscribed or removed from that audience. What happens next can vary. Some contacts simply remain subscribed with no further change, while others are eventually archived from the audience. Rhythm’s Do Not Email flag prevents future correspondence separately from a contact’s Mailchimp audience membership, so treat CRM status, email suppression, and Mailchimp subscription as three separate controls.
Mailchimp’s default subscriber preference page may only show basic fields such as name and email. Other synced fields, including anything you treat as a preference, arrive in Mailchimp as ordinary profile data instead of native preferences that subscribers can edit. If you need subscribers to manage more than Mailchimp’s default page offers, build your own preference page or landing page in Rhythm and link to it from your Mailchimp campaigns instead of relying on Mailchimp’s native preference management.
Dependencies and Precedence
Mailchimp uses the contact information you enter here only when it creates a new audience list from an integrated query. These details do not update audience lists that already exist in Mailchimp. To change an existing list’s details, update them directly in Mailchimp.
Each integrated query you send to Mailchimp creates its own audience there. Mailchimp does not automatically combine several integrated queries into one audience. If you want several queries to share tags or segments instead of separate audiences, send all your contacts through a single query and manage the grouping with Mailchimp’s own tags or segments.
Rhythm matches an integrated query to an existing Mailchimp audience by that audience’s list name. If Rhythm does not find the audience it expects, it can create a new one with the same name instead of updating the original. This leaves duplicate audiences in your Mailchimp account. If you find duplicates, delete the extra audience directly in Mailchimp. The next sync recreates or updates the audience you kept.
Your live account and your sandbox can each hold their own Mailchimp connection and integrated queries, and both can create audiences in the same Mailchimp account if your sandbox is not excluded from list syncing. Deleting an integrated query in Rhythm removes the link on Rhythm’s side, but it does not delete the audience already created in Mailchimp. Remove the audience directly in Mailchimp as well if you no longer want it there.
An audience reflects whichever records your saved query currently returns. If a contact appears in Mailchimp and you did not expect them there, check whether that contact is included in the query’s results. The fix is usually to adjust the query’s criteria, not to change anything in Mailchimp. Changes to your audience configuration, field mapping, or overall list-sync setup can also change which audience a contact appears in. If a contact seems to be missing from one audience, one of those settings may need to be adjusted.
If you want a Mailchimp audience of event registrants based on an event-specific active status, build that query in Meetings and Shows Queries rather than in a CRM query. A CRM query does not have access to event-specific registration status.
Change Impact and How to Revert
To disconnect Mailchimp from the Console, delete the Mailchimp connection from its list. To change any other setting, open the connection from the list, make your update, and save. The new values replace the previous ones.
If you delete and reconnect your Mailchimp account to recover from a connection problem, your integrated queries do not carry over automatically to the new connection. Add them again from each integrated query after reconnecting, or they will not resume syncing.
Permissions
Anyone who can sign in to the Console and open System & Security can connect, view, change, or remove a Mailchimp connection. There is no separate permission for the Mailchimp connection.
Validation and Errors
Name, every contact field except the second address line, and both campaign defaults are required before Save Changes can finish the connection. If your Rhythm account is not set up to use Mailchimp, Rhythm refuses the save. Contact your customer success manager to confirm that the integration has been enabled for your account.
If Mailchimp Does Not Match Rhythm
A contact’s inclusion in your integrated query and a specific field’s mapping are two separate questions. Check them separately instead of assuming one problem explains the other. Before you conclude that a sync failed, confirm what Rhythm actually sent. Run the query and check the affected contact’s values, because a visible mismatch in Mailchimp is often caused by Mailchimp’s own field or audience configuration rather than a failed send from Rhythm.
If Mailchimp is not reflecting a recent change, work through these steps:
- Wait for the next hourly sync; changes are not sent immediately.
- Re-sync the integrated query by re-running the saved query and saving it again, or saving it as a new version, to confirm that the updated query, including any newly added field, is what gets sent.
- If that does not help, open Queries › Integrated Queries, delete the existing integrated query, then return to the source query and choose
Integrateagain to force a full rebuild. - To correct one field’s value for a specific contact, remove that field’s value, or the merge field itself, in Mailchimp. Rhythm repopulates it from the integrated query on the next sync. You can also open the contact in Rhythm, make a small edit, save, then revert the edit and save again to trigger a fresh update for that contact.
- If nothing at all is coming through, including no new records, no updates, and a newly added integrated query that never appears, delete and reconnect your Mailchimp account, then add your integrated queries back to it.