What are the two most common points of frustration people have when using HubSpot and its Mailchimp integration options?
HubSpot's own native integration with Mailchimp syncs your HubSpot contacts to Mailchimp and syncs Mailchimp's email activity over to HubSpot. However, this only works for new contacts added to the HubSpot CRM (existing contacts are not synced when you connect the tools), and contacts or updates to contacts' info are not synced from HubSpot to Mailchimp.
Data sync by HubSpot syncs contacts both ways between the two systems, but it does not record Mailchimp email engagement in HubSpot. Additionally, custom fields are only included in the $45 Starter plan or above.
Outfunnel takes care of these frustrations. Our integration syncs all your existing HubSpot CRM contacts to Mailchimp, along with any and all default and custom fields, keeps the contacts up to date, and logs all email engagement back to the contact profiles in HubSpot.
Start syncing your Mailchimp data to HubSpot.
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How our Mailchimp to Hubspot integration works
Make all HubSpot contacts or subset(s) you define with filters available in a Mailchimp Audience along with your custom contact and company fields (properties in HubSpot lingo).
Keep the two databases in sync going forward. Eg. if a custom text field is updated in HubSpot, this is recorded in Mailchimp automatically.
Record email engagement data (email opens, clicks, etc) on the contact profile in HubSpot CRM. Outfunnel supports Mailchimp single email campaigns, automations, email journeys and A/B tests.
(Coming soon) Sync Mailchimp subscribers to HubSpot as Contacts. Alternatively, new contacts can be copied to HubSpot only when they open or click on an email campaign.
Set up contact sync
Sync contacts from HubSpot to Mailchimp and create contacts in HubSpot from new Mailchimp subscribers.
Watch this quick video setup guide or follow the steps below.
1. Authenticate your apps. Head to Outfunnel > App connector, select the two apps, and authenticate as per on-screen instructions if you haven't done so already.
2. Select the connection type. Click on Connect and choose Contact sync as the connection type
3. Set up contact sync rules from HubSpot to Mailchimp. Choose whether to sync all HubSpot contacts or only contacts you’ve defined with HubSpot static/active lists (Learn how to set up HubSpot Lists) and select the Mailchimp audience you'd like to sync them to.
You can sync different HubSpot lists to different Mailchimp Audiences (eg. separate email lists for different regions or pipeline stages) or you can sync multiple HubSpot lists to the same Mailchimp Audience (eg. a list with open Deals for each sales rep, all synced to one big newsletter Audience)
Mailchimp to Hubspot contact sync coming soon.
4. Set up field mapping. Navigate to the field mapping step to select which fields or custom fields you’d like the sync to consider. You can choose up to 30 fields from all your Person and Organization fields and custom fields.
5. Activate the connection.
⏱️ Sync frequency
The first sync can take up to 15 minutes based on the number of contacts in the sync.
From there Outfunnel syncs field changes instantly but checks for new contacts/removed contacts every 2 hours. You can trigger an immediate sync if you click on the “Sync now” button (it might take up to 15 minutes for the data to appear)
🏁 Initial sync
Contacts are linked based on the email address. Existing Mailchimp fields are overwritten with HubSpot values.
A new contact is created if a contact with the same email address is not found.
Manually unsubscribed and archived contacts are resubscribed. To avoid resubscribing these contacts, delete them from Mailchimp or remove them from the HubSpot list.
Bounced and opted-out contacts are not resubscribed.
Contacts are linked based on the email address. If multiple contacts are found with the same email address then the link is made with the oldest contact.
↔️ Continuous sync
When a contact stops matching the rules all updates will stop and they will be unsubscribed but they will not be deleted from Mailchimp.
Outfunnel only updates Mailchimp if any details change for the contact that is in sync.
Example 1: if any contacts are archived in Mailchimp after the initial sync but nothing changes in the CRM then they will not be resubscribed.
Example 2: if any fields are changed in Mailchimp after the initial sync but nothing changes in the CRM then this field will not change to the CRM value in Mailchimp
Contacts do not get unsubscribed from Mailchimp if you remove the contact sync rule or change the target segment.
Set up engagement sync
Outfunnel supports recording engagement from Mailchimp single email campaigns, automation, email journeys, and A/B tests. If you've already set up a connection, skip to the second step.
1. Authenticate your apps. Head to Outfunnel > App connector, select the two apps, and authenticate as per on-screen instructions if you haven't done so already.
2. Select the connection type. Click on Connect and choose Engagement sync as the connection type
3. Choose the audience. Choose the Mailchimp audiences for which you’d like to record email engagement (opens, clicks, unsubscribes, etc).
4. Define how engagement gets recorded. Then define how you’d like email activities like opens, clicks, bounces, or unsubscribes recorded in HubSpot – or simply use our default settings.
5. Set up field mapping. When Outfunnel syncs an engagement for a contact that does not yet exist in HubSpot, a new contact is created with the defined field mapping. Navigate to the field mapping step to select which fields or custom fields you’d like the sync to consider.
6. Activate. Activate the connection. By default, Outfunnel records engagement from emails that have been sent after activating the connection but you can also choose to sync engagement events from the last 30 days when activating the connection.
💡Activities in HubSpot. All engagement is recorded as a new activity type in HubSpot making it easily filterable in HubSpot so you can create a list of people based on engagements.
The engagements that Outfunnel creates might be hidden at first in HubSpot. Here's how to make them visible:
Make sure you have set up the automation and sent out at least one email campaign from Mailchimp.
Open any contact profile in HubSpot and click on "Filter activity" option on the top of the timeline.
Under the Integrations section, enable "Outfunnel" (if Outfunnel is not yet visible but you have sent out a campaign, the data sync might have not happened yet. Just open the connection and click on "Sync now". The activities will be created in the next 15 minutes.)
💡 Sync frequency. The sync runs every 2 hours automatically or you can trigger an instant sync anytime by clicking on Sync now.
💡 Unsubscribe recording. Outfunnel only records end-user initiated unsubscribes in HubSpot and manual unsubscribes in Mailchimp are not recorded. When a contact is unsubscribed manually but still match a list in HubSpot that is targeted by a connection, then Outfunnel will resubscribe them in Mailchimp. If you'd like to manually remove a contact in Mailchimp, they need to be permanently deleted under the contact profile in Mailchimp.
Learn more about the best ways to manage unsubscribes and bounces.
See what has synced
Once the connection is live, navigate to the Status tab to see how many contacts are in-sync, how many are errored (and why), and when the last sync ran.
Tips, observations, and useful definitions
💡 Pre-create field values. Single and multiple option fields need to have the options pre-created in Mailchimp and HubSpot (case insensitive)
💡 Best results with a new Audience. We recommend setting up a brand new Mailchimp Audience to ensure everything works flawlessly, but syncing data to an already existing Audience works as well in most cases.
💡 Duplicate contacts. If you have duplicate contacts in HubSpot, then Outfunnel only syncs the first instance of the contact to Mailchimp. This is because Mailchimp only accepts one unique email per audience.
💡 Merging contacts. Outfunnel supports merging contacts with the same email. After you've merged a contact you may see the contact getting unsubscribed from Mailchimp if the contact you merged to was not in sync but they will get resubscribed in the next sync given that the email address is the same.
💡 Contacts with multiple emails. Outfunnel only syncs the first email address of the contact to Mailchimp. Other addresses will be ignored.
💡 Single source of truth is HubSpot. Outfunnel currently treats HubSpot as the “single source of truth”, and any changes you make in HubSpot will be reflected in Mailchimp. This doesn’t work the other way around. If you’d like to edit the contents of a field in Mailchimp, please make the changes in HubSpot and let Outfunnel take care of syncing this to Mailchimp.
Do you use web forms to collect leads to your lists? See the following integrations to automatically sync contacts from web forms to HubSpot CRM:
Don't see your preferred web forms listed above? Browse the upcoming connections and sign up for early access.