Hey Shopifiers!

As you may have heard, the integration between MailChimp and Shopify is officially dead.

As of March 22, 2019, MailChimp announced they will no longer be listed in the Shopify App Store. This integration is still available for stores that were previously using it, however it is no longer available for new Shopify stores to download and install. 

Shopify has decided to end their integration with MailChimp due to a poor merchant experience over the past year and a half. So we are here to discuss about best email marketing software for Shopify.

Essentially, MailChimp was unwilling to share all data back to Shopify merchants. This had enabled store owners to optimize based on email performance and audience data. Shopify believed they would be compromising their merchants ability to successfully run their businesses by continuing to integrate with MailChimp.

This is a real bummer, and it’s going to impact countless businesses considering both Shopify and MailChimp are market leaders with thousands of shared customers. 

Our own business has dozens of clients using both platforms, but despite the fallout, we believe there’s a brighter side to this.

MailChimp has always been the go-to platform for younger e-commerce businesses. I’m not going to get into why, but let’s just say they have great marketing and an iconic logo. It’s a great platform, but it’s also very rudimentary. 

We encourage Shopify store owners to use this as an opportunity to level up your email marketing. You’ll get more sales, and make a lot more money.

Why we dislike MailChimp:

• Low delivery rates compared to other platforms
• Poor list segmentation capabilities
• Overly basic functionality
• Seems to prioritize branding and design over features and functionality (just run a Google search for “mailchimp high five”)

Lower delivery compared to other ESPs (Email Service Provider) is somewhat debatable. But when the vast majority of MailChimp users are small businesses that aren’t great at email marketing, you’re going to see millions of emails sent every day that aren’t leveraging best practices.

Adhering to email best practices is really important, as this is what yields high delivery rates.

The issue here is that with Mailchimp, your emails go through the same servers as everyone else, and performance is evaluated as a group. 

As an example, here’s what MailChimp has to say about delivery:

“When you send through Mailchimp, your email is delivered through our servers, so if one person sends spam, it could affect deliverability for our other users.”

https://mailchimp.com/resources/avoid-spam-filters/   

 

EmailToolTester – Email Deliverability Test – January 2019

How is the Shopify Mailchimp Integration going to impact my business?

If you’re not currently using MailChimp as your email service provider, we don’t recommend that you start now, as there are plenty of other best email marketing platform for Shopify like Klaviyo that integrate natively with Shopify.

If you ARE using MailChimp with Shopify, don’t panic, you have options! 

First and foremost, don’t disconnect or shut down MailChimp until you have a new solution in place. Disconnecting before you complete the transition over to a new platform or solution could corrupt data and potentially cause future sync errors.

Option #1: Change Your Email Provider from mailChimp to Klaviyo

We’re not paid to say this, we have no incentive to do so other than including an affiliate link…because we happen to love the product!

We also happen to have a whole lot of experience with email marketing, list segmentation, MailChimp, Shopify, and of course Klaviyo.

You’re already using Shopify, so why not use an ESP specifically built for eCommerce businesses? 

If you’re ready to start taking your email marketing seriously, go all-in with Klaviyo. It’s more robust, easy to use, and intentionally designed to increase sales and scale your revenue. 

Klaviyo makes it simple to get the right marketing message to the right person at the right time, so you can sell more (and make more money). 

Klaviyo also has a one-click integration with Shopify!

It’s easy to migrate from MailChimp to Klaviyo and get all your important information over from Shopify. Cost is based on list size, but you don’t have to migrate your entire list. You can store your contacts for free with Hubspot, as long as your list isn’t larger than 1 million. If it is, I’m jealous, and you’ll have to pay.

In our experience, Klaviyo is the ideal platform for Shopify businesses that are serious about growth and scaling.

Klaviyo has great features:

• Built for eCommerce businesses
• Top rated audience segmentation tools
• One-click integration with Shopify
• Flows and automations are quick to setup and highly effective
• Powerful behavioral targeting features
• Facebook & Instagram audience integration! No more manually refreshing lists and custom audiences
• Klaviyo also has a MailChimp integration (that isn’t going away), which allows access to previous lists without having to perform a full migration

In Klaviyo, a flow is an automated sequence that is set in motion by a specific trigger and then includes one or more steps. They’re designed to make it easy to initiate and nurture relationships with your subscribers and customers over the course of their lifecycle. 

Option #2 – Stay with MailChimp and utilize 3rd party integrations

If you’re deeply integrated with MailChimp and parting ways will induce pain and mental anguish, your best option is to utilize a 3rd party integration platform like Zapier or ShopSync. 

Using an integration tool will allow you to continue using MailChimp as usual, however it’s going to require additional steps and the entire process isn’t going to be seamless. It’s also possible your revised solution encounters technical issues.

Should You Switch From MailChimp to Klaviyo, or use a 3rd party Shopify Integration?

Finding out which email service provider (ESP) is best for you will take some research. Understanding your needs,  knowing which features are most valuable, and taking into consideration how far you want to scale are the most important factors.  

The split between Shopify and MailChimp is likely to be long-term, if not permanent, and thus we recommend moving on from the platform as long as you intend to remain with Shopify. 

Here at Fetch & Funnel, our team has a deep understanding of Shopify integrations as well as email marketing automation, and how it works with your other paid channels like Facebook Ads. 

If you want advice, we can certainly help you to identify which email platform is best for growing your business. Although it’s not entirely unbiased, we do believe this is a pretty accurate comparison of Mailchimp vs. Klaviyo.

If you need help figuring out what to do, or need help migrating your email platform don’t be a stranger, just drop us a line. Good luck!