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MailChimp for High-Volume Senders

©2001-2011 All rights reserved. MailChimp® is a registered trademark of The Rocket Science Group.

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Are you a high-volume sender? By MailChimp’s definition, “high volume”

means two million emails sent every month (give or take), and a dedicated

IP address. Sometimes, users who send that much email need special

attention.

MailChimp was founded on small businesses with DIY ethics, but it’s

powerful enough to handle the world’s largest corporations. MailChimp

is perfect for companies who have a large list, but would like a little

more control over their email marketing than they get with a full-service

provider. Whether you’re a current high-volume MailChimp sender, or

you’re interested in switching to MailChimp for your high-volume sending,

this guide’s for you. We hope to answer any questions you might have—

and maybe even answer some questions you didn’t know you had.

Table Of Contents Hello.

Hello ...................................................................................................................................................................... 3Create a List............................................................................................................................................................ 4 Importing Your List .................................................................................................................................................................4

List Strategies ........................................................................................................................................................................4

Create Forms ........................................................................................................................................................... 5Create a Campaign ................................................................................................................................................... 6 Choosing a Template................................................................................................................................................................6

Avoiding Spam Filters ..............................................................................................................................................................6

Common Mistakes ...................................................................................................................................................................6

Co-branding ............................................................................................................................................................................6Testing ................................................................................................................................................................... 7 General Tips ...........................................................................................................................................................................7

A/B Split Testing .....................................................................................................................................................................7

Inbox Inspector ......................................................................................................................................................................7

OnStage.................................................................................................................................................................................7Sending Your Campaign ........................................................................................................................................... 8 TimeWarp ...............................................................................................................................................................................8Tracking and Reporting ............................................................................................................................................ 9 Google Analytics .....................................................................................................................................................................9

Reports ..................................................................................................................................................................................9

Sharing and Rebranding Reports ..............................................................................................................................................9

AlterEgo.................................................................................................................................................................................9Integrations ........................................................................................................................................................... 10 Salesforce ............................................................................................................................................................................10

Eventbrite ............................................................................................................................................................................10

Mandrill ...............................................................................................................................................................................10

SurveyGizmo ........................................................................................................................................................................10

Magento ..............................................................................................................................................................................10Pricing and Billing ................................................................................................................................................. 10 Monthly Pricing ....................................................................................................................................................................10

Billing .................................................................................................................................................................................10

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Create a ListSince creating a list is the first thing you should do in your MailChimp account, we create one for you when you fill out your account information on your first login. You can use the list we created for you, or follow these two simple steps to create a new one.

1. Choose Lists, then click the Create list button on the left.

2. Fill out the setup details, making sure you’ve written a good Permission Reminder. Click Save to finish setting up your list.

Importing Your List

Now that you’ve got your list set up, it’s time to import your subscribers into it. There are a few ways for high-volume senders to do that.

1. Upload a CSV file

2. Import directly from other apps like Google Docs, Salesforce, Highrise, and more.

3. Import through MailChimp’s APIIf your list has more than a million subscribers, we recommend importing it through our API. Our API is free to use, and it’s a great resource for high-volume senders.

Now that your list is imported, we’ll help you set the name and content type for each column—we call it mapping. Use the pull-down menu above each column to set the field name and type. Once you’ve mapped your fields, click All done to complete the import.

After the import, you’ll be able to review all the emails that were or were not added to your list. Just click the links to view more details. Since you have a large list, we’ll ask for your email address, so we can send you the notifications and report back when the list is imported.

List Strategies

Double Opt-InMailChimp highly recommends the double opt-in method for signups. The way this works is that when someone signs up for your email list, you automatically send a confirmation email with a link that they must click before they’re added to your list. If they don’t click, they don’t get added. The reason we recommend and strongly enforce double opt-in is two-fold:

1. Our IP reputation is at stake. A handful of bad lists can ruin the party for our million good users, which is why you hear us talk about double opt-in so much.

2. Although it adds an extra step to the process, it’s one you can afford. Cutting corners in list collection tends to generate bounces, blacklisting, spam trap hits and all sorts of awful stuff that can ruin your campaigns. In fact, double opt-in will actually improve your opens, clicks, bounces and unsubscribes. We’ve got the stats to prove it, too.

Import Fresh ListsYou should only import a list to MailChimp if you’ve sent to that list within six months. This is important because, quite simply, most people receive a lot of email. Even if they gave you their address through a perfectly fine double opt-in process, if you haven’t sent to them recently, they may not remember who you are—which could lead to them marking you as spam. Plus if some of your addresses are old or not used any more, that can lead to bounces. If you’re concerned that you might have a stale list, we recommend using freshaddress.com to clean it.

HairballSometimes we get complaints from customers who want to run really complex segmentation criteria in MailChimp, but they keep bumping into our segmentation limits. The truth is that we put those limits in place to keep a few apples from destroying our servers for everyone else. Which is why we created Hairball, an Air app that you install on your computer. It syncs with your MailChimp list, and allows you to go nuts building all kinds of segments on your own system. When you’re finished, just sync it back up to MailChimp, and you’re all set.

Create FormsThere are many ways to collect subscribers, but forms are essential to the process. Whether you’re including a simple embedded form in your newsletter for forwards and Twitter shares, or you’re designing a custom form for your company’s website, forms are an integral, easy way to collect email addresses.

LIST:SUBSCRIBEInclude this merge tag in campaigns to make it easy for people to subscribe when a friend forwards them your email. If you want to get a little fancier, some of our more advanced merge tags will let you customize the subscribe options.

Embedded FormsWith MailChimp’s embedded signup form, you can present a simple, streamlined place for users to sign up in your email archives (for Twitter shares), Facebook page, website, or anywhere else you’d prefer a short-and-sweet signup process.

Customized FormsIf you prefer a branded option, our custom forms are the way to go. You can add your company’s logo, collect as much or as little information as you require, and translate forms into various languages for international users.

Pre-Existing FormsIf you already have a signup form on your website, you can continue to use it. Connect it through MailChimp’s API and Webhooks to sync the information, manage subscribes and unsubscribes, and more. If this all sounds like Greek, but you’d like to continue using your pre-existing form, you should talk to your web developer about making that connection.

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Create a CampaignYou’ve got your list and forms ready to go, so it’s time to create your first campaign. In this section, we’ll explain how to select your list, choose the right template, edit your content, and design your email.

Choosing a Template

From your Dashboard or Campaign tab, click Create campaign.

Choose the type of campaign you’d like to create. (Start with Regular ol’ campaign.)

In Step 1 of the Campaign Builder, select the list you want to send to. Once you’ve selected the list, use the Next button to move forward, or just click Send to entire list.

You’ll have options to name your campaign, set up a subject line, from name, reply-to email, and personalize your your “To:” field with *|MERGETAGS|*. You’ll also find options for tracking, authentication, analytics tracking, and social sharing. Again, use the Next and Back button to navigate through the steps. Which is to say: Don’t use your browser’s back button.

Choosing a template depends on your workflow. If you mostly want to focus on the editorial side of your newsletters, but you have an workable-if-amateur eye for design, a Pre-designed template or the Start from scratch might be best. Or you can click Design genius, and we’ll walk you through the styling process. We have a pretty standard template language, and our WYSIWYG editor is efficient and easy to use, especially if your content will need to be tweaked throughout the campaign process.

Most high-volume senders have access to web designers. If that’s you, you’ll probably want to create your own template. Simply choose Code custom templates, and use MailChimp’s powerful-yet-simple template language to code your own HTML emails. And our template language uses CSS comments and a few special HTML attributes, so you don’t have to waste your time learning another language. Our MailChimp for Designers guide goes into more detail about the template-creation process. It’s a must-read for anyone who’s creating a custom template in MailChimp.

Your company might already use a CMS to publish content. In that case, take advantage of MailChimp’s API to push content directly into a MailChimp template. TED’s CMS-to-MailChimp integration improved their workflow, and it makes for easy editing within a system the publishers already know.

You can also use your own CMS to build everything, host it all on your own server, and then put the URL into MailChimp or push it through with our API. If you’re looking for speed and won’t need to tweak anything, this is a good option, but the template won’t be editable once it’s in MailChimp. And of course, as with all things API, if you’re not a programmer or don’t have one in your company you can bribe, consult our list of MailChimp experts or consider another option instead of the API.

Avoiding Spam Filters

If you send email campaigns for long enough, you’ll inevitably run into spam-filter issues. According to ReturnPath, you can expect 10-20 percent of your emails to get lost in cyberspace, mostly due to overzealous spam filters. Innocent email marketers who send permission-based emails to people who requested them get spam filtered all the time. Unfortunately, there’s not a quick fix, but if you understand what spam is and how the filters work, you’ll be best prepared to avoid them.

Common Mistakes

Here are a few of the most common mistakes we see email marketers make:

* Using spammy phrases like “Click here!” or “Once in a lifetime opportunity!”* Going crazy with exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!* USING ALL CAPS, WHICH IS LIKE SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS FOR NO GOOD REASON (This is particularly important to avoid in the subject line.)* Coloring fonts bright red or green* Creating an HTML email that’s nothing but one big image, with little or no text (since spam filters can’t read images, they assume you’re a spammer that’s trying to pull a fast one)* Using the word “test” in the subject line (agencies run into this when sending drafts to clients for approval)* Sending a test to multiple recipients within the same company (that company’s email firewall will often assume it’s a spam attack)* Designing HTML email in Word and exporting the code to HTML

Co-branding

You can easily make MailChimp feel more like home by giving it your own colors, logo and background image. And if you’re a creative agency managing accounts for your clients, it’s a great way to make their accounts feel more professional. Learn more on the co-branding feature page.

TestingTesting your campaigns is important. After all, you wouldn’t want to make a mistake in front of your entire list, would you? Getting your message to your list is our goal, which is why we’ve done a lot of research on testing. Here are a few general tips for testing your own campaigns, and a few specific features to help your campaigns arrive in inboxes in one piece.

General Tips

1. Set up some email accounts for testing. Go to all the popular email services like Yahoo!, Hotmail and Gmail. Consider setting up AOL, Comcast and Earthlink accounts, if possible. Or find volunteers (friends, family, co-workers) you can send test emails to.2. Always use MailChimp’s pop-up preview tool to test plain-text and HTML emails. This will show you if any images are broken and if your general layout is working as it should.3. In the pop-up preview window, click View live merge info to see your merge tags in action. This will show you if they’re set up properly.4. Don’t rely on pop-up previews alone—they’re simply a visual check. Send emails to yourself, and check them in an email program.5. Use the Send a test button. It’s handy for when you’re still editing content. Edit, send. Edit, send.6. If possible, test your campaign on Mac and PC, with different browsers.

A/B Split Testing

A lot of questions may come to mind as you’re creating a campaign. What day of the week gets you better open rates? What time of day is ideal for your content? Should your subject line contain your company’s name? You can answer all of these with a few clicks.

Using our patent-pending A/B Split Tester, you simply decide what test you’d like to run and then determine the size of your sample groups. We’ll run the test and let you know which option worked best. We can even send the winning campaign to the portion of your list that didn’t receive the test.

According to our research, people who A/B test their campaigns get 11 percent better open rates and 17 percent more clicks. Not bad.

Inbox Inspector

Different email clients behave in different ways, and you might be surprised at how many email clients your subscribers use. This is why we developed Inbox Inspector, a feature that ensures your email design will look great in your subscribers’ 10 most-used clients. It’s free for monthly users, so if you want to see more than 10, run as many inspections as you like. In addition to showing you screenshots of your campaign in the different email clients, Inbox Inspector helps you stay out of trouble by looking out for words and phrases that trigger spam filters, then tells you specifically what they are, so you can fix the problem.

OnStage

Sometimes the hardest part of sending an email campaign isn’t the writing or the designing—it’s getting your boss and colleagues to give you the green light to send it. After working hard on a campaign, you send a test to your head honchos and co-workers, and the avalanche of feedback and changes begins. It can be hard balancing all these opinions, and when the design isn’t present, requests can get lost in the back-and-forth.

If this rings a bell, check out OnStage for MailChimp. Visit onstageapp.com, log in with your MailChimp credentials, and select the campaign you want to put on stage for feedback. Invite your audience via email, and they can click on the email where they want changes, and annotate those to-dos where everyone can see them. You can even live chat with them in The Peanut Gallery. Make any needed changes, and invite the same people (or new ones, depending on your workflow) to view the next act. OnStage is free for anyone to use.

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Sending Your CampaignThere are some special concerns that come with high-volume sending. For users with large lists like yours, we recommend scheduling campaigns instead of the “send now” option. Your campaign will send faster this way, since it’s already in line ahead of time. We also recommend that high-volume senders avoid scheduling multiple campaigns to go out at the same time. A good rule of thumb for best performance is to stagger them by 30 minutes each, if at all possible.

TimeWarp

If you have subscribers in different time zones around the country or the world, you might have trouble figuring out the best time to send a campaign. You don’t want your campaigns to reach any subscribers in the middle of the night, but you definitely don’t want to bother with sending multiple campaigns to make sure your readers get them on time. TimeWarp allows you to choose what time you want your campaign to arrive, whether it’s your local time zone, or one on the other side of the planet. Just choose the time you’d like your campaign delivered, and MailChimp will make sure it arrives at that time in any given time zone.

And don’t forget Hairball—it’ll save you a few headaches if you want to segment large lists.

Tracking and ReportingOnce you send a campaign, the reports almost immediately start coming in. How many people opened your newsletter? How many clicked? Did they like the content? MailChimp offers insightful tracking and reporting that can help you improve your campaigns and better serve your readers. Use the tools below to review each campaign you send.

Google Analytics

If you use MailChimp’s Google Analytics integration, you’ll be able to see stats about your campaigns’ performance—visits, conversions and sales—in your Google Analytics account. Activate Analytics360, and we’ll pull all the data back into MailChimp and mash it up with your campaign stats.

Reports

MailChimp’s free reports analyze clicks, opens, social activity, and more. Seriously, we have a lot of reports. Our interactive graphs show you how many emails were delivered, how many people opened your campaign, and what percentage clicked. View your list growth in our HTML5 chart, analyze your opens and clicks over time and by location, and compare your stats to other companies in your industry.

Sharing and Rebranding Reports

If you manage a MailChimp account for a client or boss, or you’re a web developer or designer, you might want to show someone a MailChimp report without giving them full access to the account (because that can be scary). Our VIP reports allow you to customize your campaign reports so no one will even be able to tell they came from MailChimp. You can rebrand them, choose the sections you want to include, print them, and share them online.

For additional information on all things reports, check out our Understanding Reports guide.

AlterEgo

Two-factor security solutions are usually expensive and painful to set up, but MailChimp’s AlterEgo app is free, and its simple API makes it easy to drop it into any app that needs another layer of security. It generates temporary auto codes only accessible on users’ mobile devices and requires them for entry. Even if passwords are compromised, AlterEgo blocks account access unless the user has the temporary auto code.

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Integrations PricingMailChimp is integrated with all the web services you already use, so it’s easy to sync your data, import content from other apps and services, and see how your newsletters are making a positive impact on your business. Browse the directory to find out how to make the most of your MailChimp account.

If you’d like to integrate with MailChimp, read our API documentation for details. Who knows? We might even pay you for your work.

In addition to integrations mentioned elsewhere in this guide (Google Analytics) and some of the more obvious ones (Twitter, Facebook), we’ve highlighted a few below that are popular with high-volume users.

Salesforce

Salesforce is a cloud computing company which allows you to track all your business information and documents via web browser. MailChimp’s integration allows subscribers to access MailChimp within their normal workflow in Salesforce.

Eventbrite

With our Eventbrite integration, you can easily send invitations for, sell tickets to and promote events through your MailChimp account.

Mandrill

Mandrill is a transactional email service that runs on MailChimp’s delivery infrastructure and makes it easy to manage marketing and transactional email in one place, with no extra fees.

SurveyGizmo

Sending survey invitations to your subscribers is easy with MailChimp’s SurveyGizmo integration. Click on the link in SurveyGizmo and you’ll be taken straight to a specially designed email template that you can send to your list.

Magento

Magento is an open-source ecommerce web app. With our free Magento integration, you can ensure your Magento subscribers are in sync with MailChip while supporting multiple lists and interest groups.

Monthly Pricing

For high-volume senders, MailChimp’s monthly plans are based primarily on list size, with a sending limit imposed on each billing tier. If your send volume exceeds the limits of your tier on a particular month, MailChimp will automatically upgrade you to the next one.

Billing

MailChimp will bill you every 30 days, based on when you sign up, and we accept payment by credit card or eCheck. We don’t send invoices or accept payment via Net 30 trade credit. But if you need a printed receipt for accounting purposes, they’re available in the MailChimp app under Billing > Statements. International user? No problem. MailChimp can bill you in GBP or EUR.