How to Load Data from Mailchimp to MySQL Quickly?

Most businesses consider Digital Marketing as one of the most reliable techniques to reach potential customers. These platforms can help businesses improve upon and automate a lot of processes making the job of their Marketing teams easier and faster. There are various tools used by Marketers today for running their Marketing Campaigns. One of the most popular tools by businesses for Email Marketing is Mailchimp.

This article will provide you with an in-depth understanding of how you can set up Mailchimp to MySQL Migration to perform a comprehensive analysis of your Mailchimp data.

Introduction to Mailchimp

Mailchimp is a popular Marketing platform that gives businesses the ability to manage their interactions with their customer base. These interactions include newsletters, mailing lists, automated campaigns, etc. Using Mailchimp enables businesses to have complete end-to-end control of all these Marketing efforts. It also allows them to make numerous campaign-specific customizations based on requirements, along with the ability to gain valuable insights using the in-built Data Analytics tools. Mailchimp is now considered one of the most popular Marketing platforms primarily due to its simplicity and easy-to-use interface. 

More information about Mailchimp can be found here.

Understanding the Key Features of Mailchimp

Some of the key features of Mailchimp are as follows:

• Geo-targeting: Mailchimp enables greater campaign customization by giving businesses the ability to target individuals in specified locations specifically.
• Advanced Ecommerce Functionality: Businesses can easily track the number of purchases and revenue generated from specific campaigns using Mailchimp. This enables them to better track and monitor their campaigns.
• Automated Email Campaigns: Marketing campaigns can be fully automated from end to end with Mailchimp.
• Reporting and Analytics Feature: Mailchimp enables the creation of high-level reports and visualizations that provide quick insights into campaigns’ success.

Introduction to MySQL

MySQL is considered to be one of the most popular Open-Source Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS). MySQL implements a simple Client-Server Model that helps its users manage Relational Databases i.e. data stored in the form of rows and columns across tables. It uses the well-known query language, Structured Query Language (SQL) that allows users to perform all required CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations.

MySQL was first developed by a Swedish company called MySQL AB in 1994. The company was then taken over by Sun Microsystems in 2008 which was finally taken over by the US tech giant, Oracle. Oracle is now responsible for the development and growth of MySQL. Even though MySQL is Open-Source and free of cost for everyone, it houses some premium features that are offered by Oracle only to those customers who are willing to pay for its usage.

Even though there is very high competition in the database market today, MySQL is considered to be the preferred database for more than 5000 companies including Uber, Netflix, Pinterest, Amazon, Airbnb, Twitter, etc.

Understanding the Key Features of MySQL

Some of the key features of MySQL are as follows:

• Robust Transactional Support: Implementation of ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) properties that ensures no data loss or inconsistency.
• Ease of Use: Considering that it makes use of SQL for querying data, anyone with basic knowledge of SQL can perform the required tasks easily.
• Security: Implements a complex data security layer that ensures that only authorized users can access sensitive data.
• Scalable: Considered to be highly scalable due to support for multi-threading. 
• Roll-back Support: MySQL supports roll-backs, commits, and crash recovery for all transactions.
• High Performance: Houses various fast load utilities along with Table Index Partitioning and Distinct Memory Caches that can ensure high performance.

Methods to Set up Mailchimp to MySQL Migration

Users can set up Mailchimp to MySQL Migration by implementing one of the following methods:

• Method 1: Easiest Way to Integrate Mailchimp to MySQL- Using Hevo
• Method 2: Manual Mailchimp to MySQL Migration

Prerequisites: 

• An active Hevo account.
• A Mailchimp account to transfer your customer data automatically from.
• A MySQL Destination account.
• Knowledge of Mailchimp REST API.
• Working knowledge of MySQL.

Method 1: Easiest Way to Integrate Mailchimp to MySQL- Using Hevo 

Step 1: Configure Mailchimp as your Source.

Step 2: Configure MySQL as your destination.

Method 2: Manual Mailchimp to MySQL Migration

The steps involved in executing a data migration process from Mailchimp to MySQL database are:

• Step 1: Extracting Data from Mailchimp
• Step 2: Preparing Extracted Data
• Step 3: Load Extracted Data into MySQL

Step 1: Extracting Data from Mailchimp

Mailchimp houses a REST API using which you can extract the required data. The API exposes a lot of endpoints for you to interact with. Some of these are lists, campaigns, etc. Your Mailchimp data is returned in JSON format. You can interact with the API directly or choose a tool like Postman or curl.

The following example shows the data being extracted from Mailchimp API using curl:

curl --request GET --url 'https://usX.api.mailchimp.com/3.0/lists/57afe96172/members' --user 'anystring:apikey' —include

The response will be similar to the following:

{ "members": [ { "id": "f777bbffab8d1ceca8b757df63c47cb8", "email_address": "urist.mcvankab+1@freddiesjokes.co", "unique_email_id": "882e9bec19", "email_type": "html", "status": "subscribed", "status_if_new": "", "merge_fields": { "FNAME": "", "LNAME": "" }, "interests": { "9143cf3bd1": true, "3a2a927344": false, "f9c8f5f0ff": false, "f231b09abc": true, "bd6e66465f": false },…

The above example shows how the data on members can be extracted using the Mailchimp API.

More information about the Mailchimp API can be found on the official documentation where you can get an understanding of the various endpoints offered and the process to extract the required data.

Step 2: Preparing Extracted Data

You may need to create a schema and tables to store the data extracted from Mailchimp. You may also have to flatten the JSON data if it is nested. Special care must also be taken to ensure that the data types in the Mailchimp file match their corresponding data types in MySQL. MySQL supports a wide array of commonly used data types. The format for the CREATE TABLE query on MySQL is as follows:

CREATE TABLE [IF NOT EXISTS] table_name(
   column_1_definition,
   column_2_definition,
   ...,
   table_constraints
) ENGINE=storage_engine;

More information about the data types supported by MySQL can be found here.

Step 3: Loading Extracted Data into MySQL

You can use MySQL Shell to import your Mailchimp JSON document in a single operation by running the following command:

$ mysqlsh root@localhost:33300/<schema> --import /path_to_file/<file_name>.json

More information about importing JSON data into MySQL can be found here.

Limitations of Manual Mailchimp to MySQL Migration

• Difficulty with Data Transformations: It is not possible to perform quick data transformations (like currency conversions/date standardizations) under this method. If required, you will have to write custom scripts to perform the required operation.
• Maintenance: This method will fail if the Mailchimp API experiences any issues or your MySQL Server is not reachable. Any such failures will result in irretrievable data loss. Thus, this infrastructure requires constant monitoring.
• Time-Consuming: This method is time-consuming because it involves manually writing code to perform your ETL activity.
• Real-time Data Load Limitations: This method does not support real-time functionality. To achieve even limited functionality, you have to configure cron jobs.

Use cases of Integrating Mailchimp with MySQL.

1. Centralized Data Management: You can sync my Mailchimp contacts with MySQL to ensure all customer data is in one place, eliminating the need to transfer information manually.
2. Automated Email Campaigns: You can use MySQL data to trigger personalized email campaigns in Mailchimp based on specific customer behaviors or actions stored in the database.
3. Custom audience segmentation: With data from MySQL, you can build highly customized audience segments in Mailchimp. For example, you could target users based on your database’s purchase history, behavior, or demographic information.
4. User behavior tracking: If you track user behavior on your site or app, integrating Mailchimp with MySQL allows you to create email campaigns triggered by specific actions, like when a user reaches a certain milestone or visits a product page multiple times.

Conclusion

To conclude, this blog provided you with the steps to integrate Mailchimp to MySQL using two methods. Although the manual method is widely used, it has various limitations. To overcome these limitations, use Hevo’s automated platform. 

Hevo is a reliable, cost-effective, and easy-to-use platform that integrates with 150+ connectors such as MySQL and Mailchimp. Sign up for Hevo’s 14-day free trial and experience seamless data migration. 

FAQ on Mailchimp to MySQL Migration