Mailchimp to MySQL Migration: 2 Easy Methods

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: Manual Mailchimp to MySQL Migration
• Method 2: Mailchimp to MySQL Migration Using Hevo Data

Method 1: 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: There is no real-time functionality under this method. You have to configure cron jobs to achieve even limited functionality.

Method 2: Mailchimp to MySQL Migration Using Hevo Data

Hevo Data, a No-code Data Pipeline, helps you directly transfer data from MailChimp (a Free Source) and 100+ other data sources to Data Warehouses such as Google BigQuery, Databases, BI tools, or a destination of your choice in a completely hassle-free & automated manner. Hevo instantaneously detects the schema of the data flowing from SendGrid and maps it to the relevant BigQuery table automatically.

Hevo takes care of all your data preprocessing needs required to set up Mailchimp to MySQL Migration and lets you focus on key business activities and draw a much powerful insight on how to generate more leads, retain customers, and take your business to new heights of profitability. It provides a consistent & reliable solution to manage data in real-time and always have analysis-ready data in your desired destination. With Hevo, you can achieve data migration in two simple steps.

The following steps can be implemented to set up Mailchimp to MySQL Migration using Hevo:

• Configure Source: Connect Hevo Data with Mailchimp by providing a unique name for your Pipeline, along with details about your authorized Mailchimp account.

• Integrate Data: Complete Mailchimp to MySQL migration by providing information about your MySQL database and its credentials such as database name, username, and password, along with information about port number associated with your MySQL database.

More Reasons to Try Hevo:

1. Minimal Setup: With Hevo, the difficulty involved in maintaining a custom application environment is removed. The time spent on configuring Hevo is much less than on building the setup yourself.
2. Transformations: Hevo provides preload transformations through Python code. It also allows you to run transformation code for each event in the pipelines you set up. You need to edit the event object’s properties received in the transform method as a parameter to carry out the transformation. Hevo also offers drag and drop transformations like Date and Control Functions, JSON, and Event Manipulation to name a few. These can be configured and tested before putting them to use.
3. Connectors: Hevo supports 100+ integrations to SaaS platforms, files, databases, analytics, and BI tools. It supports various destinations including Google BigQuery, Amazon Redshift, Snowflake Data Warehouses; Amazon S3 Data Lakes; and MySQL, MongoDB, TokuDB, DynamoDB, PostgreSQL databases to name a few.  
4. Automatic Schema Detection and Mapping: Hevo has the ability to instantly detect the schema of the incoming data. Hevo seamlessly implements schema changes in BigQuery, without any human intervention.
5. Completely Managed Solution: Hevo is a fully managed system that removes the need for monitoring or maintenance.
6. Automatic Real-time Periodic Data Transfer: On Hevo, data is synced in real-time between SendGrid and BigQuery. This means that the most recent data is shown in your database.
7. No Data Loss: The risk-tolerant architecture of Hevo ensures that the data loss is nil when loading data from SendGrid into BigQuery.
8. Added Integration Option: Hevo integrates a variety of Databases, Sales and Marketing Tools, Analytics systems, etc. That makes Hevo the best platform for your company to meet the rising need for data integration.
9. Strong Customer Support: Hevo team provides you with 24×7 support over call, email, and chat.
10. Transform Data Ability: Hevo helps you transform the data anytime both before and after it is transferred to BigQuery. That means the data is always ready in BigQuery for analysis.

Simplify your Data Analysis with Hevo today! 

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Conclusion

This article provided you with a step-by-step guide on how you can set up Mailchimp to MySQL Migration manually or using Hevo. However, there are certain limitations associated with the manual method. If those limitations are not a concern to your operations, then using it is the best option but if it is, then you should consider using automated Data Integration platforms like Hevo.

Hevo Data, a No-code Data Pipeline provides you with a consistent and reliable solution to manage data transfer between a variety of sources and a wide variety of Desired Destinations with a few clicks.

Visit our Website to Explore Hevo

Hevo Data with its strong integration with 100+ data sources (including 30+ free sources such as Mailchimp) allows you to not only export data from your desired data sources & load it to the destination of your choice such as MySQL, but also transform & enrich your data to make it analysis-ready so that you can focus on your key business needs and perform insightful analysis using BI tools. 

Sign Up for a 14-day free trial and experience the feature-rich Hevo suite first hand. You may also have a look at the amazing price, which will assist you in selecting the best plan for your requirements.

Share your experience of understanding the process of moving data from Mailchimp to MySQL in the comment section below! We would love to hear your thoughts.