Mailchimp

Connect & Ingest data from Mailchimp

Mailchimp is an email marketing platform that helps businesses manage subscriber lists, create and send campaigns, and analyze email marketing performance. The Sling Mailchimp connector extracts data from the Mailchimp Marketing API, supporting audiences, campaigns, automations, member data, segments, and analytics.

CLI Pro Required: APIs require a CLI Pro token or Platform Plan.

Setup

The following credentials and inputs are accepted:

Secrets:

• api_key (required) -> Your Mailchimp API key

Inputs:

• server_prefix (required) -> Your Mailchimp datacenter server prefix (e.g., us4, us5, us6, us13, etc.)

Getting Your API Key

1. Log in to your Mailchimp account

2. Click on your profile icon in the bottom left corner

3. Select Account or go to Account > Extras > API keys

4. Scroll down to the Your API Keys section

5. Click Create A Key to generate a new API key

6. Copy the API key (it looks like: abc123def456abc123def456abc123def456ab12-us4)

The API key itself contains your server prefix. For example:

• abc123-us4 means your server prefix is us4

• abc123-us13 means your server prefix is us13

Using sling conns

sling conns set MAILCHIMP type=api spec=mailchimp secrets='{ api_key: "abc123def456abc123def456abc123def456ab12-us4" }' inputs='{ server_prefix: "us4" }'

Environment Variable

export MAILCHIMP='{ type: api, spec: mailchimp, secrets: { api_key: "abc123def456abc123def456abc123def456ab12-us4" }, inputs: { server_prefix: "us4" } }'

Sling Env File YAML

See here to learn more about the sling env.yaml file.

connections:
  MAILCHIMP:
    type: api
    spec: mailchimp
    secrets:
      api_key: "abc123def456abc123def456abc123def456ab12-us4"
    inputs:
      server_prefix: "us4"

Replication

Here's an example replication configuration to sync Mailchimp data to a PostgreSQL database:

source: MAILCHIMP
target: MY_POSTGRES

defaults:
  mode: incremental
  object: mailchimp.{stream_name}

streams:
  # Core audience data
  lists:
  list_members:
  segments:
  segment_members:

  # Campaign data
  campaigns:
  unsubscribes:
  email_activity:

  # Automation and segmentation
  automations:
  interest_categories:
  interests:

  # Analytics
  reports:
  tags:

Incremental sync example:

source: MAILCHIMP
target: MY_POSTGRES

defaults:
  mode: incremental
  object: mailchimp.{stream_name}

streams:
  # These endpoints support incremental sync
  campaigns:
  list_members:
  segments:
  reports:

Full refresh example:

source: MAILCHIMP
target: MY_POSTGRES

defaults:
  mode: full-refresh
  object: mailchimp.{stream_name}

streams:
  # Reference data (best with full-refresh)
  lists:
  interest_categories:
  interests:
  tags:

Endpoints

Audience Management

Endpoint	Description	Incremental
lists	Email lists/audiences	No
list_members	Members in each audience	Yes
segments	Audience segments	Yes
segment_members	Members in each segment (child of segments)	No
interest_categories	Interest categories in audiences (child of lists)	No
interests	Interests within categories (child of interest_categories)	No
tags	Tags applied to audiences (child of lists)	No

Campaign Management

Endpoint	Description	Incremental
campaigns	Email campaigns	Yes
unsubscribes	Unsubscribe events from campaigns (child of campaigns)	No
email_activity	Email activity (opens, clicks, etc.) for campaigns (child of campaigns)	No

Automation

Endpoint	Description	Incremental
automations	Automation workflows	No

Analytics

Endpoint	Description	Incremental
reports	Campaign performance reports	Yes

To discover available endpoints:

sling conns discover MAILCHIMP

Parent-Child Endpoints

Some endpoints are children of parent endpoints and require the parent to run first:

• list_members -> Requires lists to run first (iterates through each list)

• segments -> Requires lists to run first

• segment_members -> Requires segments to run first

• interest_categories -> Requires lists to run first

• interests -> Requires interest_categories to run first

• tags -> Requires lists to run first

• unsubscribes -> Requires campaigns to run first

• email_activity -> Requires campaigns to run first

Incremental Sync

The Mailchimp connector supports time-based incremental sync for the following endpoints:

• campaigns - Syncs new campaigns by create_time

• list_members - Syncs new/modified members by last_changed

• segments - Syncs new/modified segments by updated_at

• reports - Syncs new campaign reports by send_time

How it works

• First run: Fetches all records from the beginning

• Subsequent runs: Only fetches records created or modified after the last sync timestamp

Rate Limiting

The Mailchimp API has rate limits that vary by account type:

• Free/Standard: 10 requests/second

• Premium: 10 requests/second

The connector automatically:

• Uses conservative rate limiting (5 requests/second)

• Retries with exponential backoff on 429 (rate limit) responses

Common Use Cases

Sync Campaign Performance Analytics

source: MAILCHIMP
target: MY_POSTGRES

defaults:
  mode: incremental
  object: campaigns.{stream_name}

streams:
  campaigns:
  reports:
  email_activity:
  unsubscribes:

Sync Audience and Subscriber Data

source: MAILCHIMP
target: MY_POSTGRES

defaults:
  mode: incremental
  object: audiences.{stream_name}

streams:
  lists:
  list_members:
  segments:
  segment_members:

Sync Audience Structure and Configuration

source: MAILCHIMP
target: MY_POSTGRES

defaults:
  mode: full-refresh
  object: audience_config.{stream_name}

streams:
  lists:
  interest_categories:
  interests:
  tags:

Sync All Mailchimp Data

source: MAILCHIMP
target: MY_POSTGRES

defaults:
  mode: incremental
  object: mailchimp.{stream_name}

streams:
  # Sync all available endpoints
  '*':

If you are facing issues connecting, please reach out to us at [email protected], on discord or open a Github Issue here.