We have released an integration with MailChimp that automatically puts participant information into specific MailChimp lists as they sign up or are bulk imported to your race. This makes it simple for race directors who prefer to use MailChimp in addition to RunSignup’s free email service to maintain accurate and current mailing lists.
To set this up, go into the RunSignup Race Dashboard and under Promotion -> MailChimp -> Integration you will set up the overall connection between RunSignup and MailChimp for this race. You will need to do this on a per race basis since this allows for flexibility in having different MailChimp accounts for different races.
When you click on the link you will see a MailChimp login. This authorizes that RunSignup race to access MailChimp to update new participants:
You can set up lists in MailChimp, which is very simple:
Back on the RunSignup dashboard, you will setup each event to update a specific MailChimp List:
You can choose different lists for different events:
By default only the email address is synced.
To sync more data fields, these must be configured in MailChimp. Here are the fields that RunSignup can sync (click the “Show” below the MailChimp List on the RunSignup Dashboard for instructions and fields):
Here is what it will look like in MailChimp. You get there from picking a List, then Settings->List Fields and Merge Tags. As you can see the Field Label is what is seen in MailChimp, and the tag is the RSU_SOMETHING that you find in the chart above. You will need to click “Add Field” at the bottom of the page for extra fields in MailChimp:
Once this is done, you will see full participant information, as you can see on the last contact:
There are several caveats to this integration:
- MailChimp strips out duplicate email addresses on import. So you will only see one entry when a person signs up two people with the same email address.
- We do not upload past participants. So if your race have 100 signed up already, you will need to export those from RunSignup and import them into MailChimp. We are working on a mechanism to export from the Participant Report view which will make this simpler.
- It only syncs CSV imports into RunSignup, not individual imports using the fields at this time.
- It does not sync participant information updates when participants or race directors update someone in RunSignup.
We look forward to hearing feedback on this new feature and integration.