"Who From Our Newsletter Actually Showed Up?" How One Nonprofit Finally Got Its Answer
Connecting the Dots
If you're running a nonprofit, you've probably asked yourself this question at least once: "Out of all our newsletter subscribers, who actually shows up to our events?"
It seems like such a simple question, right? But if your email marketing lives in Mailchimp and your event tracking lives in Salesforce (or worse, in a spreadsheet somewhere), getting that answer can feel impossible.
I recently worked with a nonprofit that was dealing with exactly this problem. They had a healthy Mailchimp subscriber base, they were running great events, but they had no clean way to connect those two worlds. Let me walk you through how we solved it.
Two Systems, Zero Visibility
Before we set up the integration, here's what their process looked like:
Every time they wanted to know which newsletter subscribers were engaging with their events, someone had to:
Export attendee lists from Zoom (or wherever the event was hosted)
Export subscriber lists from Mailchimp
Open Excel and start doing VLOOKUPs
Repeat this process for every single event they wanted to analyze
It was time-consuming, error-prone, and honestly? By the time they had their answer, it wasn't even that useful anymore because the data was already outdated.
More importantly, they couldn't easily answer strategic questions like:
Should we create a separate event invitation track for our most engaged subscribers?
Are certain subscriber segments more likely to attend events than others?
Which events are resonating with our newsletter audience?
The Solution: Mailchimp for Salesforce
We decided to set up the Mailchimp for Salesforce app to automatically sync their subscriber data into Salesforce. Here's what that looks like in practice:
The Setup:
Mailchimp audiences sync directly to Salesforce Contacts (they skipped Leads, as this org did not need lead conversion rates)
The sync runs automatically every night, so their data stays fresh
They only sync the audiences they actually care about (no need to clutter Salesforce with every single list)
Tracking Events:
They use Salesforce Campaigns to track their events
After an event, they download the attendee list from Zoom
They upload those attendees as Campaign Members and mark their status (RSVP'd, Attended, No Show, etc.)
Because their Mailchimp subscribers are already in Salesforce as Contacts, they can immediately see who from their email audience engaged with the event
Now, with just a few clicks in Salesforce, they can run a report that shows exactly which newsletter subscribers attended which events. No more Excel gymnastics required.
The Real Benefits (Beyond Just Answering That One Question)
Sure, they can now answer their original question easily. But the real magic happened when they realized what else became possible:
Better Segmentation: They can now create targeted Mailchimp audiences based on event behavior. Want to send a special message to everyone who RSVPs but never shows up? Done. Want to create a VIP list of your most consistent event attendees? Easy.
Time Savings: What used to take hours of manual work now happens automatically overnight. Their team can spend that time on actual mission work instead of data wrangling.
Improved Reporting: They can now build dashboards that show event engagement trends over time, track which subscriber segments are most engaged, and make data-driven decisions about their programming.
A Single Source of Truth: Instead of having constituent data scattered across multiple platforms, everything lives in Salesforce. When they need to know something about a contact, there's one place to look.
A Few Things to Watch Out For
No integration is perfect, and there are a few gotchas worth knowing about:
Duplicate Management: When you're syncing contacts from Mailchimp, you need a solid duplicate management strategy in Salesforce. People might be in your system from multiple sources, and you'll want clear rules about how to handle matches. We set up duplicate rules to catch these before they became a problem.
Field Mapping: The Mailchimp app gives you some default field mappings, but you'll want to review these carefully and customize them to match your organization's needs. What Mailchimp calls a "tag" might not map perfectly to what you want in Salesforce.
Pricing: The Mailchimp for Salesforce app does come with a cost (separate from your Salesforce and Mailchimp subscriptions). For this nonprofit, the ROI was clear; the time savings alone justified the expense. But it's worth budgeting for and getting buy-in from leadership.
Is This Right for Your Nonprofit?
This integration made sense for this organization because they were already using both Mailchimp and Salesforce, they were running regular events, and they needed better visibility into how their email audience engaged with their programs.
If you're dealing with similar challenges: manually exporting lists, struggling to connect your email marketing to your constituent data, or spending way too much time in Excel, it might be worth exploring.
The goal isn't to add more technology for technology's sake. The goal is to spend less time managing data and more time on your mission. For this nonprofit, that's exactly what happened.
Need help figuring out if the Mailchimp for Salesforce integration is right for your organization? Or want support setting it up? Feel free to reach out. I love talking through these kinds of challenges! Contact Me Today!
