Migrate from Acoustic Campaign to Mailchimp

Discovery and database audit

We audit the source Acoustic Campaign account across Databases (count, schema, contact volume per Database), Relational Tables (row counts, join keys, frequency of reference in Queries), active Programs (step count, trigger type, active enrollment counts), Suppression Lists (entry count and type breakdown by opt-out, bounce, and Do Not Email), and any custom field definitions. We also assess the target Mailchimp account: audience count, existing merge fields, current plan tier, and API key permissions. The discovery output is a written migration scope document covering record counts, schema mapping per Database, and the Program inventory requiring rebuild.

Suppression List import first

We load all Acoustic Suppression List entries into Mailchimp Global Excludes before any contact import begins. This is sequenced first to honour every opt-out and bounce marker so that the Mailchimp account cannot dispatch a welcome or campaign send to an address that previously unsubscribed. We validate the Global Exclude count in Mailchimp against the Acoustic suppression total and run a no-send validation send against a sample of suppressed addresses to confirm coverage before moving to the contact phase.

Schema preparation and merge field creation in Mailchimp

We create Mailchimp merge fields and custom properties for each Acoustic custom field before importing any contact records. Field type mapping is confirmed at this stage: string fields become text merge fields, numeric fields become number merge fields, date fields become date merge fields. We create one Mailchimp Audience per source Acoustic Database and name it to reflect the original Database name for traceability.

Contact import in batches with dedupe

We import Acoustic Contacts into Mailchimp using the REST API batch upsert endpoint, processing in batches of up to 500 records per request to stay within Mailchimp's rate limits. We apply the deduplication strategy identified during discovery: where the same email address appears across multiple Databases, the most recently modified record wins. Status transformation runs as a pre-import step: Active maps to subscribed, Opted Out to unsubscribed, Bounced and Do Not Email to cleaned and excluded from the contact import entirely. Acoustic personalisation tokens in any HTML content are translated to Mailchimp Liquid syntax before the content is loaded.

Relational Table denormalisation and Query snapshot export

We export Relational Table rows separately and denormalise the most-referenced fields onto each Contact record as Mailchimp merge tags. For each Acoustic Query, we export the current Contact membership snapshot and recreate the equivalent Mailchimp Segment using merge tag conditions where the underlying data now lives as merge fields. Queries that depend on complex multi-table joins are documented with the join logic for the customer's admin to rebuild manually as a Mailchimp segment or tag-based filter.

Program inventory and cutover handoff

We pause active Acoustic Programs before cutover, export the Program definition (step count, trigger, branching logic, timer durations), and deliver a written Program inventory with recommended Mailchimp Automation equivalents for each Program. The customer's admin rebuilds the equivalent Customer Journeys in Mailchimp ahead of or immediately following cutover. We do not rebuild Programs as Mailchimp automations inside the migration scope. We support a post-cutover validation window where we confirm the Mailchimp contact count, Global Exclude coverage, and segment accuracy against the Acoustic source data.