Migrate from Advantage HITS to Mailchimp

Advantage HITS Contact records map directly to Mailchimp Audience Members. Each Contact's email, first name, last name, phone, and address fields populate the Member's email_address, FNAME, LNAME, PHONE, and address fields. We use the Contact's email address as the Member's unique identifier for deduplication. Any custom contact properties from Advantage HITS map to Mailchimp Merge Fields (text, number, date, or dropdown type) that we pre-configure in the destination Audience before import.

Advantage HITS Company records associate with Contacts via the company link. We resolve each Contact's associated Company and carry the Company name, industry, and city into Member Merge Fields (COMPANY, INDUSTRY, CITY) on the Mailchimp Member. If the customer uses Companies as a separate segmentation dimension, we also apply a Tag per Company name so that the Mailchimp Segments builder can filter by company. We deduplicate by Company name to avoid duplicate tags on the same Member.

Mailchimp has no native deal or opportunity object. We carry Deal data as Tags on the associated Contact's Member record: a tag for the deal stage name (e.g., 'DealStage-Presentation Scheduled'), a tag for the pipeline name, and a text Merge Field holding the deal value (DEAL_VALUE). The customer can then create Mailchimp Segments filtering on these tags and merge fields for internal sales-marketing alignment reporting. Closed-won and closed-lost deals receive separate tags (e.g., 'DealClosed-Won', 'DealClosed-Lost') for lifecycle reporting.

Each Advantage HITS Pipeline definition exports separately. We establish a tag prefix convention in Mailchimp where pipeline names become tag namespaces (e.g., 'Pipeline-Sales', 'Pipeline-Enterprise') and stage names append as values. This convention is documented in the migration handoff so the customer's admin can build Segments from the tag taxonomy without manual reorganization.

Advantage HITS Tags applied to Contacts or Companies expand into individual Mailchimp Tags on the Member. The original tag name is preserved verbatim unless it exceeds Mailchimp's 255-character tag limit, in which case we truncate with a note in the reconciliation report. Duplicate tags on the same Member (from tags applied at both Contact and Company level) are deduplicated during import.

Advantage HITS email engagements attached to a Contact migrate as Mailchimp Member Notes on the corresponding Member. Each note records the email subject, direction (sent/received), timestamp, and content preview. Full email body content migrates to the note body field. Mailchimp does not track email engagement metrics (opens, clicks) for manually added notes; those metrics only apply to campaigns sent through Mailchimp.

Advantage HITS call engagements migrate as Member Notes on the associated Contact's Member record in Mailchimp. The note captures call direction, duration (formatted as minutes), disposition, and timestamp. Call recordings stored as URLs in Advantage HITS are documented as a text reference in the note body; the actual recording file does not attach to the Mailchimp Member.

Advantage HITS meeting engagements migrate as Member Notes capturing meeting title, start and end time, attendees, location, and a summary of the meeting content. The original meeting invite attachment, if present, is flagged for manual upload to the Member since Mailchimp does not support calendar invite attachments on Members.

Advantage HITS task engagements migrate as Member Notes recording task subject, status (completed, in progress, waiting), due date, priority, and the assigned owner's name. Completed tasks carry a 'Completed' status note; open tasks are flagged as pending items. Mailchimp does not have a native task management interface, so tasks do not surface as actionable items in the Mailchimp UI.

Advantage HITS lifecycle stage values (e.g., Subscriber, Lead, Marketing Qualified, Sales Qualified, Customer) map to a Merge Field LIFECYCLE_STAGE on the Mailchimp Member. The original stage value is preserved verbatim. The customer can use LIFECYCLE_STAGE as a Segment filter for lifecycle-aware email campaigns without maintaining a parallel tracking system.

Advantage HITS Owner names associated with Contacts, Companies, and Deals are carried as a Merge Field SALES_OWNER on the Member record. Owner email addresses are not stored on Members unless the customer specifically requests it during scoping. Owner-to-Member mapping is documented in the migration handoff for the customer's admin to reconcile.

User-defined fields on Advantage HITS Contacts and Companies enumerate during discovery and are pre-created in Mailchimp as Merge Fields before import. Field type mapping: text fields become TEXT merge fields, number fields become NUMBER fields, date fields become DATE fields, and dropdown fields become either TEXT (if under 15 options) or a Mailchimp Interest Category/Group structure (if the dropdown has 15 or more options).