Migrate from CDK Global to Mailchimp

CDK Customer maps 1:1 to a Mailchimp audience member. The Customer's email address becomes the Mailchimp contact email — the unique identifier for the audience. First name, last name, phone, and address fields map to Mailchimp standard merge fields (FNAME, LNAME, PHONE, ADDRESS). Each Customer record creates one Mailchimp subscriber.

CDK Vehicle has a many-to-one relationship with Customer (one customer can own multiple vehicles). Mailchimp stores vehicle data as custom merge fields (VIN, MAKE, MODEL, YEAR, COLOR). For customers with multiple vehicles, each vehicle becomes a separate Tag (e.g., tag '2019 Toyota Camry VIN:1HGBH41JXMN') appended to the single contact record. This denormalizes CDK's relational vehicle table into Mailchimp's flat contact model.

CDK Service RO records contain RO number, service date, service advisor, and labor cost. Since Mailchimp has no native service history object, RO data migrates as Tags on the customer contact — for example, tag 'Service RO#10432 $387.50 2024-03-15 Advisor: Mike'. FlitStack preserves the most recent 5–10 RO tags per contact to keep the audience profile readable.

CDK F&I Deal records include deal amount, payment type, lender name, and product types (GAP, etch, warranty). These map to Mailchimp custom merge fields (FI_AMOUNT, FI_PAYMENT_TYPE, FI_LENDER) and tags for product flags ('GAP Sold', 'Etch Applied'). F&I deal status (active, paid-off, voided) becomes a FI_STATUS merge field.

CDK's dealership identifier (the franchise or location code) migrates as a DEALERSHIP merge field on each contact. This lets Mailchimp segment by dealership for multi-location dealer groups — each location's audience receives campaigns scoped to that franchise's inventory and service specials.

CDK contact_type values (Customer, Prospect, Inactive, Employee) map to Mailchimp Tags applied at import time. A CDK contact_type of 'Prospect' becomes tag 'CDK-Prospect'; 'Customer' becomes tag 'CDK-Customer'. This preserves the source classification for segmentation without creating duplicate audience lists. The tagging strategy enables your team to filter contacts by their original CDK classification within Mailchimp's audience dashboard, targeting active customers with loyalty campaigns and prospects with new-vehicle promotions based on their assigned tags.

CDK's lead_source field (Website, Walk-in, Referral, etc.) maps to a LEAD_SOURCE custom merge field created in the Mailchimp audience before import. Mailchimp segments built on this field let you target customers by their original acquisition channel when running re-engagement or loyalty campaigns. For example, contacts who entered as 'Referral' can receive referral bonus offers, while 'Website' leads get digital-exclusive specials. This preserves attribution data that lives in CDK's CRM but has no native home in Mailchimp's contact record.

CDK's marketing_opt_out flag maps directly to Mailchimp's subscriber status field. Contacts with opt-out flags in CDK are imported with status='unsubscribed' so Mailchimp respects existing suppression rules from day one. This prevents accidentally re-subscribing contacts who previously opted out, avoiding compliance issues under CAN-SPAM and Mailchimp's terms of service. The FlitStack migration process reads the marketing_opt_out boolean from each CDK Customer record and sets the corresponding Mailchimp STATUS field accordingly during the bulk import, ensuring suppression rules carry over without manual intervention.

CDK workflow rules (service due alerts, follow-up sequences, inventory triggers) have no Mailchimp equivalent. Mailchimp automation flows are time-based or tag-triggered, not event-driven by DMS record changes. These must be rebuilt post-migration. FlitStack exports the CDK workflow definitions as a reference document for your marketing team to recreate in Mailchimp.

CDK's third-party integrations — lender rate quotes, inventory feeds, OEM connections — are DMS-specific and cannot migrate to Mailchimp. Mailchimp's integration ecosystem (Shopify, WooCommerce, Salesforce, Stripe) is separate. If your marketing flows depend on CDK-connected data, those integrations must be re-established with Mailchimp's compatible tools post-migration.