Migrate from Freshmarketer to Mailchimp

Freshmarketer Contacts map to Mailchimp Members within an Audience. Email address serves as the dedupe key; contacts with duplicate emails are flagged for the customer to resolve before import. Custom contact fields map to Mailchimp Merge Fields (text, number, date, phone, address) based on field type matching. The Marketing Contacts billing flag from Freshmarketer migrates to Member status (subscribed, unsubscribed, cleaned) to preserve deliverability standing. Opt-in timestamps migrate to a Merge Field for re-permission documentation if needed.

Mailchimp has no Companies object. Freshmarketer Company Name, Industry, Website, Employee Count, and Address denormalize into Merge Fields on the Member record. The original Company ID is preserved in a text Merge Field for future reference if a CRM is re-added to the stack. We create a Mailchimp Tag group named after the original Company records and apply the corresponding company tag to each Member with that association. This is decided during scoping: single audience with company as Merge Fields and Tags, or multiple audiences segmented by company.

Mailchimp does not have a Deals, Pipeline, or Opportunity object. All Freshmarketer Deals export as a structured CSV with deal name, amount, stage, close date, owner, and all custom fields preserved. The CSV is delivered to the customer at cutover with a data dictionary. The customer decides whether to load Deals into a separate CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive) or manage pipeline manually using Mailchimp Tags, custom fields, and the notes section. This decision is made during scoping before migration begins.

Freshmarketer Segments map to Mailchimp Segments but the underlying filter logic differs. We translate Freshmarketer segment conditions (field, operator, value) to Mailchimp filter conditions using the nearest equivalent operator. Complex time-decay rules and recency-frequency-monetary scoring that cannot be replicated as Mailchimp filters are converted to static list snapshots as of the cutover date. The customer reviews the translated segment logic and approves the mapping before final import.

Freshmarketer Tags applied to Contacts migrate to Mailchimp Tags on the corresponding Member record. Tags are stored as a flat string list in Freshmarketer and map directly to Mailchimp's tag model. We create tag groups in Mailchimp matching Freshmarketer's tag naming convention. Tags with no clear mapping to another object (e.g., lifecycle stage tags, product interest tags) are preserved as-is for use in Mailchimp Segments and Customer Journeys.

Freshmarketer custom fields on Contacts and Companies map to Mailchimp Merge Fields with type conversion. Text fields map to text Merge Fields; number fields map to number Merge Fields; date fields map to date Merge Fields; phone fields map to phone Merge Fields; dropdown fields map to radio Merge Fields. Multi-select dropdowns may require flattening to comma-separated text if the Mailchimp audience tier does not support multi-select Merge Fields. We validate Merge Field limits (30 Merge Fields per Audience on Free, 60 on Standard) during scoping and flag if the migration requires an audience tier upgrade.

Freshmarketer Journeys cannot be exported as executable logic via API. We document each active Journey at cutover: trigger type, enrollment conditions, branch logic, delay steps, and action steps (send email, add tag, update field, wait). We capture the list of contacts enrolled in each Journey at the migration moment. This documentation is delivered as a structured reference document that the customer's admin uses to rebuild equivalent Customer Journeys in Mailchimp. The rebuild is a manual step outside migration scope.

Freshmarketer activity records (calls, meetings, notes, email conversation logs) have no native equivalent in Mailchimp. Mailchimp tracks engagement at the campaign level (opens, clicks, unsubscribes, bounces) but not at the individual contact activity level. We export all activity history as a chronological CSV linked by contact email for the customer's reference. This CSV is informational; it does not load into Mailchimp as native records. If the customer needs activity tracking post-migration, a dedicated CRM or helpdesk integration is recommended.

Freshmarketer Users map to Mailchimp Workspace Members. We resolve by email match. The migration user account must have Admin or Manager role in Mailchimp to create Audiences, Merge Fields, and Tags. Owner assignment on Deals does not transfer to Mailchimp because there is no Deals object; owner information is included in the Deal CSV export. Sales reps who were Owners in Freshmarketer should be added as Mailchimp Workspace Members with appropriate permission levels post-migration.

Freshmarketer's Marketing Contacts billing concept (contacts actively enrolled in email, SMS, or WhatsApp campaigns) has no direct Mailchimp equivalent because Mailchimp does not bill on a separate marketing contact tier. We flag the Marketing Contacts status for each contact at migration time and map it to a Merge Field (e.g., fm_marketing_contact__c) so the customer retains the data if they later return to a platform with marketing contact billing. Email subscription preferences (subscribed, unsubscribed, bounced, cleaned) migrate to the standard Mailchimp Member status fields and suppress appropriately.