Migrate from Nookal to Mailchimp

Nookal clients with Email Marketing consent enabled map to Mailchimp contacts within the target audience. The Email Marketing flag acts as the migration filter — only consented records are extracted. Unconsented clients are excluded and surfaced in a separate report.

First name and last name map directly to Mailchimp's FNAME and LNAME merge fields. Clients with missing first or last name are flagged with a placeholder tag and held in a review queue for manual correction before any campaigns are sent, ensuring data completeness and preventing incomplete personalization in email content.

Client email address maps directly to the Mailchimp contact email field. Prior to import, FlitStack validates each address for correct format and checks against known hard‑bounce patterns, flagging any problematic entries for correction. Importing only clean, valid addresses protects the new audience’s sender reputation and reduces the risk of spam complaints or bounces that could affect overall deliverability.

Client phone number maps to Mailchimp's PHONE merge field. It is important to note that SMS marketing in Mailchimp requires an SMS consent flag and is not automatically enabled by the Email Marketing consent stored in Nookal. FlitStack will include a note in the migration report highlighting contacts that have a phone number but lack SMS consent, allowing your team to initiate an opt‑in process for SMS if desired.

Nookal's location assignment (the clinic a client is enabled for) maps to Mailchimp tags — one tag per location name. This allows you to create location‑based segments directly in Mailchimp without needing custom merge fields. For clients enabled at multiple locations, FlitStack adds a separate tag for each assigned location, preserving the full location history and enabling targeted campaigns that reach contacts at the appropriate clinic.

Age and gender from Nookal client demographics map to custom Mailchimp merge fields created during migration. These custom fields are added after confirming the plan supports them; Mailchimp Standard and Premium allow unlimited custom merge fields, while Essentials caps them at 40. If the migration would exceed the Essentials limit, FlitStack will flag which fields to prioritize and which to defer, ensuring plan compliance.

Nookal booking records (date, booking type, provider, payer) are aggregated per client and converted to Mailchimp tags — for example, 'Booked_With:Dr_Smith', 'BookingType:Physiotherapy', 'Payer:Private'. The most recent booking for each client is used as the primary source for these tags, ensuring that the latest practitioner, treatment type, and payment method are reflected in the contact’s profile. Clients with multiple bookings receive multiple tags, allowing flexible segmentation based on booking history.

The timestamp when Email Marketing consent was granted in Nookal maps to a custom merge field (CONSENT_DATE). This preserves the exact consent date for each contact, supporting compliance documentation under the Australian Spam Act and GDPR where applicable. Storing the consent date in a custom field means you are not dependent on Mailchimp’s native signup timestamp, which may reflect the import time rather than the original consent moment.

Clients who have not granted Email Marketing consent in Nookal are exported as a suppression list and imported into Mailchimp before the main contact migration. This step ensures that any contacts lacking consent are excluded from future Mailchimp sends, protecting sender reputation and aligning with Australian spam regulations. The suppression list is applied first, so no non‑consented contacts can be inadvertently added during the active migration run.

Appointment histories, invoice records, clinical notes, Medicare/DVA claim status, and practitioner clinical data have no Mailchimp equivalent. These records stay within Nookal, which remains the system of record for clinical and billing details. Clients who need reporting on appointment trends, invoice totals, or claim status continue to use Nookal’s built‑in reports; Mailchimp is used solely for audience‑level email marketing, avoiding any attempt to force clinical data into a marketing platform.