Migrate from OpenCRM to Mailchimp

OpenCRM Contact records map to Mailchimp Audience members. Standard fields (first name, last name, email, phone, address) map to Mailchimp merge fields FNAME, LNAME, EMAIL, PHONE, and ADDRESS. OpenCRM contact status (active/inactive) is preserved as a custom merge field for segmentation in Mailchimp. We use the Contact’s OpenCRM record ID as an external_id for upsert operations so that repeated imports update rather than duplicate members.

OpenCRM Company name, industry, website, and billing address do not have dedicated Mailchimp fields. We map Company name to a custom text merge field COMPANY, industry to a custom dropdown or text field INDUSTRY, and website to a URL-type merge field. Because Mailchimp stores members flat without a parent-Company object, the Company-to-Contact relationship in OpenCRM dissolves during migration; we preserve Company information as merge fields on each related Contact member.

Mailchimp has no Deal or Opportunity object. OpenCRM Deal records — stage, value, expected close date, owner — cannot map 1:1. We present two options during scoping: (a) migrate Deal value and stage as custom merge fields on the associated Contact member, or (b) create a Mailchimp tag per Deal stage (e.g., ‘Deal: Proposal Sent’, ‘Deal: Negotiation’) and segment campaigns by tag. The customer selects the strategy; we do not silently discard Deal data.

OpenCRM contacts with an opt-out or unsubscribe flag map to Mailchimp suppression list entries. We export the unsubscribe timestamp and reason where available, then import as Mailchimp suppressed members so they cannot be re-emailed. This step is critical for deliverability: failing to suppress previously unsubscribed contacts before the first Mailchimp send risks inbox placement issues and spam complaints. We flag any contact whose unsubscribe status is ambiguous for customer review before the suppression list is finalized.

OpenCRM records individual email engagement events (opens, clicks, sends) as activity history. Mailchimp stores campaign-level aggregate statistics only — open rate, click rate, unsubscribe rate — not per-contact engagement timestamps. We cannot replicate OpenCRM’s activity timeline in Mailchimp. We deliver a written note of this limitation in the migration summary and recommend the customer export OpenCRM activity history as a CSV archive for record-keeping before the migration cutover.

OpenCRM Notes attached to Contacts migrate to Mailchimp member notes. Each OpenCRM note body becomes a Mailchimp member note entry with the original created date preserved. Notes attached to Companies without a Contact relationship do not have a direct Mailchimp destination; we flag these as orphaned notes and present them to the customer for manual reassignment or exclusion.

OpenCRM tag-based categorization on Contacts migrates to Mailchimp labels on the corresponding audience member. Mailchimp labels serve as the equivalent categorization mechanism. We map tags flat — multi-value tag strings from OpenCRM become individual Mailchimp labels on the same member. The customer confirms the label namespace during scoping to avoid collision with existing Mailchimp labels.

OpenCRM custom fields on Contacts and Companies require per-field type analysis. Text, number, date, phone, and URL types map directly to Mailchimp merge field equivalents. Multi-select picklist values from OpenCRM require conversion to comma-separated text in Mailchimp merge fields. Boolean fields map to Yes/No text or checkbox merge fields. We discover the full custom field set during scoping, produce a field-mapping table, and apply the mapping during import. Any custom field with no viable Mailchimp merge field type is flagged for the customer to decide whether to include it as free-text, exclude it, or implement it as a Mailchimp tag.