Migrate from Optimiser CRM to Mailchimp

Optimiser CRM Contacts map to Mailchimp Contacts within a designated Audience. We resolve the subscriber by email address using the Mailchimp API's upsert behavior, flagging any hard bounces in the source data before import to avoid reintroducing suppressed contacts. Standard fields — FIRSTNAME, LASTNAME, EMAIL, PHONE, ADDRESS — map to Mailchimp merge fields. Any Optimiser custom property on a Contact is assessed individually: if it fits Mailchimp's 40-character merge field name limit and one of Mailchimp's supported field types (text, number, date, phone, address, URL, dropdown, radio, checkbox, birthday, anniversary), we create the merge field and map values; fields exceeding these constraints are noted in the handoff report.

Optimiser CRM Companies do not map to a standalone object in Mailchimp's standard data model. We offer two strategies based on customer preference: (1) map to Mailchimp Organizations if the destination account has the Organizations feature enabled, preserving company name, domain, and address; or (2) merge company name and domain into merge fields on the Contact record (COMPANY_NAME, COMPANY_DOMAIN) and store the full company address as a text merge field. The choice is made during scoping, and the same strategy applies to all records to ensure consistency. Companies with no associated Contacts are flagged as unmappable and included in the handoff report.

Mailchimp has no Deal or Opportunity object. Deal data — stage, value, expected close date, owner — cannot be preserved as a native record type. We extract deal values and stage names and store them as Mailchimp merge fields on the associated Contact record (DEAL_VALUE, DEAL_STAGE, DEAL_CLOSE_DATE). Pipelines with no associated Contact cannot migrate at all. We flag every deal with a missing Contact association during scoping and document it in the handoff report. Closed-won deals with historical revenue figures are preserved as notes on the Contact if the customer requests it, though this is a partial preservation strategy.

Optimiser CRM Leads have no direct Mailchimp equivalent. We import Lead records as Mailchimp Contacts with a merge field LEAD_STATUS that carries the original Optimiser status value. Lead source and score values migrate as merge fields LEAD_SOURCE and LEAD_SCORE. Any Lead without a valid email address cannot be imported into Mailchimp and is flagged in the handoff report. If the customer requires strict separation between Leads and Customers in Mailchimp, we can tag Leads with a segment tag or store them in a separate Audience; this decision is made during scoping.

Optimiser CRM configurable pipeline stages have no direct Mailchimp object. We map pipeline stage names to Mailchimp Tags applied to contacts, or to a merge field PIPELINE_STAGE for filtering in Mailchimp's segment builder. Stages with zero associated records are excluded. The customer chooses between Tags (for quick segmentation) and a merge field (for persistent filtering across campaigns) during scoping. If the customer uses multiple deal pipelines in Optimiser, we document each pipeline-to-tag mapping in the handoff report.

Optimiser CRM Tags applied to Contacts or Deals migrate to Mailchimp Tags. We apply all source tags to the corresponding Contact record via the Mailchimp Tags API endpoint. Tags with special characters are normalized (spaces replaced with underscores, non-ASCII characters stripped) to comply with Mailchimp's tag naming rules. Duplicate tags from multiple Optimiser objects on the same contact are merged into a single tag list.

Optimiser CRM custom properties on Contacts, Companies, and Deals are assessed individually against Mailchimp's merge field schema: maximum 40-character field name, supported field types (text, number, date, birthday, phone, address, URL, dropdown, radio, checkbox). Fields that fit the schema are created as Mailchimp merge fields before import. Fields that exceed constraints (long text blobs, multi-value arrays, or unsupported types) are noted in the handoff report with a recommendation to store as a Contact Note or exclude. Fields with zero populated values across all records are excluded to avoid creating dead columns.

Optimiser CRM Users with email addresses map to Mailchimp Admin accounts by email match. We verify that each Optimiser Owner has a corresponding Mailchimp user with appropriate permissions before migration, since Mailchimp requires admin-level API access to write contacts. Users without a Mailchimp account are documented in the handoff queue for the customer's admin to provision. Owner assignment on Deals is not preserved as a Mailchimp field since there is no native deal object, but owner names can be stored as a merge field on the Contact if requested.