Migrate from Oracle CRM On Demand to Mailchimp

Discovery and contact audit

We audit the Oracle CRM On Demand tenant to inventory all Contacts, Accounts, Leads, and Custom Objects accessible via the API. We run a data quality report on email address completeness (required for Mailchimp Members), duplicate detection by email, and identify Contacts with and without Account lookups. We also inventory any custom fields on the Contact object, flag Lead Referral tier restrictions, and confirm the active user account used for extraction has the 'List - Export all Fields' role privilege to avoid hidden-field gaps. The discovery output is a written scope document with estimated record counts per object and a list of custom fields requiring Mailchimp merge tag configuration.

Mailchimp audience and merge field configuration

We create the destination Mailchimp Audience (or confirm the existing target Audience if a prior test audience was set up) and configure merge tags corresponding to every migratable Oracle Contact field and custom field. Merge tag types are mapped from Oracle's field data types: text fields to TEXT, numeric to NUMBER, dates to DATE, phone to PHONE, and address components to ADDRESS. We create tags for Account Name and Industry derived from the Contact's Account lookup. All merge field configuration is validated in Mailchimp's preview mode before any data import begins.

Data extraction from Oracle with rate-limit handling

We extract Contacts from Oracle CRM On Demand using the REST API with our queue-based throttling layer that respects the 30 requests per minute hard limit. Large contact sets are split into page-sized batches with automatic pausing between minute windows. We simultaneously extract Account records to build the company context lookup table, and Custom Object field definitions for merge tag mapping. We download any Oracle list export files immediately upon job completion, storing them in our encrypted migration workspace. We run the dedupe key computation (email address) during extraction to identify and flag duplicate Contact records before they reach Mailchimp.

Data transformation and field mapping

We transform the extracted Oracle records into Mailchimp-compatible JSON and CSV formats. Each Contact becomes a Member record with the EMAIL field as the primary identifier. Standard Oracle fields (First Name, Last Name, Phone, Title) populate the corresponding Mailchimp merge tags. The parent Account Name and Industry populate tags on the Member. Custom field values are mapped to their configured merge tag equivalents with type coercion where Oracle and Mailchimp data types differ. Duplicate records are held in a reconciliation queue for the customer to resolve before the final import batch is confirmed.

Mailchimp import and validation

We import Members into the configured Mailchimp Audience in batches using Mailchimp's API import endpoint with chunking to stay within platform limits. After each batch we reconcile row counts against the source extraction total and spot-check 25-50 records in Mailchimp against the Oracle source for field-level accuracy. Tags are applied to Members in a second pass to capture company context. Any records that fail validation (bounced email, malformed merge tag data) are logged to an exception report for the customer to review and correct.

Cutover, handoff inventory, and post-migration flag

We freeze writes to Oracle during the final cutover window, run a delta import for any records modified since the initial extraction, and confirm the final Member count in Mailchimp. We deliver a written handoff inventory documenting: migrated object counts, non-migratable objects (Opportunities, Activities, Attachments, Workflow Rules) with their key field summaries, Custom Object records that could not be migrated without a Contact email link, and merge tag configuration details. We do not rebuild Oracle Workflow Rules in Mailchimp's automation builder; the inventory allows the customer's marketing admin to recreate them manually. We offer a one-week post-migration window to address any reconciliation issues reported by the team.