Migrate from Touchdown to Mailchimp

Touchdown Contact records map directly to Mailchimp Member records within an Audience. We use the Contact email address as the Mailchimp subscriber_hash for dedupe and as the primary key for upsert. Standard fields (first name, last name, email, phone) map to Mailchimp merge fields FNAME, LNAME, EMAIL, and PHONE. Any Touchdown custom contact properties discovered during API exploration map to corresponding Mailchimp merge fields created before import. Member status (subscribed, unsubscribed, pending) preserves from Touchdown opt-in state.

Touchdown Company records present a tier-specific mapping decision. On Mailchimp Standard and Premium plans, Company records are a native Mailchimp object that Members can be associated to. On Mailchimp Essentials and Free plans, we flatten Company data into Mailchimp merge fields on each Member (COMPANY_NAME, INDUSTRY, etc.) and use Tags to group Members by company for segmentation. We confirm the customer's Mailchimp plan tier during scoping to select the appropriate strategy.

Touchdown Campaign metadata (name, subject line, send date, audience assignment) migrates as a Mailchimp Campaign record. However, the campaign send history (open rates, click rates, bounce records) is engagement data that Mailchimp tracks against its own Members, not data that transfers between platforms. We document the Touchdown campaign structure as a written reference for recreating equivalent Mailchimp campaigns using the same audience, subject line, and content approach.

Touchdown Segment definitions are undocumented and discovered via API exploration. We extract each Touchdown segment's filter conditions and reconstruct them in Mailchimp using the Mailchimp Marketing API segment criteria endpoint, which supports field-based, tag-based, date-based, and engagement-based filters. The rebuilt Mailchimp Segment is a dynamic segment that updates as new Members enter the Audience. Static Touchdown segments with a fixed membership list are recreated as Mailchimp Tags for manual group management.

Touchdown personalized messaging templates export as HTML content with associated merge field tokens. We extract the template HTML and map merge field tokens to Mailchimp merge tag syntax (|*FIELDNAME|). The reconstructed template imports into Mailchimp Templates via the Templates API endpoint, with the customer reviewing and reformatting the layout in Mailchimp's drag-and-drop editor since HTML email rendering differs between platforms.

Touchdown custom field schemas are discovered during API exploration before migration. We map each Touchdown field type (text, number, date, checkbox, dropdown) to the corresponding Mailchimp merge field type (string, number, date, birthday, radio). Mailchimp merge fields are created via the Merge Fields API before Members are imported to prevent import failures from unknown field references. The customer reviews field-level access and opt-in status implications for any fields capturing consent data.

Mailchimp tracks engagement (opens, clicks, unsubscribes, bounces) against Members within its own platform and does not accept imported engagement history for display in its native reporting UI. We cannot replicate Touchdown's full engagement timeline as Mailchimp Member Activity records. As a workaround, we preserve Touchdown engagement data in a CSV companion export linked by Member email address, and we flag engagement history in the written handoff document so the customer's admin can reference it during post-migration reporting.

Touchdown Users map to Mailchimp Account Admins, Authors, or Managers depending on their Touchdown role assignment. We map by email address match. Mailchimp's permission model (Admin, Manager, Author, Viewer) is flatter than Touchdown's CRM-style ownership model; we assign the most permissive equivalent role during migration and note any Touchdown-specific record ownership that may need to be recreated as Mailchimp Tags for team-based segmentation.