Migrate from Vocus to Mailchimp

Contact source identification

We identify the authoritative contact source before any migration work begins. Because Vocus does not store contacts natively, we work with the customer to extract contact records from Google Workspace admin exports, Gmail contacts CSV, or the connected CRM (Salesforce or Pipedrive) via direct export. We validate contact count, field completeness, and email deliverability against the customer's sending domain before importing into Mailchimp Audiences. Any gap in the contact source is documented and escalated before Snippet and Campaign migration proceeds.

Vocus data extraction and inventory

We inventory available Vocus data across Snippets, Followup sequences, Campaigns, and connected Gmail accounts. Since Vocus has no export API, we extract Snippet content via manual copy-export from the Vocus dashboard, reconstruct Followup sequence definitions from the customer's provided exports or screenshots, and document Campaign definitions and attachment URLs from the Vocus Campaign interface. Email tracking events are cross-validated against Gmail's sent-mail archive to fill gaps where the Vocus extension returns incomplete data. The inventory output is a written data map listing every migratable record by type, count, and data quality rating.

Mailchimp audience and template setup

We configure the Mailchimp destination account before data import. This includes creating the primary Audience with correct field names mapped to Vocus source fields, configuring merge fields (with 255-character limits enforced), setting up tags and segments that correspond to Vocus Followup sequence categories, and uploading branded tracked domains. We create Campaign Templates corresponding to Vocus Snippets, flagging any Snippet that exceeds Mailchimp's merge field length for split-handling. We configure Mailchimp user accounts mapped to Vocus Team members.

Contact import and deduplication

We import contacts into Mailchimp in the following order: first, the contact records from the authoritative source (Gmail contacts export, Google Workspace export, or CRM export); second, any additional contact fields from the Vocus Gmail connector export that add tracking or segmentation context. We apply email-based deduplication at import to prevent creating duplicate contacts. Tags derived from Vocus Followup sequence membership are applied during import. We run a contact count reconciliation against the source export and flag any contacts that fail import validation.

Snippets, sequences, and campaign migration

We migrate Vocus Snippets to Mailchimp Campaign Templates, preserving text formatting, merge field placeholders, and attachment references. Each Followup sequence is reconstructed as a contact-level task record with notes documenting the original sequence step, delay interval, and message content. Vocus Campaigns are created in Mailchimp with subject line, recipient audience, and content migrated from the source; campaign attachments are uploaded as Mailchimp file assets and linked to the corresponding campaign content blocks. Tracking metrics (opens, clicks, bounces, unsubscribes) from Vocus are exported as a CSV and attached to the Mailchimp Campaign record for historical reference.

Cutover, validation, and handoff

We perform a final reconciliation comparing Mailchimp audience contact count against the source export, Snippet-to-Template mapping count, Followup sequence task record count, and Campaign count. We validate merge fields on 25-50 sample contacts to confirm data integrity. We deliver the written Followup sequence map documenting every original Vocus sequence with its cadence, steps, and recommended Mailchimp Journey equivalent. We do not rebuild Vocus Followups as Mailchimp Journeys because the execution models are incompatible; the sequence map is for the customer's admin to rebuild as a separate project. We provide a one-week post-migration window for reconciliation issues raised during initial Mailchimp usage.