Move your Mailchimp customer journeys to ConvertKit
Coming over from Mailchimp and need to bring over your customer journeys to ConvertKit? You’ll do so by creating “Visual Automations” on our platform, and this guide will give you the lowdown on how to do just that.
If you aren’t familiar with Visual Automations, we recommend checking out our guides to Visual Automations, and creating your first Visual Automation in ConvertKit, first. Otherwise, let’s get into the framework for recreating your Mailchimp customer journey’s:
Starting point(s)
Rules and actions
Afterward, we’ll do a full demo of how to recreate a simple Mailchimp customer journey as a ConvertKit visual automation.
NOTE: Do you need to recreate your Mailchimp classic automations in ConvertKit instead? Then read our separate guide to switching your Mailchimp classic automations to ConvertKit Visual Automations.
Log into Mailchimp in one browser tab, and open the customer journey you want to move to ConvertKit. Keep this browser tab open for convenient reference.
Next, open ConvertKit in a separate browser tab and click Visual Automations under the Automate tab of the top navigation. Click the + New Automation button, followed by Start from scratch to create a blank new visual automation.
Switch back to your Mailchimp customer journey and check out its starting point(s) so you can map them as entry points to your ConvertKit visual automation. At the moment, we offer equivalent visual automation entry points for these Mailchimp customer journey starting points:
For this Mailchimp customer journey starting point… | Replace it with this ConvertKit visual automation entry point |
Signs up | Joins a form |
Tag added | Is added to a tag |
Joins audience group | Is added to a tag (where you’ve created a tag for such an audience group) |
Audience field changes | Custom field |
Buys any product / Buys a certain product | Purchase |
For example, if your Mailchimp customer journey starts with a subscriber signing up to your audience via a certain form, then you’ll select “Joins a form” as the entry point of your ConvertKit visual automation.
As for other Mailchimp customer journey starting points, you may be able to recreate them via workarounds such as:
Mailchimp customer journey starting point | How to recreate this entry point in your ConvertKit visual automation |
Sent an email | Set up a separate visual automation to tag subscribers who are sent an email sequence with a certain tag. After that, set that tag as the entry point of your current visual automation using the “Is added to a tag” option |
Clicks any email link / Clicks specific email link | Set up a link trigger where subscribers who click a certain link in your email will be tagged with a certain tag. After that, set that tag as the entry point of your visual automation using the “Is added to a tag” option |
With the entry point of your ConvertKit visual automation set up, you’ll recreate your Mailchimp customer journey’s rules and actions next.
Here are the ConvertKit visual automation step equivalents for Mailchimp customer journey rules and actions:
For this Mailchimp customer journey rule or action… | Replace it with this ConvertKit visual automation step |
If / Else | |
Wait for Trigger | |
Time delay | |
Send email / Send email with a survey | Action > Email sequence |
Group/Ungroup | Action > Add or remove tag |
Tag/Untag | Action > Add or remove tag |
Unsubscribe | Action > Unsubscribe |
Update contact | Action > Set custom field |
Archive contact | Action > Unsubscribe |
As an example, your customer journey may tag all contacts that enter it with the “Newsletter” tag. Therefore, you’ll create an action in your ConvertKit visual automation that adds contacts to a “Newsletter” tag as well.
Repeat this process for all the rules and actions in your Mailchimp customer journey. When you’re done, toggle the Live switch at the top right to activate your ConvertKit visual automation.
Knowing how Mailchimp customer journey starting points, rules, and actions map to our ConvertKit visual automation entry points and steps can be rather abstract, so we’ll demo how to recreate a simple customer journey that has this flow:
A contact signs up through your email form
If the contact has the “Newsletter” tag, then skip to the next step. Otherwise, tag that contact with “Newsletter”
Contact immediately receives a welcome email
Contact receives a follow-up email one day later
Contact exits the customer journey
1. A contact signs up through your email form
In your blank new ConvertKit visual automation, select “Joins a form” and select the name of the form that will kick-start the visual automation.
2. If the contact has the “Newsletter” tag, then move to the next step. Otherwise, tag that contact with “Newsletter”
For this step, add a condition that checks for whether the contact has been tagged with “Newsletter.”
For contacts who have not been tagged with “Newsletter,” you’ll create a new action under the “No” branch to add these contacts to the “Newsletter” tag.
3. Contact immediately receives a welcome email, and 4. One day later, the contact receives a follow-up email
We can combine these two steps by creating a new ConvertKit sequence containing the two emails, with the first email being sent immediately and the second one a day later.
Check out our separate guide to recreating your Mailchimp email campaigns as ConvertKit sequences for more information on how to do so.
5. Contact exits the customer journey
One last step! Make the visual automation live, and you’re done. 🎉
Having trouble migrating your Mailchimp customer journeys to ConvertKit? Reach out to our migrations team and they’ll be happy to help you out!