Recreate your Mailchimp classic automations in ConvertKit
If you’ve got Mailchimp classic automations that you’re bringing over to ConvertKit, you’ll recreate them by creating “Visual Automations” on our platform. And this guide will walk you through the process!
Before we get started, we recommend reading our guides to Visual Automations, and creating your first Visual Automation in ConvertKit, if you’re new to Visual Automations. Once you’re ready, let’s get into the framework for recreating your Mailchimp classic automation’s:
First trigger
Emails
Post-send actions
And keep reading until the end, where we do a full demo of how to recreate a simple Mailchimp classic automation as a ConvertKit Visual Automation.
NOTE: Did you use Mailchimp customer journeys instead of classic automations? Then check out our separate guide to switching your Mailchimp customer journeys to ConvertKit Visual Automations.
Recreating the first trigger of your Mailchimp classic automation
Launch Mailchimp in one browser tab, and open the classic automation you want to recreate in 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.
Go back to your Mailchimp classic automation and check out the trigger of its first email. We’ll map this trigger as the entry point of your ConvertKit Visual Automation.
At the moment, we offer equivalent Visual Automation entry points for these Mailchimp classic automation triggers:
For this first trigger of a Mailchimp classic automation… | Replace it with this ConvertKit Visual Automation entry point |
Signup | Joins a Form |
Added tag | Is added to a Tag |
Joins group | Is added to a Tag (where you’ve created a Tag for such an audience group) |
Changes in a subscriber’s audience field | |
Purchase any product / Purchase specific product / Purchase product from category | Purchase |
For example, if your Mailchimp classic automation 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 classic automation triggers, you may be able to recreate them via workarounds such as:
Mailchimp classic automation trigger | How to recreate this entry point in your ConvertKit Visual Automation |
Sent campaign | 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 |
Clicked campaign / Specific link in campaign clicked | 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 |
Recreating the emails in your Mailchimp classic automation
With the entry point of your ConvertKit Visual Automation set up, you’ll recreate the emails (and their respective settings) in your Mailchimp classic automation next.
Here’s a broad overview of how to do so in ConvertKit:
Component of Mailchimp classic automation | What to do in ConvertKit |
Create emails in your classic automation | Create a Sequence containing the emails that are to be sent in progression, and add this Sequence to your Visual Automation |
Set the triggers for the second and subsequent emails in your classic automation | Adjust your Sequence emails’ send days (via the overall Sequence Schedule and “Send this email” setting of individual Sequence emails) |
Set a schedule for each email in your classic automation | Adjust your Sequence emails’ send days (via the overall Sequence schedule and “Send this email” setting of individual Sequence emails) |
Filter emails in your classic automation by segment or tag | Add a Condition to your Visual Automation to send an email Sequence to only subscribers who meet certain criteria, OR (if you want to set filters for individual Sequence emails) add filters to individual Sequence emails to exclude certain subscribers from receiving them |
For example, if subscribers in your Mailchimp classic automation will receive a welcome email upon signup, then create:
A ConvertKit Visual Automation with your email Form as the entry point, and
A ConvertKit Sequence containing your welcome email.
After that, add the Sequence as the next step in the ConvertKit Visual Automation following the entry point.
For more info on recreating Mailchimp email campaigns as ConvertKit Sequences, visit our main guide to this subject. We’ll also demo how to recreate a simple Mailchimp classic automation below, so keep reading!
Recreating your Mailchimp classic automation’s post-send actions
After each email in your Mailchimp classic automation, you have the option of adding a post-send action. You’ll add these as steps in your ConvertKit Visual Automation.
And you can map the following Mailchimp classic automation post-send actions to your ConvertKit Visual Automation in these ways:
Mailchimp classic automation post-send action | ConvertKit Visual Automation step |
Add tag / Add to group | Action > Add or remove Tag |
Remove tag / Remove from group | Action > Add or remove Tag |
Update merge field | Action > Set custom field |
Archive / Unsubscribe | Action > Unsubscribe |
For example, your Mailchimp classic automation may contain an email with a post-send action that adds subscribers to a “Newsletter” tag.
So in your ConvertKit Visual Automation, you’d have a step that adds subscribers to an email Sequence. And after that step, you’ll create a new step to add subscribers to a “Newsletter” Tag.
Once you’re done recreating your Mailchimp classic automation as a ConvertKit Visual Automation, toggle the Live switch at the top right to activate your ConvertKit Visual Automation.
Demo of how to recreate a simple Mailchimp classic automation
Knowing how Mailchimp classic automation triggers, emails, and post-send actions map to our ConvertKit Visual Automation entry points, email Sequences, and steps can be rather abstract, so we’ll demo how to recreate a simple Mailchimp classic automation that has this flow:
A contact joins your audience by signing up through an email form
If the contact doesn’t have the “Customer” tag, then send the contact a product pitch email with the trigger of “Immediately after subscribed contacts join your audience”
Contact receives a follow-up email with the trigger of “1 day after subscribers are sent previous email”
Contact is tagged with “Pitched”
Contact exits the classic automation
1. A contact signs up through your email form
In a 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 doesn’t have the “Customer” Tag, then immediately send the contact a product pitch email
For this step, add a Condition that checks whether the contact has been tagged with “Customer” first.
Then, for contacts who have not been tagged with “Customer,” create a new action under the “No” branch to add these contacts to a new product pitch email Sequence.
(You can create the new Sequence from the Visual Automations builder directly, or by accessing the Sequence editor via the Send tab > Sequences in the top navigation.)
The first email in your product pitch Sequence should contain the text of your first product pitch, and have a “Send this email” setting of “Immediately.”
Similarly, you can edit your product pitch Sequence either from the Visual Automations builder directly (by clicking the Sequence in the Visual Automation), or from the main Sequence editor.
3. Contact receives a follow-up email one day later
In the same product pitch Sequence, add a second email containing the contents of your follow-up email.
Using the “Send this email” setting, set this second email to be sent one day after the previous email.
NOTE: Don’t forget to publish the emails in your Sequence! Otherwise, they will not be sent.
4. Contact is tagged with “Pitched”
After the step in your Visual Automation that adds subscribers to your product pitch Sequence, add a new step that tags them with “Pitched.”
5. Contact exits the classic automation
Almost there! Make the Visual Automation live, and you’re done. 🎉
Not sure how to migrate your Mailchimp classic automations to ConvertKit? Contact our migrations team and they’ll be happy to help you out!