It's possible to integrate the shop to Mailchimp for newsletters and email automation. Mailchimp is free to use for up to 2000 contacts and after that you pay according to Mailchimp's pricing: https://mailchimp.com/pricing/
Getting started and things to think about
You have to be registered with Mailchimp to use the integration. If you have a new, free account with Mailchimp, then you need to delete the automatically created audience so that the integration can create a new audience. This is a must, since the free account only allows for one audience. If you are already using Mailchimp and is not able to delete the audience, then you need to look at upgrading your account so that you are able to add more audiences or create a new account that you can use specifically for the shop.
How to use
In the shop administration on the Marketing > MailChimp page you need an API key from Mailchimp in order to use the integration. A new "Site" is created for the integration in Mailchimp. More information about Sites can be found here: https://mailchimp.com/help/about-connected-sites/
On the Marketing > MailChimp page there are settings for the integration. Once the API key (1) is saved and the Active (2) setting is on, the integration is working. In addition there are some alternative settings (3).
- API Key: In this field you save the API key from Mailchimp.
- Shops List id: Here you can see the list id for the audience in Mailchimp. This field can not be changed.
- Active: Yes/No: This setting allows you to enable or disable the integration with Mailchimp.
- Sync newsletters: Yes/No: You can choose whether you want subscribers to the shop's newsletter to be sent to Mailchimp.
- Sync coupon campaigns: Yes/No: You can choose whether you want the shop's coupon campaigns and coupon codes to be sent to Mailchimp.
- Force Opt-in Status: Yes/No: You can choose whether the recipients added to Mailchimp should have the Opt-In status.
GDPR marketing consent
In the shop administration on the Settings > Basket settings page there is a setting for general marketing consent which is used for the consent for marketing in Mailchimp. In practice, customer information is transmitted to Mailchimp as a contact, unless they give marketing consent. If the customer gives marketing consent, the information is transferred to Mailchimp as a subscriber to newsletters (opt-in).
Abandoned Carts
When a shopping cart is created in the shop AND there is address information, this is sent to Mailchimp. This is done using this interface
https://developer.mailchimp.com/documentation/mailchimp/reference/ecommerce/stores/carts/
Product information is also transferred from the shop to Mailchimp
https://developer.mailchimp.com/documentation/mailchimp/reference/ecommerce/stores/products/
When a shopping cart becomes an order, "cart" is removed from Mailchimp and instead becomes an "order"
https://developer.mailchimp.com/documentation/mailchimp/reference/ecommerce/orders/
Synchronise newsletter campaigns
It is also possible to synchronise the information for ePages' "newslettercampaign" and "newsletteraddressee".
If this option is enabled, the email campaign object becomes a new list in Mailchimp
https://developer.mailchimp.com/documentation/mailchimp/reference/lists/
and new subscribers to the newsletter are added to that list
https://developer.mailchimp.com/documentation/mailchimp/reference/lists/members/
and since ePages does not use different fields for "first name" and "last name", the list creates a "FULLNAME" mergefield, to which the information from ePages' newsletteraddress is added.