It's time to move to the platform made by creators for creators.
Switching from Mailchimp to Kit? You’ve made a great choice.
Let’s get into how to migrate your entire Mailchimp setup to Kit so you can start using our powerful features for creators as soon as possible:
Keep this guide handy—you’ll find it a useful checklist as we delve into the details of doing a thorough Mailchimp migration!
Familiarize yourself with Kit’s terminology
We refer to certain things differently from Mailchimp. Here’s a quick overview of the similarities and differences in our terminology:
Definition / Feature | Mailchimp terminology | Kit terminology |
A person who joins your email list | Contact | Subscriber |
Your collection of email addresses | Audience | List
NOTE: While you can have multiple Audiences in Mailchimp, you’ll have only one list for all subscribers in your Kit account. Learn more about our subscriber-centric approach here. |
Collecting subscribers | Form / Landing page | |
Design the look and contents of your emails | Template | |
Send a one-off email | Regular email campaign | |
Send an automated series of emails | Campaign (in a customer journey or classic automation) | |
Trigger actions based on subscriber behavior | Customer journey / Classic automation | |
"Label" subscribers with specific characteristics | Tag / Group | |
Filter subscribers based on shared characteristics | Segment |
Take the time to get the hang of our terminology. You’ll use it a lot after you’ve switched to our platform!
Import your Mailchimp contacts into Kit
We’ve built a handy Mailchimp importer that makes bringing over your Mailchimp contacts to Kit a breeze.
To access the Mailchimp importer, go to the Subscribers page and click the Add Subscribers button, followed by Import from another provider.
Provide your Mailchimp API key and we’ll automatically sync over your Mailchimp contacts—and their associated data—for you.
Alternatively, you can also import your Mailchimp contacts via a CSV file.
This approach gives you more control over the contact details you bring over to Kit. However, you won’t be able to import certain data, such as geolocation and contact rating.
Recreate your Mailchimp forms and landing pages in Kit
Click Landing Pages & Forms under the Grow tab in the top navigation to create a new Kit Form or Landing Page.
Pick a Form or Landing Page template that matches your existing Mailchimp form or landing page the most closely.
After that, use our Form or Landing Page builder to customize the look of your Kit Form or Landing Page (as relevant).
Due to the differences between our and Mailchimp’s builders, you may not be able to achieve a 100% design resemblance. But use this as an opportunity to make your Forms and Landing Pages look even better ✨
Also, don’t forget to replace your Mailchimp forms and landing pages with your Kit ones!
Learn more about recreating your Mailchimp forms and landing pages in Kit here:
Recreate your Mailchimp email templates in Kit
To create a fresh new Kit email template, go to Email Templates under the Send tab in the top navigation.
Select an email template that resembles your Mailchimp one the most closely, then use our visual email template editor to customize it.
In particular, add the elements of your Mailchimp email template that don’t change from email to email. These elements include your logo, newsletter section headings, and font settings for your email’s body text.
Recreate your Mailchimp campaigns in Kit
NOTE: For our purposes, “Mailchimp campaign” refers to the automated emails that are part of a Mailchimp customer journey or classic automation.
If you want to send one-off emails to your subscribers (also known as sending a “regular email campaign” in Mailchimp), check out our guide to creating and sending Broadcasts.
To recreate your Mailchimp campaigns, you’d need to set up a “Sequence” in Kit. Sequences are sets of automated emails that are sent according to preset send schedules.
You can create a new Kit Sequence by clicking Send in the top navigation, followed by Sequences. After that, recreate your Mailchimp campaign by:
Copy/pasting the contents of your Mailchimp email campaigns over to Kit Sequence emails, and
Setting up your Mailchimp email campaigns’ send schedules in your Kit Sequence.
Recreate your Mailchimp automations in Kit
After recreating your Mailchimp campaigns, you’re in a good position to recreate your Mailchimp automations as Kit Visual Automations.
To create a new Kit Visual Automation, go to Visual Automations under the Automate tab in the top navigation.
Regardless of whether you’re recreating a Mailchimp customer journey or classic automation, the approach is roughly the same.
First, you’ll recreate the starting point or trigger of your customer journey or classic automation (as relevant) as entry points of your new Kit Visual Automation.
Subsequently, you’ll add steps in your Visual Automation that correspond to the:
Rules and actions in your Mailchimp customer journey, or
Emails and post-send actions in your Mailchimp classic automation.
For example, your Mailchimp customer journey may have an action that involves sending a Mailchimp campaign to your contacts.
If so, you’d add a step in your Kit Visual Automation to send a Kit Sequence—which you’ll have recreated earlier!—to your subscribers.
Learn more about recreating your Mailchimp customer journeys and classic automations in Kit here:
Test your migrated Mailchimp setup
Once you’ve recreated your Mailchimp setup in Kit, the last step is to test it to ensure that it works!
To do so, preview your Forms and Landing Pages (on your website, if possible) to confirm that you’re happy with their appearance.
In addition, preview your Sequence emails from the Sequence editor or by sending yourself a test email.
It’s also a good idea to test your Visual Automations. You can do so by entering your Visual Automation from one of its entry points (such as subscribing to your own Form) and seeing what happens when you do so.
Need a hand with any aspect of your Mailchimp migration? Our incredible Mailchimp migrations team would love to help. You can get in touch with them here.
Once you’ve completed your Mailchimp migration, you might want to start sending one-off emails to your subscribers.
As mentioned, we call these emails “Broadcasts”—and you can learn how to create them here 👇