When it comes to integrating applications like Mailchimp and Slack, webhooks offer a direct and cost-effective solution. Webhooks act as messengers, enabling real-time communication between apps without the need for intermediaries like Zapier. Unlike Zapier, webhooks give you more control, allowing for customized integrations without extra fees.
Mailchimp Webhooks can be used to send contact fields to a specific Slack channel as part of a Customer Journey automation.
Examples of ways to use Mailchimp to Slack Webhooks:
- Customer service – contact clicks on a feedback survey and their information is sent to the customer service team for followup
- Lead tracking – a lead that clicks any link in an email has their information sent to the sales team
- After purchase connection – after a specific product is purchased, client information is sent to the installation team
Step 1: Set up your Mailchimp merge fields
You’ll need to decide which contact fields in Mailchimp you want sent to Slack. Webhooks will not send if any of your fields are blank, so you need to set up a default that will fill in if there isn’t content in that field. Do this by going to Audience -> All Contacts -> Settings -> Audience fields -> fill in the default. Go here for more information on merge tags.
Step 2: Create your Customer Journey
Create your Customer Journey and include the Webhooks item in the proper place in your journey
Step 3: Creating the Webhooks Integration in Slack
If you have admin access to Slack, then you can do this yourself or send these instructions to the owner.
- Create a Slack app here.
- Pick “From Scratch”
- Name your app – This name will show up in bold at the top of each Slack entry
- You’ll be redirected to the settings page for your new app. If you can’t find where to do it click here.
- Select the Incoming Webhooks feature, and click the Activate Incoming Webhooks toggle to switch it on.
- Scroll down and click: Add New Webhook to Workspace
- Pick which Slack channel you want the messages to be sent to
- Scroll down and it will give you the URL that you’ll put into the Webhooks block in Mailchimp
- Add the URL provided by Slack to the URL field in the Webhook
Step 4: Creating the Webhooks Code
The code for Webhooks is JSON code. I am not a coder and I’m assuming you aren’t either, so I’m providing you with the code and the code editor.
Adding and deleting sections
Use the “tree” view to add or delete sections of code. Each numbered section will be its own line in the Slack import.
To add or delete sections, click next to the number and it will highlight the chunk of code associated with that section and delete or copy and paste.
Editing the Code
Use the “text” view to change the code. I am providing you with code that includes 1 text heading, 1 line for First Name & Last Name, 1 line for Email address. You can adjust these merge tags as needed.
Example of the Slack entry from the code above.
Step 5: Add your completed code to Mailchimp
- Copy and paste your code into the “Content” section of your Webhooks block
- Click Preview and scroll through some contacts to make sure things are working properly.
Step 6: Run your automation!
Time to start things going. Remember, sometimes automations take a few minutes to process.