Features

Full Featured API

Basic Details

Our full‑featured API gives you all the tools you need to manage your lists and access campaign stats. You can connect to our API using XML–RPC, a simple HTTP POST, or HTTP GET. Then get the data back out in php serialization strings, JSON, XML, or plain–old XML–RPC. This gives you the most flexibility to connect to us however you like, and get data back in a form that’s quick and easy to work with.

Not A Programmer?

The API is for nerds only. If you’re not a programmer, and there’s not one in your company to bribe, here’s a list of MailChimp Experts.

Get Started

The MailChimp API is available free of charge in three forms: XML–RPC, PHP, and JSON.

View API Documentation

Why Use the API?

If you sync your customer database into MailChimp, you won’t have to constantly import your updated lists into MailChimp, export them again into your system, then manually clean up any differences. They’ll be automatically in sync. You can sync your campaign stats too. Here are some other ways to use the API:

  • Web designers: Create private‑label client portals, where you can log in and grab campaign stats.
  • Add a “Subscribe to Newsletter” option to your e‑commerce checkout page.
  • Pass purchase‑history data into MailChimp, create list segments, and send targeted campaigns.
  • Publishers: Sync active subscription data into MailChimp, so that only up‑to‑date accounts get your emails.
  • Link campaign stats to your internal database for behavioral targeting.
  • Sync email activity with your customer database.

Integrations

There are some crafty MailChimp users building integrations with our API that can connect MailChimp to a CMS, blog platform, e‑commerce shopping cart, and more. Developers, do you have a MailChimp plugin to show off? Let us know about it.

Full Featured API Case Study

TED’s MailChimp Integration:

An idea worth spreading

TED’s conferences have a single mission: to spread ideas. The nonprofit attracts influential speakers like Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Malcolm Gladwell, and Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who have 18 minutes each to engage and inspire a small crowd. TED even posts its talks for free online, so the rest of us can get in on the inspiration too.

TED's been using MailChimp for more than a year. They've integrated their CMS with our API to allow writers and editors to prepare newsletters on their end and automatically import them into MailChimp for final touches and sending. Since TED's website content is already stored within its own CMS, the developers improved the team's workflow by creating a system that would allow content managers to keep everything—including their newsletter text and images—in one place. It's a more efficient process, and MailChimp's API made it possible.

Photo by James Duncan Davidson

TED's developers set up a simple tool that connects their CMS admin with their MailChimp account. Here's how it works.

  1. A writer creates a newsletter within TED's CMS, using original content and/or pulling from elsewhere in the CMS.
  2. Once the newsletter is ready in the CMS, the writer clicks Send To MailChimp, which automatically creates a campaign in MailChimp with the appropriate template, list and groups. (Our flexible template language allows them to get specific, so they can import directly into groups.)
  3. An editor goes into TED's CMS and clicks a link to Edit in MailChimp.
  4. The editor is directed to TED's campaign in MailChimp, tweaks the content from within MailChimp to make sure everything looks right, and sends the campaign.

You can use MailChimp’s open API to improve your own company's workflow by syncing your CMS with MailChimp—you can also sync your customer database, CRM and shopping cart.

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