How to Import Customer Data from Shopify

There are a couple of ways to add your Shopify customer data to Mailchimp. If you’ve connected Mailchimp for Shopify, your data will automatically be added to your Mailchimp account. You can also manually import your Shopify customers to grow your audience. Use this data to create custom segments and send targeted campaigns.

In this article, you’ll learn how to import Shopify customers, and some of their data, to your Mailchimp audience.

Before you start

Here are some things to know before you begin this process.

• These instructions are for importing Shopify customers who have accepted marketing permissions.
• There are several field types available for your audience. Make sure your data is formatted for our field types.
• To complete this process, you’ll need a blank sheet in a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets, saved or exported as a comma separated value (CSV) file.
• When you disconnect a Shopify store from Mailchimp, the store's purchase data, and some audience members, will be removed from your Mailchimp account within 30 days.

How it works

This manual import has a few steps. First, you’ll export the customer data from Shopify. Next, you’ll prepare the Shopify CSV file for Mailchimp. Finally, you’ll upload the file to your audience.

Export Shopify customer data

To export the segment of your Shopify customers who have accepted marketing, follow these steps.

1. Log in to your Shopify account.
2. In the left navigation menu, click Customers.
3. Click the Email subscribers tab.
   
4. Click Export.
   
5. in the Export customers modal, click the XX customers matching search option. This will export subscribed contacts who have accepted marketing.
6. Click Export Customers.

That's it! Your export will be delivered to the email address associated with your account. You now have a CSV file of your Shopify customers and some of their data.

To prepare your CSV file for import, you may need to adjust it to a format that our import tool can accept.

Format the file

To prepare your Shopify customer file for import, follow these steps.

1. In a spreadsheet program like Excel or Sheets, open a blank worksheet.
2. Create and label a column for Email Address.
   
3. Next to your Email Address column, create and label additional columns for First Name and Last Name.
   
4. Email Address is the only field that we require, but you can repeat this step for any other subscriber data fields you want to include in Mailchimp, like phone number, birthday, language, address, or country.
5. Paste your contacts' information into the relevant fields in the spreadsheet.
   
6. Save the file in CSV format. This option can usually be accessed from the File menu in your spreadsheet program, labeled as "Export as .CSV" or "Download as .CSV."

Now that you've completed these steps, you're ready to import the CSV file to your Mailchimp audience.

Import contacts to Mailchimp

To import your contacts to Mailchimp, follow these steps.

Navigate to the Audience tab.

1. If you have more than one audience, click the Current audience drop-down and choose the one you want to work with.
2. Click the Manage Audience drop-down and choose Import contacts.
3. Choose CSV or tab-delimited text file.
   
   If your last import was a CSV with the same columns, you can click Use settings from last import, which will allow you to skip steps 8-10.
4. Click Continue To Setup.
   
5. Click Browse and choose the file from your computer.
   
   If your file contains enough contacts to raise your account’s subscriber total to a higher billing plan, you’ll see an Are You Sure pop-up. Click Continue to proceed with the import, or click No Thanks to cancel.
6. Click Continue To Match to go to the next step and match the columns in your import file to the fields in your Mailchimp audience.
   
   If your import file contains only an email column, we’ll skip you to Organize (step 13).
7. We’ll automatically match some columns in your import file. For example, the column that contains email addresses will match the required Email Address field.
   
8. Click Edit to choose a different field type from the drop-down menu. To create a new field, click the drop-down menu and choose Create a new field.
9. Repeat steps 8 and 9 for all unmatched columns. You must match or skip all columns to complete your import.
   
10. After you're finished matching, we'll display a success message.
    
11. Click Continue To Organize.
    
12. Optional: If you want to assign tags to all of your imported contacts, click the plus (+) icon in the Tag all contacts section and choose or create tags as needed.
    
13. Optional: If you want to add your imported contacts to groups, navigate to the Add contacts to groups section and check the box next to each group that applies.
    
    You’ll only see this option if you have groups in your audience.
14. In the Choose status of these contacts section, click the drop-down menu to choose the type of contacts you’re about to import.
    
    The available statuses for contacts are:
    • Subscribed
    • Unsubscribed
    • Non-subscribed
    • Cleaned
15. In the Update existing contacts section, leave the box unchecked unless your import includes contacts who are already in your audience.
    
16. Click Continue To Review to confirm your import settings
    
17. Click Import.
    

After the import is finished, we'll send a notification to the email address associated with your username.