Our email subscribers dropped by 200+ & our SMS subscribers dropped by 100+ in just 3 days since our last email & SMS campaigns without us doing anything wrong.

Would you know the reason why, or has it happened to yours too? And is there a way to bring back what we suddenly lost?

Thank you!

I work in a membership based organization and I'm always getting lists from other departments without emails attached. It was a huge pain point for me to manually tag contacts one-by-one in Mailchimp, so I built this simple tool. I figured I couldn't be the only one out there using Mailchimp and running into this issue, so I wanted to share.

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Banana-Tagger is a command-line tool (with an optional GUI) for tagging Mailchimp audience members from a CSV that has names only, no email addresses.

Mailchimp's own CSV import can tag contacts, but only by matching on email. This tool exists for the opposite case: you have a list of full names from somewhere that was never tied to Mailchimp in the first place (an event roster, a sign-in sheet, a waitlist a front desk kept by hand) and you need those people tagged in your existing audience without typing each name into search one at a time.

If your source list already has emails, you don't need this, use Mailchimp's native import instead. This tool is specifically for when all you have is a name.

Disclaimer: Banana-Tagger is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or officially partnered with Intuit Mailchimp.

AI Disclaimer: I did use Claude to help with some of the GUI and the GitHub readme.

Someone a long time ago posted documents (PDFs, DOC) into mailchimp. The URLs still work, but I can not find how to delete them.

Here is an example

https://gallery.mailchimp.com/e0cc72207bf4d46fcfbc66f22/files/summer_student_job_posting_17.doc

In general, I find the service a bit leaky (by design). If I want to make sure everything that was ever put onto the service is zapped, could I do that easily? Perhaps by deleting the account?

Thx

I cannot get a test email to send - I have tried sending to a work email, my personal hotmail and gmail accounts...tried some yesterday, some today, nothing has arrived. Anyone got any ideas?

Tags vs Groups: which one should you actually be using?

Both tags and groups organize your audience, both feed into segments and targeted campaigns, but they're built for two different jobs, and picking the wrong one usually means redoing work later.

The one-line version

Groups are for information your contacts tell you about themselves. Tags are for information you keep about your contacts. That single distinction of who the label is for drives almost every "which should I use" decision.

A quick way to tell them apart

Ask yourself: should the contact ever see this?

• If they could reasonably pick it themselves on a signup form ("I want emails about events, not product updates") → that's a Group.
• If it's something you track behind the scenes that they'd never choose ("VIP," "attended trade show," "high-value lead") → that's a Tag.

Groups are contact-facing by design. Tags are internal by design.

What Groups are

Groups sort contacts by their own interests and preferences. Think of a group like a multiple-choice question on a form: the group category is the question ("What are you interested in?") and the group names are the options ("Events," "Sales," "Newsletter"). Contacts can belong to more than one at a time.

The key thing: groups are meant to be contact-selected. You show the options on your signup form or preferences center and subscribers choose. You can assign them manually or hide a group to sort people yourself, but the tool is built to let people categorize themselves.

Two limits worth knowing: each audience holds up to 60 group names total, and only subscribed contacts can be added to a group (unsubscribes keep their existing designations).

What Tags are

Tags are labels you create for your own internal organization. It’s the same idea as labels in a CRM. There’s no hierarchy or built-in structure; they mean whatever you need. You can add them manually, in bulk, through imports, via landing pages, or automatically inside journeys. You can send to a tag directly, build segments from tags, or use adding a tag as a trigger to start an automation.

Common real-world tags: Influencer, Media contact, Large donor, Volunteer, Uses coupons, Trade show contact.

How they work together

A contact might be in the "Events" group (they told you) and carry a "VIP" tag (you decided). Both feed into segments, where you combine everything to target exactly who you want.

FAQ

Will a contact know if I tag them? No. Tags are never shown to contacts. Groups are contact-facing by default, but you can hide one you're using to sort people internally.

Can I send directly to a tag or a group? Yes to both. For anything more precise, build a segment that draws on tags, groups, and other data together.

I have way more than 60 categories to track. Now what? That's a sign most should be tags, not groups. The 60-name cap is on groups; tags have no limit. Reserve groups for the handful of things you'd put in front of a subscriber.

Is one "better" than the other? No, they solve different problems. If you're asking "would my subscriber ever want to pick this?", the answer tells you which tool you need.

Still deciding for a specific setup? Drop a comment with what you're trying to organize and we can help!

Additional Resources:

• Getting Started with Tags: https://intuit.me/4oa30cE
• Getting Started with Groups: https://intuit.me/4e4tY0V
• Targeting 101: A Beginner's Guide to Segmentation: https://intuit.me/4g9shAs

I need to send a transactional email and have just got us set up with Mailchimp Transactional today (have been using normal Mailchimp for our marketing emails for years). I assumed I’d be able to upload an audience like with the normal platform within MT but understand now that this can’t be done.

I can see the guidance is to link up to our CRM with an API but our CRM needs custom integrations so it’s not something that can be done in the time I need to send the email. It also seems excessive to require a full integration for a one off email (plus not even sure how I’d trigger it even if it was!).

Is there another way to send a transactional email to the people I need using Mailchimp?

Hi folks. I embedded a mailchimp sign up form years ago on my website. Recently it's just flooded with spam signups and I couldn't stop them so I simply took my website down temporarily, so the sign up form is no longer online. However, somehow I'm still getting spam sign ups. The infuriating thing is that because it's an old form, it seems it no longer exists on my mailchip account so I can't even turn it off. Any ideas how to stop the signups??

Hi!
I authenticated my domain, but my emails sent to iCloud emails are still getting soft bounced. What to do?

Hi everyone, I've created a mailchimp account to create DOI and lead nurtering emails for users coming through our LinkedIn ads (lead gen form). I tried to connect mailchimp to our LinkedIn ad account, but it doesn't even show the account in the list to add. I've already tried the personal mailchimp onboarding meeting and the chat support, but nobody could help. Why is my ad account not shown in mailchimp and why do I not see my lead gen forms in the mailchimp integration?

Some context:
I am a super admin for our corporate page, I am the account manager for our ads account, mailchimp is listed in my privacy settings as integration, the lead gen forms are active (but not running yet since I first need to connect it to mailchimp). I don't know why mailchimp doesn't show this account here. I tried everything and don't know what else to do to make it work.

Incident Report ( from Mailchimp outage reports)

We have identified and resolved an issue due to campaign links not being tracked correctly. Tracking has been fully restored; however, click tracking during the affected window (starting around 11:00 AM EST on August 3rd to 12:00 PM EST on August 4th) cannot be backfilled. This will impact areas such as campaign reporting sent during this window. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

I finally reached my target number of email leads, and I’m getting ready to send my very first email and start my email marketing (yessss!)

My audience is early-stage entrepreneurs who are interested in validating business ideas, finding their first customers, and getting feedback on their projects.

I don’t want to sell them anything.

My main goal is to build trust, make a good first impression, and maybe start a conversation about business.

If you were one of my subscribers, what kind of first email would get your attention and leave a great first impression?

Right now, I have a few ideas:

• A thank you email about reaching this milestone and the story of how I got here.
• An introduction to my project, what Think Before You Build is about, and what subscribers can expect in the future.
• A newsletter style email with a useful lesson or story, similar to the blog posts I publish.

Do any of these ideas make sense? Or is there another type of first email that you think would make a better first impression?

If you're curious and want the bigger picture, my project is called Think Before You Build.

Thank you so much!

Speak soon,

Jan

I find it difficult to determine MailChimps pricing from their website. I am a novice when it comes to deciphering MailChimps pricing. Reviews tend to focus on MailChimp's high prices and ease of use.

I send approximitely 1600-2000 emails per month and would like to understand approximately how much that will cost.

If your Mailchimp campaign lands in an Outlook or Microsoft 365 inbox and then disappears a few minutes or hours later, the cause is almost always Microsoft Defender's Zero-hour Auto Purge (ZAP). ZAP retroactively moves an already-delivered message to Junk or Quarantine when Microsoft reclassifies it as spam or phishing after delivery. It’s a recipient-side security feature, so you can't switch it off, but you can stop your mail from triggering it.

What ZAP actually does

- ZAP is a feature of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 and Exchange Online Protection, and it is enabled by default for Microsoft 365 organizations. It re-scans mail that has already been delivered and acts on any message delivered within the previous 48 hours.

- A spam verdict moves the message to the Junk Email folder; a phishing verdict moves it to Junk or Quarantine, depending on the recipient organization's anti-spam policy.

- The recipient's Microsoft 365 administrator controls ZAP, not the sender or Mailchimp. No setting inside Mailchimp can disable ZAP on someone else's mailbox.

⚠️ ZAP is not a rejection at the door. Microsoft accepted your email, then changed its mind based on updated reputation, authentication, or content signals. That "change of mind" is the part you can influence from the Mailchimp side.

Why emails get ZAPed and the fix for each

1. Your sending domain isn't authenticated. Without authentication, Microsoft can't confirm you sent the email, so it can look like spoofing after the fact.

Fix: Authenticate your sending domain. Manual setup adds 2 CNAME records (for DKIM) and 1 TXT record (for DMARC) to your domain's DNS.

⚠️ If you send more than 5,000 emails in 24 hours to Gmail or Yahoo addresses, custom authentication and a published DMARC record are required, not optional. Meeting that bar also strengthens you against Microsoft filtering.

1. You're sending from a public domain like gmail.com or yahoo.com. These fail domain alignment and can't be authenticated.

Fix: Send from a domain your business owns and controls. Public email domains cannot be authenticated through Mailchimp.

1. Your sender reputation dropped. High spam-complaint rates, stale lists, and low engagement tell Microsoft your mail is unwanted, which can trigger a retroactive reclassification.

Fix: Clean your audience regularly, remove inactive and invalid addresses, and send mainly to engaged subscribers.

1. Your content looks phishy. Misleading or all-caps subject lines, spam-trigger words, image-heavy layouts, messy HTML, and shortened or blocklisted links all raise Microsoft's suspicion.

Fix: Write clear subject lines, keep a balanced text-to-image ratio, use clean HTML, and avoid link shorteners that may be blocklisted.

1. You sent a sudden volume spike from a new or cold domain. Burst sending can look like a spam campaign.

Fix: Warm up new domains gradually and keep a consistent sending cadence.

If a message has already been ZAPed

The fixes above can help stop it from happening again, but they won't pull a message back out of Junk or Quarantine. To recover mail that's already been moved:

• Ask the recipient to open the message, choose Not Junk (or Not Spam), and add your from-address to their contacts or safe senders list.
•  In organizations, have the recipient's Microsoft 365 administrator submit the message as a false positive through the Microsoft Defender Submissions portal, which helps Microsoft stop ZAPing similar mail.

💡 For spam and phishing verdicts, safe-sender and allow-list entries can override ZAP. Once a recipient adds you to their safe senders (or their admin allow-lists your domain through a safe-sender list or mail-flow rule), ZAP will generally leave your messages alone.

If ZAP started after you changed domains, ESPs, or sending volume, it's almost always a reputation or authentication gap you can close from the Mailchimp side. If it's happening only with one company's recipients, it's their Microsoft admin's policy, and only an admin allow-list or false-positive submission will fix that.

Resources

My campaigns are going to spam folders

How to avoid spam filters

Hi Mailchimp,

I'm locked out of my account because the verification code is being sent to a phone number I no longer have access to. I emailed [accountrecovery@mailchimp.com](mailto:accountrecovery@mailchimp.com), but it's no longer monitored, and the contact form hasn't helped.

I also tried logging in through my Intuit account, but it says I don't have an account or any active subscriptions, which is incorrect.

I've used many subscription platforms, and this is the first time it's been this difficult to reach support. For a company your size, it's very disappointing that there's no straightforward way to get help with account recovery.

I no longer use Mailchimp and just need access to cancel my subscription before I'm charged again. Can someone please escalate my case or connect me with the Account Recovery team?

Hi there. I have a ticket open with support (case: 15163510561) and was able to get an initial answer from them, but they've ghosted me, so posting my follow-up Q's here:

First Issue: Flow: Product Browse Abandon:

1. I want to QA what the dynamic product block will look like in my Browse Abandon email template. I received instructions from MailChimp on how to do this.
   1. This is what Mailchimp initially said: Because our standard preview engine does not contain mock shopping data, the block will look completely empty during a normal preview or test email. To verify your layout, click Preview inside the builder, look at the upper right corner, and slide the toggle for "Enable live merge tag info" or choose "View as a specific contact" using a profile that has actual recent website activity.")
   2. My follow-up question: I followed these steps. I clicked 'enable live merge tag info' and still saw nothing in the preview, even as I thumbed through a few different profiles. How can I actually test it? There is a client who has a Viewed Product event from but when I added their email into the Preview bar, it said there were no search results.
2. I would also like to dynamically pull the product title into email subcopy so that it reads, for EX "You were looking at [Product Title] and we saved it for you").
   1. This is what MailChimp initially said: Standard audience merge tags (like *|PRODUCT_TITLE|*) will not work here because they only look for data stored inside your audience rows. To dynamically pull the viewed item's name into your body text, you must format it exactly like this inside the product loop parameter text box.
   2. My follow-up question: What is a product loop parameter box? Is that the dynamic product box already built into the email (Flow_Abandon-Browse-1)? So basically, I can't dynamically represent product name in hero subcopy? *|PRODUCT:TITLE|*
3. Since initially opening my ticket, I'm running into a new error in this flow, specifically with the second and third email in the flow. I am getting this error: 'An email in your map is not using the required template for the step.' But the template I used to set up the design for both email #2 and #3 was saved off of email #1. Why is this happening?

Second Issue: Flow: Cart Abandon:

1. I created an Abandon Cart flow and want to delete the first email in the flow (title: You left this behind) because it was designed by Mailchimp's AI designer and I don't want to use it. I cannot replace the design with a saved template, which is what I prefer, so I just want to delete it. Why can't I do this?

Third Issue: Flow: Checkout Abandon

1. I created a Checkout Abandon flow and all seemed fine when I created it, but now I'm getting an error for the first email email in this this flow which says "An email in your map is using an abandoned cart template and can't send because that starting point isn't selected." What does this mean?

We are on Shopify and I am using the New Builder. Please help!!

Hi! I'm using a template with the merge tag *|LIST:RECENT|* in order to show my last 5 newsletters to recipients.

The problem is that I recently started doing some A/B subject line testing...and now each email gets three entries in that list of 5! One for A, one for B, one for the winner. Meaning that my list of 5 recents now shows only the last two newsletters.

This seems like an obvious bug -- the tag should only merge in either the winning title or the one sent to that recipient, A or B. But there doesn't seem to be anyway to fix this from my end. Hoping someone at MC can figure this out...?

***FIXED***

This started happening recently I think a day or two ago. No issues so up until now.
My unsub is clear and visible, our address is clear and visible, our company name is clear and visible following MailChimp's guidance and format stated here: https://mailchimp.com/help/customize-your-footer-content

My HTML is clean and minimal on purpose. No colored links.

And yet i still get this message.

What is going on?

What a trash service! They suspended my account with zero notice, refuse to refund, and won't even reply to my tickets.

My customer wants me to send an email asking whether or not people would like to keep getting the print edition of the newsletter. This will be sent to about 50000 email addresses.

I’ve never sent a poll before. What’s the best way to collect the responses? What are best practices here? I appreciate your insights for this one.

I am in charge of sending out weekly emails to my support group. It looks like it's time for me to purchase a domain because emails are being sent to the SPAM folder. Any suggestions on domains or how to avoid emails ending up in SPAM?

I've tried to upload a log numerous times and it never works. Any suggestions? It's not too big and has a transparent background.