BON x Mailchimp integration
Learn how to integrate BON with Mailchimp and how to set up marketing campaigns and Customer Journeys in Mailchimp using BON’s attributes
NOTE: This feature is available on the Starter plan and higher. Check out our Pricing plans for more details!
Introduction
Mailchimp is a popular email marketing platform that integrates with Shopify. The BON x Mailchimp integration syncs your loyalty data (points, VIP tier, referral link and birthday) to your Mailchimp audience and sends BON events to Mailchimp. You can use this data to personalize emails, build targeted segments, and trigger automated Customer Journeys that drive repeat purchases.
Integration requirements
Before setting up the integration, your store must meet the following requirements:
- You already have an active Mailchimp account and have installed the Mailchimp Email Marketing app on your Shopify store.
- Your Mailchimp account has at least one audience. If the Mailchimp for Shopify app created an audience for your store, BON selects it automatically.
- To trigger Customer Journeys with BON events, your Mailchimp account must be on the Essentials plan or higher. Free plans still receive BON events, but cannot use them to trigger journeys.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Only customers who are subscribed to email marketing in Shopify are synced to Mailchimp. Mailchimp charges based on the number of contacts, so subscribed customers added to your audience will count toward your Mailchimp contact limit.
BON x Mailchimp integration instructions
Step 1: Go to the Settings tab in BON Loyalty > Select Set up for the Integrations tab > open the Email marketing tab and find the Mailchimp Email Marketing card
Step 2: To integrate, please input this attribute ‘?show_integrate=true‘ in the URL > Press ‘Enter‘
- If you haven’t installed Mailchimp yet, kindly click “Install app”, you’ll be taken to Mailchimp app listings for detailed information regarding features and users’ reviews.
- If you already did, please click ‘Integrate now‘, you will be taken to Mailchimp. Here, please review the permission request, then click ‘Allow‘ to complete this integration.
NOTE: If you Cancel the approval form, Mailchimp takes you to your Shopify admin home page instead of back to BON. To try again, open BON Loyalty and click Integrate now again.
Step 3: Choose your Mailchimp audience. After you allow access, you’ll return to the Integrations page.
- BON automatically selects the audience connected to your Shopify store (created by the Mailchimp for Shopify app). If your account has only one audience, BON selects that one.
- If your account has several audiences and BON can’t tell which one to use, the card shows Choose an audience to start syncing. Select your audience from the Mailchimp audience drop-down.
- If you change the audience later, BON re-syncs all data to the new audience. Data already sent to the old audience stays there.
Once an audience is selected, all data syncs automatically from BON Loyalty to your Mailchimp audience. The card shows Syncing, then Success when the sync is complete. The synced data includes:
- Point balances
- Customers’ VIP tiers
- Referral URLs
- Birthdays
After the first sync, BON updates Mailchimp in real time (within seconds to a few minutes) whenever points change, a birthday is edited, a customer moves up or down a tier, or a customer subscribes to email marketing in Shopify. Expired points are updated by a nightly job.
TIP: Renaming a tier does not sync automatically. After renaming, click Sync data on the Mailchimp card to update all contacts.
Which customers are synced
- Only customers subscribed to email marketing in Shopify are synced.
- Customers not yet in your audience are added with the status Subscribed.
- Customers already in your audience only get their BON data updated. Their status stays the same, so anyone who unsubscribed in Mailchimp is not re-subscribed.
- If a customer unsubscribes in Shopify, BON stops updating that contact. The contact stays in Mailchimp with its last values.
Customers excluded from your loyalty program are still synced if they are subscribed. - BON does not send first or last names (FNAME/LNAME).
How to implement BON's data in Mailchimp
A. Customize email contents with BON’s merge tags
After BON data has synced successfully, each contact in your audience has 4 new fields. You can find them in Audience > Settings > Audience fields and merge tags.
Field name | Description |
|---|---|
BON Points | BON_POINT |
BON VIP Tier | BON_TIER |
BON Referral URL | BON_REFURL |
BON Birthday | BON_BDAY |
These fields do not appear on your Mailchimp signup forms.
To use them in an email:
- Go to your Mailchimp account > Create a new email or edit an existing one.
- Click any text block > select Merge tags in the toolbar > choose the BON field you want to insert. You can also type the merge tag directly, for example: You have *|BON_POINT|* points waiting for you!
TIP: BON Birthday works with Mailchimp’s built-in birthday automation, so you can send birthday emails without building a custom flow.
B. Managing customer data with segments
You can use BON’s data to create segments and send tailored campaigns to specific groups of customers, such as VIP members or customers with a high point balance.
- In Mailchimp, go to Audience > Segments > select Create segment.
- Click to add a condition > choose one of the BON fields (BON Points, BON VIP Tier, BON Referral URL or BON Birthday) > set your rule, for example BON VIP Tier is Gold or BON Points is greater than 500.
- Save the segment and use it as the recipients of your campaign.
C. Use event data to trigger Customer Journey
With the BON and Mailchimp integration, you can use BON events to trigger automated Customer Journeys in Mailchimp. You can see the events each customer received in their contact profile > Activity. Events are only sent for customers subscribed to email marketing.
NOTE: Triggering Customer Journeys with events requires the Mailchimp Essentials plan or higher.
Actions | Event name in Mailchimp |
|---|---|
Customer creates a new account/signs up for the loyalty program | bon_account_created |
Customer earns points from an order | bon_points_earned_on_order |
Customer exchanges points for a reward | bon_points_redeemed |
Customer receives a birthday reward | bon_birthday_rewards |
Customer moves down to a lower tier | bon_tier_downgrade |
7 days before the customer’s points expire | bon_point_expiry_reminder_d7 |
1 day before the customer’s points expire | bon_point_expiry_reminder_d1 |
Customer achieves a new, higher tier | bon_new_tier_unlock |
Customer completes an order streak (Order Booster) | bon_new_streak_unlock |
The referrer is rewarded for a successful referral | bon_referrer_notice |
The referred friend receives their referral reward | bon_referred_friend_notice |
NOTE: If you choose to use Mailchimp to send BON-related emails instead of BON Notification Emails, keep the following in mind:
1. BON events currently support order-based earning
Mailchimp receives BON events for earning points from orders. It does not receive a separate event for every earning action in BON, such as following social media. Points added or deducted manually in the BON admin do not create an event either; they only update BON Points.
Because of this, Mailchimp cannot completely replace all BON Earning Points notification emails at the moment.
2. BON event attributes
Each BON event is sent with attributes that describe what happened. All values are sent as text; list values (such as entry_rewards) are sent as a JSON string.
| Attribute | Event |
|---|---|
| point_amount (if you reward points for creating an account) | bon_account_created |
| point_amount, order_id | bon_points_earned_on_order |
| reward_name, discount_code, point_amount, discount_value, discount_expires_at, redeem_id | bon_points_redeemed |
| point_amount, discount_code (if any) | bon_birthday_rewards |
| tier_name, entry_rewards, custom_rewards, benefit_complete_orders | bon_new_tier_unlock |
| current_tier, old_tier, new_tier_name, effective_date | bon_tier_downgrade |
| point_amount, streak_type, streak_name | bon_new_streak_unlock |
| referred_friend_first_name, coupon_code | bon_referrer_notice |
| referrer_first_name, coupon_code | bon_referred_friend_notice |
| point_amount, bon_points_expires_at | bon_point_expiry_reminder_d7 |
| point_amount, bon_points_expires_at | bon_point_expiry_reminder_d1 |
| Attribute | Description |
|---|---|
| point_amount | The number of points the customer earned, redeemed or is about to lose |
| order_id | The ID of the order that earned points |
| reward_name | The name of the reward the customer redeemed |
| discount_code | The discount code the customer received |
| discount_value | The value of the redeemed discount |
| discount_expires_at | The expiry date of the redeemed discount |
| redeem_id | The ID of the redemption |
| tier_name | The tier the customer just unlocked |
| entry_rewards | The rewards granted when the customer enters the tier |
| custom_rewards | Custom rewards offered outside of BON for the tier |
| benefit_complete_orders | The point multiplier applied to orders for the tier |
| current_tier / old_tier / new_tier_name | The customer's tier before and after a downgrade |
| effective_date | The date the tier downgrade takes effect |
| streak_type / streak_name | The type and name of the order streak in Order Booster |
| referrer_first_name | The first name of the referrer |
| referred_friend_first_name | The first name of the referred friend |
| coupon_code | The coupon code given for the referral |
| bon_points_expires_at | The date the customer's points expire |
Disconnect and troubleshooting
To disconnect, click Disconnect now on the Mailchimp card > confirm Disconnect now in the pop-up. All syncing stops immediately, and data already in Mailchimp stays as it is. If you integrate again later, BON re-syncs all data from the start.
What you see on the card | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
The Mailchimp connection was revoked, so syncing has stopped. | BON’s access was removed in Mailchimp | Click Disconnect now, then Integrate now again |
The selected audience no longer exists in Mailchimp, so syncing has stopped. | The selected audience was deleted in Mailchimp | Choose another audience from the drop-down |
Choose an audience to start syncing. | BON couldn’t pick an audience automatically | Choose your audience from the drop-down |
Couldn’t load your Mailchimp audiences. | The audience list failed to load | Reload the page |
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