Why Fixing Duplicate Mailchimp Contacts is Challenging
Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2024 6:59 am
While Mailchimp does include several built-in systems that allow you to detect incoming duplicates and keep them from being added to the database, there are several nuances that you’ll need to know that could result in duplicates going undetected.
Let’s start by looking at how Mailchimp deals with duplicates.
Mailchimp identifies duplicates by email address. When Mailchimp detects an incoming duplicate contact — either being added manually or through an import — the incoming record will not be added to your list/audience.
When you add contacts manually you’ll receive an error message that looks like this:
mailchimp duplicates
When you import contacts, Mailchimp checks the CSV file for duplicates, and only adds one new contact to your database. But which one? You won’t have the ability to select the “best” of the identified duplicate subscribers.
Keep in mind that when this happens, the newly added record ukraine phone number is simply not added to the audience. The data included in that record is not added to or appended to the existing record, either. This can create situations where you lose more recently updated customer data or are required to enter that data by hand to have it included in contact profiles. That’s more time spent dealing with the issue.
However, this identification is exact-match, so duplicates with similar email addresses will not be identified, even when they share data in every other field. Typos are another concern. If a subscriber entered their email as “[email protected]” instead of “[email protected],” the duplicate contact would not be identified.
This isn’t ideal. To catch every duplicate in Mailchimp you’ll likely want to use other fields, such as names, phone numbers, or addresses as well. While the default Mailchimp deduplication features will help you to catch many duplicate contacts before they are added to your audience, there will always be some that slip through the cracks. In large databases this can mean thousands of Mailchimp duplicates causing problems for your team.
Another important fact to know about Mailchimp deduplication is that it only identifies duplicates within the audience that the contact is being added to. Two duplicate records in two different audiences are treated as two separate, non-duplicate contacts by Mailchimp.
Let’s start by looking at how Mailchimp deals with duplicates.
Mailchimp identifies duplicates by email address. When Mailchimp detects an incoming duplicate contact — either being added manually or through an import — the incoming record will not be added to your list/audience.
When you add contacts manually you’ll receive an error message that looks like this:
mailchimp duplicates
When you import contacts, Mailchimp checks the CSV file for duplicates, and only adds one new contact to your database. But which one? You won’t have the ability to select the “best” of the identified duplicate subscribers.
Keep in mind that when this happens, the newly added record ukraine phone number is simply not added to the audience. The data included in that record is not added to or appended to the existing record, either. This can create situations where you lose more recently updated customer data or are required to enter that data by hand to have it included in contact profiles. That’s more time spent dealing with the issue.
However, this identification is exact-match, so duplicates with similar email addresses will not be identified, even when they share data in every other field. Typos are another concern. If a subscriber entered their email as “[email protected]” instead of “[email protected],” the duplicate contact would not be identified.
This isn’t ideal. To catch every duplicate in Mailchimp you’ll likely want to use other fields, such as names, phone numbers, or addresses as well. While the default Mailchimp deduplication features will help you to catch many duplicate contacts before they are added to your audience, there will always be some that slip through the cracks. In large databases this can mean thousands of Mailchimp duplicates causing problems for your team.
Another important fact to know about Mailchimp deduplication is that it only identifies duplicates within the audience that the contact is being added to. Two duplicate records in two different audiences are treated as two separate, non-duplicate contacts by Mailchimp.