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Automate your club members with Mailchimp Audiences using Tags

Integrate Mailchimp with VinesOS to automatically sync your club members and customer contacts and organize them with Tags

Updated this week

Integrate Mailchimp with VinesOS to automatically sync your club members and customer contacts through a tag-based sync, using one audience with tags to organize them.


Streamline with Mailchimp Tags (Single Audience)

Send all contacts to one Main Audience in Mailchimp, and organize them using tags.

This helps prevent sending duplicate Mailchimp campaign emails to customers when they belong to multiple clubs or channels.


Enable Tags

  1. In VinesOS, navigate to Settings > General Settings > Mailchimp section

  2. Enter your Mailchimp API Key, which you will need to get from your Mailchimp account, then click Save. This Mailchimp article describes how to find your Mailchimp Audience ID.

  3. Toggle on “Use Tags (single audience with tags)”

  4. Select your Main Audience

Important: A Main Audience from your MailChimp account must be selected to use tags. All contacts will be routed into this single audience.


Managing Tags (Bi-Directional Sync)

Tags stay in sync between VinesOS and Mailchimp:

  • Tags created in VinesOS will automatically be added to your Mailchimp account

  • Tags created in Mailchimp will automatically appear in VinesOS

This allows you to manage tags from either system without needing to recreate them.


Key Concept: Single Audience Behavior

Once enabled:

  • All contacts are sent to one Main Audience

  • Tags determine how contacts are categorized

  • If a tag is not selected, new contacts from that category will not be added


Default Behavior (How Contacts Sync)

Each contact source in VinesOS (Ecommerce, POS, Events, Newsletter, Clubs) can have a tag assigned.

  • If a tag is selected → contact is added to the Main Audience with that tag

  • If a tag is NOT selected → contact is not sent to Mailchimp

Example:

If only the Ecommerce tag is selected:

  • POS orders → ❌ Not added

  • Event orders → ❌ Not added (only if the Events tag is not set)

  • Newsletter signups → ❌ Not added

  • Club signups → ❌ Not added (unless club tags are set)


Clubs with Tags (Important)

Clubs behave slightly differently and require their own setup.

How Club Tagging Works

  • Each club has its own Mailchimp Tag field

  • When a tag is selected:

    • Members are added to the Main Audience

    • The selected tag is applied to those members

  • If no tag is selected on a club:

    • ❌ That club will not sync members to Mailchimp


Required Setup After Enabling Tags ⚠️

After turning on Use Tags, you must:

  1. Go to each Club in VinesOS

  2. Select the appropriate Mailchimp Tag

  3. Click Save

Important: If you do not assign a tag to a club, that club will stop syncing members to Mailchimp.


Removing or Cancelling

The only instance in which a wine club member will be automatically removed from the Mailchimp Main Audience is when they cancel all clubs or you remove them manually, but only when no other non-club tags are in place. For example, if a member only has club tags and they cancel all of their clubs, they will be automatically removed, but if a member has any other tags (e.g., ecommerce, event, POS transaction, newsletter, etc.), you will need to manually remove the member from your Audience.


Syncing Behavior

When you assign or update a tag in a Club and click Save:

  • A copy of the existing members from the original Mailchimp audience (for that club) are synced to the new Main Audience that you selected in your VinesOS General Settings.

  • New members will be automatically added to that Main Audience going forward.

  • The original Mailchimp audience for the club and its members will remain in place in MailChimp, but no new members will be added to that audience going forward - only to the new Main Audience.


Tag Flexibility for Clubs

  • You can assign:

    • A club-specific tag (e.g., “Club – Red 2 Bottle”)

    • Or another tag depending on how you want to organize members

  • All members still go to the same Main Audience

  • Tags simply control grouping and segmentation


Important Considerations

Benefits of Tags

  • ✅ Prevents duplicate emails for members in multiple clubs

  • ✅ Keeps all contacts in one centralized audience

  • ✅ Allows flexible segmentation using tags

  • ✅ Easier campaign management in Mailchimp


When NOT to Use Tags

You may want to stick with Lists (multiple audiences) if:

  • You prefer completely separate audiences per club (then use the Legacy alternative below)

  • You do not want all contacts combined into a single audience

Once Tags are enabled, new contacts will no longer be separated by audience—they will all go into the Main Audience.


Switching Between Modes

  • If Tags are disabled:

    • Clubs revert to using Mailchimp List IDs

    • Your previous list-based setup continues to work, but only if you did not overwrite your list IDs with tag names when you enabled the feature. If you did overwrite the old IDs, you will need to type those IDs back in and save.

  • If Tags are enabled:

    • List-based syncing is no longer used for new activity

    • Tags control all contact syncing behavior


Legacy Option: Connect using Mailchimp List IDs (for when you need Multiple Audiences)

This option allows you to sync each club to a separate Mailchimp audience.

To set this up:

  1. From the sidebar menu in VinesOS, go to Notifications/Terms > Email

  2. On the Email page, click the blue Mailchimp Settings button at the top of the page

  3. On the Mailchimp Settings page, enter your API Key and a default List ID, which you will need to get from your Mailchimp account, then click Save

  4. On each of your club management pages:

    • Enter the Mailchimp List ID (Audience ID) for that specific club

Note: This List ID is unique to each Mailchimp audience and is different from the default List ID entered in step #3.


This Mailchimp article describes how to find your Mailchimp Audience (List) ID.


How it works

  • When you save a List ID on a club:

    • All existing members are synced to that Mailchimp audience

  • New members are automatically added to that audience

  • When a member cancels, they are removed from that audience

View the following visual tutorial to connect a Mailchimp audience list to a VinesOS club: https://www.screencast.com/t/0Ge4rIo0axfa

Summary

  • Lists (Audiences): Separate audiences per club

  • Tags: One audience + tags for organization (recommended)

Tags provide a cleaner, more modern approach that prevents duplicate emails and simplifies audience management. Just be sure to assign tags to every club and channel you want to keep syncing.

Your existing setups won't change unless you enable "Use Tags" in the general settings, and you can also switch back to list-based organization anytime by disabling the tags.

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