If you’d like to email your regulars about new menus, events and offers, your booking page can build the list for you. Guests who tick the mailing-list box when they book are added to your Mailchimp audience automatically, with no exporting or copying and pasting.
The tick box on your booking page
On the last step of your booking page, just above the terms box, guests see Join our mailing list to receive exclusive offers and updates. It starts unticked, so only guests who choose to join are added. Anyone who leaves it alone is never sent to Mailchimp.
To show or hide the box, go to Settings → Online Booking & Discover and use Mailing list option in BOOKING OPTIONS. To check what your guests see, walk through a booking yourself (see Testing your booking page).
Connect Mailchimp
You’ll need an API key from Mailchimp first. In your Mailchimp account, go to Account → Extras → API keys, create a key and copy it.
1. Open the Mailchimp settings. In NomNom Web, open Settings and choose Mailchimp under EMAIL & SMS.
2. Click Connect Mailchimp. Paste your key into the API key box and click Connect. NomNom checks the key with Mailchimp straight away and tells you if it’s refused.
3. Choose your audience. Click Audience and pick the list sign-ups should go to. Each one shows how many contacts it already has.
4. Switch on Sync new opt-ins. It can’t be switched on until you’ve chosen an audience.
In NomNom Web: Settings → Mailchimp. In the phone app: Settings → Mailchimp, or Settings → Online Booking & Discover → Sync opt-ins to Mailchimp.
How the sync works
- Every few minutes, NomNom sends guests who’ve ticked the box to your audience as subscribed contacts, a batch at a time, so a long list can take a little while to go across.
- Only the basics are sent: email address, first name and last name. Phone numbers never are.
- Earlier sign-ups go too. Guests who ticked the box before you connected are sent when you first switch the sync on.
- Each guest is sent once. If someone is already in your audience, NomNom doesn’t change whether they’re subscribed, so a guest who unsubscribed isn’t signed back up when they book again.
- Changing audience sends everyone who’s ticked the box to the new one.
- An address Mailchimp won’t take is skipped, and the rest carry on.
Last synced, and when the sync stops
Last synced, under the blue box, is the last time NomNom actually added someone to Mailchimp. It only changes when there’s someone new to send, so after a quiet few days it can look old. That’s normal.
If Mailchimp refuses your account, the box turns red and says Mailchimp sync has stopped, followed by what to do:
- Mailchimp refused the connection (the API key may have been deleted). Someone has usually deleted or disabled the key in Mailchimp, or the account has closed. Click Disconnect Mailchimp, connect again with a new key, choose your audience and switch Sync new opt-ins back on. NomNom then goes through all your sign-ups again; anyone already in the audience is left as they are.
- Mailchimp could not find the chosen audience. The audience has been deleted in Mailchimp. Click Audience and choose another.
Nobody is lost while the sync is stopped: guests who tick the box in the meantime wait in NomNom and are sent once it’s fixed. A short outage at Mailchimp’s end doesn’t show an error at all; NomNom simply tries again a few minutes later.
Good to know
- Unsubscribes stay in Mailchimp. When a guest unsubscribes from your emails, Mailchimp handles it and NomNom isn’t told. Manage your list and your unsubscribes in Mailchimp.
- Switching Sync new opt-ins off pauses sending. Sign-ups are still collected, and go across when you switch it back on.
- Disconnecting forgets your API key and audience in NomNom. Your Mailchimp contacts aren’t touched.
- Each venue connects on its own. If you run more than one, set Mailchimp up in each; they can share an audience.
- Erasing a guest’s details in NomNom doesn’t remove them from Mailchimp. If they’ve asked to be forgotten, delete them in Mailchimp too.
- Admins only. Like the rest of Settings, only admins can connect or change Mailchimp.