Get unbelievable results with Mailchimp Automation and Goals

A very observant subscriber to my Mailchimp training campaign asked what the goal was in the URL when visiting the Mailchimp training page from my latest campaign. Essentially, when clicking the link to the Mailchimp training page from the campaign, the URL looks like http://mailchimp.organicwebcomau.wpcomstaging.com/training/?goal=0_7628fd76a5-5d36f04525-351951009 rather than the usual http://mailchimp.organicwebcomau.wpcomstaging.com/training.

What is happening is that I’ve enabled Mailchimp Goal on the website and on the download links on the training page. Goal allows for fine grained analysis about what your subscribers do on your website from an email campaign.

What does Mailchimp Goal do?

By default Goal tracks which subscribers visit which page or pages on your website. It’s possible to add a bit of script to enable Goal to track which subscribers have taken specific actions on your website such as click a specific link. This data are extremely useful as we can then create an Automation workflow (also called autoresponder emails). For example, say I want to send every subscriber that downloads the Mailchimp Essentials training course guide a follow up email with further information, I can setup Automation to send an email to each person that downloads the course guide. The possibilities are really awesome. Here are a few use cases but there are many more possibilities:

1. A school may send a campaign to prospective parents. Goals with Automations can be setup to send a personalised email to each prospective parent that view the application form online.
2. An estate agent may contact a person that views a specific property that is for sale.
3. A whitegoods seller may send a discount coupon to subscribers that view specific products.
4. A hairdresser can send a booking reminder email to subscribers that visit their website.

Mailchimp Goal and WordPress

My websites use WordPress (because I provide WordPress services in addition to Mailchimp services). Goal is simple enough to install; Mailchimp have developed a free plugin so that the Goal code may be easily installed on your website. I haven’t used the plugin to install the Goal script so can’t confirm that it works well.

Goal by default tracks which page or pages subscribers visit. If detailed event tracking is required, such as when a specific link is clicked, then some custom code will be needed to be added to the links to be tracked. For this, more advanced scripting knowledge will be needed.

As always, if you need assistance on getting the awesome benefits that Goal provides, feel free to contact me.