Aug 26, 2011

Introducing Hairball: an Air App for Really Complicated MailChimp Lists

hairball-logo

Every once in a while we get complaints from customers who want to run really complex segmentation criteria in MailChimp, but they keep bumping into our segmentation limitations. Truth is, we put those limits in place to keep a handful of customers from destroying our servers for the 900k other users on the system. Some of their queries could really turn our databases into a hairball of a mess. To get around those limitations, we’ve seen customers create multiple MailChimp accounts, open up separate tabs to run more segments, and all kinds of crazy hairbally stuff that would make our servers choke.

So we created Hairball. It’s an Air app that you install on your computer, and it syncs with your MailChimp list. Then, you can GO NUTS building all kinds of segments with your list. When you’re done, you sync it back up to MailChimp.

Hairball is currently in beta. If you’re interested in giving it a try, here’s where you can download:

Some Quick Tips

 

1. First, go to “Connect Account” (it’s the link in the top right of the screen) and tell it which MailChimp account to connect to:

hb-connecting

2. Next, you’ll see all your MailChimp Lists:

hb-lists

3. For each list, you’ll need to click the “fetch” buttons to sync their data down. Depending on the size of your lists, downloading their data can take a while (now you know how our servers feel).

hb-fetch-campaigns

4. After the data is downloaded, you can build unlimited segments. Get whacky!

hb-ballbearing
most-engaged-bens

 

You can even build a segment that’s based on fields with empty data:

 

5. After you’ve saved your segment, upload it to MailChimp:


6. You can even generate random percentage segments (what’s more random than 17?):

 

7. You can view the members of your segments in Hairball, or export them for a spreadsheet app or something:

Static Segments 

After building your segments in Hairball, they’re uploaded to MailChimp as “static segments.” That means we don’t have to build them dynamically for you, because you already did the hard work in Hairball (which makes our database servers purr  happily).

Whenever you log in to MailChimp and create your next campaign, you’ll see an option in the segmentation screen for static segment:

 

 

That’ll show the segments you built in Hairball. Pick your segment, and it’ll zap into place and you’re on your way. Power tip: use this to build a big static segment of “proof readers” that can test all your campaigns before you send to the full list.

If you’re one of our users with ginormous lists and MailChimp just feels a little sluggish when you build out your segments, give Hairball a try.

 

Posted By

Ben

Tagged

Discussion

  • matalin

    Awesome – you guys make bad-ass features that make me happy!

    08.26.2011

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  • Jordan Clark

    This looks awesome.

    Just wanted to point out you have a typeo in the app when fetching campaigns, it says: “Completed loading campiagn data”

    08.26.2011

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    • Eric

      Whoopsie, thanks for the note Jordan.

      08.29.2011

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  • Nic

    Could this app be used to mass-delete users? That’s one feature that would be really handy.

    08.29.2011

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  • Cal Evans

    This is very cool. Any chance that we will see an update to the API that allow us to upload our own static segments? I would love to be able to slice my list up into much more complex segments and mail to them.

    Thanks for all you guys do!
    =C=

    08.30.2011

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  • Cal Evans

    Thanks Jesse for the pointer. Don’t know why I missed that. Off to go spelunking in my database. :)

    =C=

    08.30.2011

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  • Denny Daugherty

    This looks great, although I’m not sure it will address the difficulty we have had with how we are trying to use segments. In our situation there are times when a simple “ALL” or “ANY” segment doesn’t suffice, and we need a combination. For example, suppose we have the state and age of each subscriber. Then suppose we want a segment with Ohioans between 21-35 and Pennsylvanians between 36-40. Right now we have to do two separate campaigns, each having the different segmentation criteria. Being able to combine multiple segments into a single campaign would be helpful.

    08.31.2011

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    • Eric

      Hey Denny, if you are using the absolute latest-and-greatest (pushed today, version 1.6.12) you can do this by building segments and then using those segments to build more segments. As soon as you’ve created one segment from a list, “Hairball Segments” becomes an option in segmentation conditions and you can then use those to build up fancy segment combinations. I’m sure I just broke the record for number of times saying ‘segment’ in one paragraph.

      08.31.2011

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  • Irina

    I tried the Mac App, but its not working for me, cant upload it. Any tips?

    08.31.2011

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    • Eric

      Hey Irina – can you provide more information on what can’t upload? Or you can give support a holler: http://kb.mailchimp.com/contact and they’ll help figure out what’s going on and get it straightened out.

      08.31.2011

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      • Shane

        My mac download isn’t working either. “there is no default application specified to open the document”

        08.31.2011

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        • Eric

          Ah. Install Adobe Air on your system, then run the downloaded file from us. Sorry about that, we’ll bundle up a better full installation process, but for now, install here: http://get.adobe.com/air

          08.31.2011

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  • Adam

    Looks promising, but I actually don’t see one of the criteria in the app that I see online: “Last updated”.

    We use Mailchimp to track the last download someone initiated from our site so that we can email them later for feedback on that download. The “Last Updated” field was a nice proxy for the date of last download.

    Is segmenting by that date possible with Hairball?

    08.31.2011

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    • Eric

      That’s not currently available in Hairball, there are a few omissions. Thanks for the feedback, though, we’ll add it to the list of updates.

      08.31.2011

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    • Eric

      Whoops, beaker.mailchimp.com was down for a few minutes, but it’s back online now. Try again, estradalvaro.

      08.31.2011

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  • Tanya Smith

    So glad there is another option. It’s been my one disappointment with Mailchimp – the challenges with segmentation. Thanks a bunch guys! Can’t wait to test Hairball out.

    08.31.2011

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  • Patricia Knight

    Can I just say I’m going “Ape Shit” over this new feature! Cn’t wait to get started.

    09.01.2011

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  • Petr

    I can not install on Linux (Ubuntu) there is a mistake in the pocket

    09.01.2011

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  • _this_is_me

    nice!!!! was just working on a solution to store contacts offline and work with them. Could you include a “search all subscribers” function?

    09.01.2011

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    • Eric

      Thanks for the suggestion. Right now Hairball is focused on the need for complex segmentation, which means we lose some of the features available in the app. You will still be able to search users in the app but it isn’t a great fit for Hairball at this stage in development.

      09.01.2011

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  • Peter

    This is a useful tool, but can Hairball automatically refresh segments? Testing indicates not. Hairball can automatically update its lists from Mailchimp, but if segments can’t be automatically updated back to Mailchimp then it falls short for me. Hopefully I’ve missed something?

    09.01.2011

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    • Eric

      Hey Peter, at the moment static segments are not re-populated automatically. We’re planning an update with functionality to handle that, so stay tuned.

      09.06.2011

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  • cat

    i love mailchimp! muaaacks!

    09.02.2011

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  • Georgi

    that’s what I was waiting for !!!! MCh ROCKS !!!!

    09.02.2011

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  • Tara

    This app totally makes my day!! I’ve been secretly wishing Mailchimp had a way to create micro-specific segments :) Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

    09.02.2011

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  • Pascal

    Hairball works perfectly and really makes things far easier. But what I find is that new Subscribers and Profile updates to a list are not automatically added/updated to the static segments. This is probably by design because static segments are sort of a snap shot of the subscribers at the moment of creation of the static segment? And we have to add the new subscribers ourselves using webhooks and the api. Can you confirm this?

    09.03.2011

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    • Eric

      Hey Pascal, you are correct, static segments are currently created and then not automatically updated by Hairball or MailChimp. They will never be automatically updated by MailChimp, but a future version of Hairball will include the ability to re-run segmentation queries and re-export to MailChimp.

      09.06.2011

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      • Pascal

        Thanks for the clarification Eric! The re-run feature would be cool. Is hairball a html/javascript air app or a flex/flash air app? If the latter is the case you could easily make a iphone/ipad or android version with the Flash CS5 packager. Would be cool to run hairball on the iPad.

        09.07.2011

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        • Eric

          Hey Pascal, Hairball is built with the JavaScript SDK, so no using “Burrito” to bundle it up as a mobile app. While I like the notion of easily porting to mobile platforms, we made sure Hairball will work with mega-gigantic lists (we tested against synthetic 10M member lists, with full list fields and all the fixins) and I’m not sure an iPad would enjoy running complex segmentation queries against that much data. It would definitely be cool, though. :)

          09.07.2011

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    • Ben

      I’ll certainly send this request on to our webinar team. They’re always up for teaching something new!

      09.22.2011

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  • Ed

    Clicked on one of your example screens and it gave me an enlarged view (exactly what I wanted). But then, I could not close it. I got a + no matter where the cursor was on the screen. Had to shut the window and start over. I’m using Safari 5.1 on iMac with OS X 10.6.8.

    09.22.2011

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    • Ben

      Heh, we’re linking to the enlarged view the old-fashioned way: we link to the file in your browser. If you click the old “back” button, it’ll work. No fancy pop-up modals or anything.

      09.22.2011

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  • Ed

    Does hairball have an import? I’d like to exchange data between hairball and my CMS.

    09.22.2011

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    • Ben

      It only imports from MailChimp.

      09.22.2011

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  • Lisa Grossman

    HALP! Have downloaded and installed AIR and Hairball and can’t get beyond setup screen. Generated API Key and pasted it in. Click Create Account and nothing happens. ?????

    09.22.2011

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    • Lisa Grossman

      Oh. Duh. Never mind. Virus filtering. Ooops. :: wipes egg off face. ::

      09.22.2011

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  • Cpres

    Just tested it out…Percentage based segmenting worked great. Doing it conditionally for State or Country on matching ‘any’ doesn’t work at all though. Sad :(

    09.22.2011

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    • Cpres

      NM, it just errors out on if the state is ‘ID’

      09.22.2011

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  • Brian Lang

    What’s the best way to get support for Hairball? When I run the same basic segment as I do when I start a new email campaign in the web app, the numbers do no match. The difference is several thousand email addresses…

    09.22.2011

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  • Andrew

    Love it! Two requests that would make it an even better tool:

    1) Ability to edit existing static segments. I know you can include them as criteria in other static segments, but this seems a little clunky if what I really want to do is change the original

    2) Ability to create a segment where membership is based on the presence in a list – for example, I want to create a segment with all email addresses that are present in this spreadsheet, text file, etc.

    09.29.2011

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  • R. Mullen

    This is exactly the kind of thing that makes me love this company: nearly fell off my chair laughing when the page loaded, only to find a TRULY useful tool being built. “Use your own damn CPU!” is counter-culture hysterical. Who wants a banana?!

    09.30.2011

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  • Andrew

    OK, one more (minor) feature request – when creating a particularly long set of conditions that takes up enough room to require vertical scrolling, how about auto-scrolling the window down to the bottom when we create a new condition? Scrolling down every time gets old… :)

    10.20.2011

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  • Jason Matyas

    Can Hairball segment by Subscriber Activity? I don’t see that option, and most of my segmenting is using that data.

    11.02.2011

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    • Eric

      Hey Jason – you have to “fetch campaigns” for subscriber activity to be a segmentation option. We separate “fetch list” from “fetch campaigns” because they both take a while (campaign subscriber activity can be a TON of data) and we figured people might want to get cranking without needing all that data.
      -Eric

      11.03.2011

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    • Eric

      Hey Les, whoops, looks like you found a segmentation query that barfs. Sorry about that. Jump into support and we’ll get it figured out – http://kb.mailchimp.com/

      -Eric

      11.15.2011

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  • Charlotte

    Hi there,

    Thanks for improving MailChimp a little more everyday :)

    However, I was sad to realise that there still isn’t the and/or option in the segmentation.
    For companies that work a lot with multilingual campaigns, it would be great to set a defined language in the segment, and then chose the “any” for the rest of the criteria.

    11.23.2011

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    • Eric

      Hi Charlotte,
      Hairball supports building segmentations that include other segmentations and you can use that to build fancy logical combinators that aren’t possible in MailChimp. If I follow your example, you could build two segments – “language is Spanish” and “Country is Mexico or Spain or Venezuela”. Then build a third that combines those two to give you “language is Spanish and (country is Mexico, Spain, or Venezuela)”. Kate explains it better than me over here: http://blog.mailchimp.com/create-nested-segments-in-mailchimp-with-hairball/

      Hope that helps!
      -Eric

      11.27.2011

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    • Sarah Madden

      Similarly I find the lack of ‘either’ ‘or’ options quite frustrating, as it’s a common feature in most CRM systems I use nowadays. Eric – thanks for the suggestions as to how to get around it, but it would be a lot simpler and faster if it was already built in to Mailchimp / Hairball. Unless I’m being dim and missing something :/

      11.30.2011

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  • Tony

    The system works well. Is there a function that would allow me to upload a list of emails to all either be ignored or included in a segment?

    11.23.2011

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    • Eric

      Hey Tony – that’s not currently available, but is a great idea. Look out for it in a future release.

      11.27.2011

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  • Brian Lang

    Well, whatever was wrong previously, it’s fixed in the latest version of the app. That being said however, I found what might be a show-stopper for me.

    When I create a segment in Hairball and upload it back to MailChimp, it is called a “static” segment. Does that mean that it never gets updated on the MailChimp side from that point on? This basically turns Hairball-created segments into one-off, “use it immediately” type segments – otherwise they are out of date the first time someone new signs up to the list.

    11.24.2011

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    • Eric

      Hey Brian – great to hear the issue was resolved. You’re correct, static segments are frozen at upload time. Hairball was built to support ginormous segmentations that wouldn’t be possible in the MailChimp application and uploading a static list of members enables that. With your use-case, you could create and upload the segment right before you send a campaign. Then when you’re ready to send another, update Hairball and re-run/upload the segment (the last part will be one click o’ the button in a soon-to-be-released version of Hairball).

      11.27.2011

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  • Daniel

    Hi Eric,
    This is great! You mention that in a future release you will add the ability to re-run segmentation queries and re-export to MailChimp. So that means that I would be able to rerun on say a daily basis and re-export? Any idea when this feature will be available?

    Thanks,

    Daniel.

    11.26.2011

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    • Eric

      Hey Daniel – glad you dig it. A new version with the ability to edit, re-run and re-export segmentations is being tested right now.

      11.27.2011

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  • Stephanie Kidder

    Hi, I was very excited about this, but I seem to actually be able to do less. I’d like to do segments of people who clicked in automated emails in the last 7 days. This doesn’t include User Activity on the list. Am I missing something?

    12.12.2011

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    • Eric

      Hey Stephanie – you have to “fetch campaigns” for subscriber activity to be a segmentation option. We separate “fetch list” from “fetch campaigns” because they both take a while (campaign subscriber activity can be a TON of data) and we figured people might want to get cranking without needing all that data. We’ll make that more clear in the next release.
      -Eric

      12.13.2011

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      • Stephanie Kidder

        ah ha. I’d missed that. Thanks! I’ll give it a try now. I’m actually trying to use it for reporting purposes on autoresponder campaigns.

        12.13.2011

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      • Stephanie Kidder

        Hi Eric, Actually the campaign data doesn’t include the autoresponder campaigns :-( These are the majority of our campaigns. Any way to include these too?

        12.13.2011

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      • Lynne

        Why does it even need to be so complicated? Why not allow users to select multiple lists when sending? This is so easy to do in Constant Contact so it’s obviously possible. It’s such a hassle to have to create separate lists every time i want to send to multiple lists.

        12.14.2011

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        • Ben

          Different email lists tend to have different audiences, who’ve signed up under different situations and with different expectations and different permissions granted. Therefore, it’s assumed you’d want to send emails to different lists using different campaigns entirely. In general, sending the same exact email to completely different lists is just not right to us.

          I have three lists: 1) All customers, 2) Customers who want company news, and 3) Maybe-not-customers who want MailChimp power tips. I have three separate lists and 3 separate email templates for those three audiences, and they have three different permission reminders. Some people indeed might’ve subscribed to multiple lists. They’ll get entirely different emails, but that’s what they were expecting. Within the first list, however (“all customers”), I might create different segments: a) Customers who use our API, b) International customers, c) Customers by specific industry, and so on.

          In order to send targeted emails to a segment as described above, MailChimp actually makes it unbelievably easy. Heck, even if you want to send to segments where you didn’t collect data (such as geo or social or engagement levels), we make it easy.

          Then you have power users who want to send to very complex segments of their lists (Users in San Francisco, in the tech industry, who’ve opened the last 2 campaigns, with engagement level above 3 stars and klout score greater than 60, etc). Doing so in MailChimp is possible, but can be slow. Things get hard for those power users. So we created Hairball for them.

          How are you currently separating your lists, and what types of campaigns do you send to them? There may be a very simple way to organize things. It sounds like Hairball is indeed overkill for what you might want to do, but sending to multiple groups is actually not too hard to get done in MailChimp.

          12.15.2011

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          • Lynne

            I just want to be able to select multiple lists for one campaign. Instead, I have do multiple campaigns because that is faster. I don’t see this as a power feature, but basic logistics. This is why MailChimp isn’t a good choice for some of my clients.

            12.17.2011

          • facebook_sazzlesticks

            Hi Ben, sorry if I’m repeating myself or if someone’s already answered this but could you let me know how to get ‘and/or’ list segmentation in Mailchimp? I work for a theatre with a very segmented audience (comedy/cabaret/theatre/writers’shows/kids etc) and we need to send multiple emails per week, segmenting with different priorities. We also have two opt-ins for our list – one coming through our website and one coming through our ticketing system. If someone could let me know how to do this (I assume I’m just missing something obvious) that would be very very helpful. Thanks!

            02.03.2012

  • Roman

    I agree with Lynne.

    I had to do multiple list becouse gruops didn’t work with my site.

    So if I wan’t to send Christmass letter to all I need to create five campains.

    Another problem is that some users are on multiple lists and they get more than one same letter.

    12.24.2011

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  • myra

    This is an awesome feature, so happy!

    01.03.2012

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  • Sam

    How can I create a segment:
    Users that did not recieve email the last 30 days?

    01.15.2012

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    • Raul

      Hey Sam. The built-in segmenting feature at step 1 of the campaign builder allows you to create segments based on your subscribers activity on the campaigns you have sent previously. However, you cannot create a segment based on subscriber activity based on a blanket “30 days” worth of activities. Long story short you can only create a “did not open” criteria based around the campaigns you have previously sent to that list

      01.16.2012

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    • Bob Thompson

      When lists are deleted in Mailchimp, Hairball doesn’t recognize this.

      “Fetch new lists” gets new lists, but there doesn’t seem to be any way to get rid of old lists!

      01.27.2012

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  • Cham

    How can you do A and (B or C or D or E).
    Eg. I might want to email all people added after January 1 AND are in (LA or New York or Texas)

    I can’t seem to do this with hairball?

    02.05.2012

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    • Eric

      Hey Cham,

      Following your example of after January 1 AND (LA or New York or Texas), you could accomplish that by doing the following…

      1. Create a segment in Hairball called “in LA, New York or Texas” using the “any” condition and picking the appropriate fields.
      2. Then create another segment with “all” and “Date Added is after January 1″ and then add another condition and select “Hairball Segment” -> “member is part of” -> “in LA, New York or Texas”

      Hope that helps.
      -Eric

      02.06.2012

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  • ffwd

    My e-commerce store is integrated with mailchimp, it sends info about order total, products purchased, etc..
    Data that you can use when using the segment list tool at mailchimp, actually is very cool.

    i was trying hairball and it seems to be a missing feature of segmenting by this e-commerce data, am i missing something? i hope the feature get included in the future.

    Thanks mailchimp team!

    02.09.2012

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    • Eric

      Sorry to hear you’re having problems. Did you start by installing Adobe AIR from here – http://get.adobe.com/air ? Once you have AIR installed, double-click the Hairball.air file to install it. If that doesn’t work, jump in with our support team and see if they can help ya out: http://kb.mailchimp.com/

      -Eric

      02.12.2012

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  • Wendy

    It would be awesome if there was a hairball integration with the Redtail CRM, the primary reason I love Redtail is the infinite segmentations using tags, interest, keywords, userfields, plus contact status and category. I would love it if there was a way to synch that data directly into this mail chimp hairball tool.

    03.15.2012

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  • Scott

    I use MailChimp for event registration reminder emails. I want to email all people on my list who are NOT currently registered, but I’d prefer to bulk-add a list of email addresses to exclude (versus adding individual rule lines for each person registered).

    Is this possible with Hairball? I don’t readily see a way to have a way to make a single line item rule match a set of data.

    Thanks!

    03.26.2012

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    • Bob

      For excluding emails I’ve found Static Segments work well. Just upload the emails to create a segment, then exclude that segment in the campaign setup.

      I’ve had problems with Hairball not calculating counts correctly and other annoyances. Until it’s a better designed and more bug-free product, I’m using Excel (e.g. Advanced Filters) to create the list of emails, then uploading into a Static Segment.

      03.26.2012

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      • Scott

        I wasn’t aware of this feature. Thanks for pointing it out, Bob. I was wondering if I could just do it in Excel and then import it.

        It’s still a bit tedious, but I’m glad I can make it work. I just spent 20 minutes adding 42 exclude rules in Hairball… not worth my time ongoingly. I’m glad to have a workable solution here, or this would have been a dealbreaker with MailChimp. I need to easily and quickly be able to exclude current registrants.

        03.26.2012

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      • Eric

        Whoo, thanks for helping out, Bob! I’m curious what issues you’re having with Hairball. First, have you updated to the latest version, 1.7.5 (click on “Preferences” and you should see the version number near the upper right)? 1.7.5 fixed several bugs from previous versions. If you haven’t, would you mind contacting support and letting us know what else is buggy? Support lives over here –> http://kb.mailchimp.com/ .

        Thanks!
        -Eric

        03.27.2012

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  • Physiobob

    Like the idea here but WHY WHY WHY is there no subscriber activity options in the filters when that is default behaviour on the main site?

    I’d love it if we can create a segement between lists. I have some people in more than one list and I have a promo that I want to send to both lists but i don’t want to resend to the people who got the original send. I know I could remove them from the second list but i don’t want to have to delete them, just stop them from getting that one email campaign. This would be awesome if mailchimp let us filter lists based on the user activity on another list

    03.31.2012

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  • Detmar

    It would be nice if you can include static segments as well. I can not select them now, which makes it difficult to exclude some list from the current segment.

    BUT, I really like the random percentage! I often use it.
    Improvement: Just select a random number, useful for sending out surveys.

    04.19.2012

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  • potier

    Hello

    I have one issue with Hairball, when I add a condition based on zip code for all zip code starting with”0″ the result is empty, it works with all other zip code.

    04.25.2012

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  • Eyal

    Question: Can you build a segment that is based on sophisticated criteria that will combine OR (ANY) and AND (ALL): Any of the following rules (All – rule1, rule2, rule3) OR (All – rule4, rule5, rule6). In the regular mailchimp I can’t combine AND and OR together and it drives me crazy (!).

    05.14.2012

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    • Eric

      Hey Eyal,
      You sure can. Hairball accomplishes this by allowing you to create a segment based on existing segments. To handle your example, you’d create three segments…
      1. “Segment1″ – All rule 1, rule2 and rule3
      2. Segment2″ – All rule 4, rule 5 and rule 6
      then when you’ve got those two segments saved, you’d create:
      3. “Segment3″ – Segment1 OR Segment2

      Now you can re-run Segment 3 and Hairball will know it has to re-run Segments 1 and 2 first, then run the query to generate Segment 3. If you go back and edit Segment 1 or 2, then re-run Segment 3, it will reflect the changes you made.

      05.15.2012

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      • Eyal

        Thanks. I’ll play around with it and see if it works.

        05.15.2012

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  • Max Paulousky

    Not sure whether such an improvement was requested or not, but it would be extremely useful for me to be able to specify comma-separated list of emails to include/exclude from segment. Internally, it can be converted to set of criteria if API does not allow specifying comma-separated lists

    05.25.2012

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  • Sean

    Norton Anti Virus won’t let me download this file, it reports it as containing “ws.reputation.1″

    06.07.2012

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  • Nathaniel Keifer

    Shoot, this just doesn’t cut it for us…Hairball would be fine if it created a dynamic segment that was essentially uploaded as a one-click segmenter (i.e. set all the segmentation and then name those settings something and allow use over time as new people are added).

    Are you going to allow more segmenting options in MailChimp or dynamic segments via Hairball anytime soon?

    06.07.2012

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  • Andrew

    Why no purchase history segmentation options for hairball? Any plans to add this in the near future?

    06.11.2012

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  • Lisa

    Awesome BUT I wish you had options like:
    Under “all”
    does not contain “xxx”
    and
    does contain “yyy” or “zzz”

    07.15.2012

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  • Lizzie

    Connected to my mailchimp, re-connected, re-sent segments, everything…nothing shows up in my mailchimp. What am I doing wrong?!

    09.07.2012

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    • John

      Sorry about that Lizzie, I bet you aren’t doing anything wrong at all. If you go into your account and click on “Lists” and then “View” next to the list you were creating segments on, you will see an option for “List Tools” under that drop down is “Static Segments” and that is one easy place where you can find those segments you’ve created. FWIW, you can also find your HairBall segments when creating a campaign at the segmenting step and they will be listed under the heading of “Static Segments.” The following link: http://eepurl.com/oVYnf shows a bit more on segmenting within MailChimp but also shows the area I just described where “Static Segments” are accessible in campaign creation.

      09.13.2012

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  • eric

    What does this offer that normal segmenting doesn’t? Having a hard time figuring that out. I tried it hoping that I could create slightly more complex queries (e.g. “(A or B) and C”), but it doesn’t do that — other than percentages, not sure what it does do that’s different.

    09.11.2012

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    • John

      Hi Eric, Hairball provides users with complex segmenting needs or those that want to create segments based on more than 5 criteria (the current limit within the MailChimp app) the ability to build those segments fast and locally on their own computers. Hairball isn’t quite setup to handle compound segmenting in the way you’re describing, but you could easily do this in two steps. Your first segment can be created for A or B using the “one of” function and once that segment is done you can use it in the creation of additional segments. Your second segment would include “match all” and then include “member is a part” of your first segment and finally “one of” C. Here is a more detailed explanation of Hairball and how it works: http://eepurl.com/gzdmb

      09.13.2012

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      • Gareth

        Quick query please. Conditions in a list that I have within Mailchimp (i.e Spent total, spent one order etc.) don’t appear in Hairball. Tried ‘Fetch new lists’, ‘Fetch new campaigns’ to no avail….any tips on that retrieving them? Thanks.

        09.27.2012

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        • John

          Hi Gareth, Hrmmmmm, that sounds a bit odd for sure. You should be able to segment on fields, groups, and even static segments within your list in the Hairball app. I can’t know for sure, but in your case you’re using the term “conditions” and then providing examples that relate to ecommerce. I’d recommend taking a look at the fields in your list, as shown here: http://eepurl.com/hcR4 and make sure you can see the fields there. It is possible the fields you are describing are stored as part of your ecommerce system or somewhere else. Also, in case you hadn’t spotted it, we have a nice short guide on how to use Hairball that might provide some additional tips: http://eepurl.com/oCEhX Lastly, our support chimps are available to help you out if you are still getting unexpected results. http://mailchimp.com/support

          10.04.2012

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          • Gareth

            Thanks John – to be precise, it’s a list propogated from customers who’ve bought from us using Paypal…..I can see all those conditions (Spent total, spent one order etc) in Mailchimp, but not in hairball. Confused as to why they wouldn’t transfer accross.

            10.08.2012

  • Bree

    Rookie question…I am on a Mac…tried to download hairball and I get this upon opening, “There is no application set to open the document “Hairball.air”. Search the App Store for an application that can open this document, or choose an existing application on your computer.” Do you know what I need to download in order to open hairball to finish install? Thank you!

    10.05.2012

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    • John

      Hi Bree, Sorry about that. You’ll also need to download and install Adobe AIR which can be found here: http://get.adobe.com/air/ (it’s free from Adobe by the way) Once you’ve installed AIR you should be able install and run Hairball without a problem.

      10.05.2012

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  • Bree

    Wonderful thank you for your quick response!

    10.08.2012

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  • Stephen Hopson

    One question – MailChimp doesn’t allow me to individually name more than one person from a list to create a segment. For example 2 people did not open a newsletter I sent after correcting their emails the first time around.

    It’s been a week since I sent that to them (i.e. they are listed in the MailChimp report as “unopened”). I want to send another copy to these people who did not open the newsletter but it doesn’t look like I can individually name them (there are only 2 people I’m dealing with)

    The segmentation at MailChimp only allows me to filter one name at a time. Does Hairball give me the opportunity to name more than one subscriber who didn’t open the duplicated newsletter?

    12.14.2012

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    • John

      Hi Stephen, Please tell me if I’m missing the mark here, but if I’m understanding correctly, you’d just like to send to the people who didn’t open the last campaign you sent? If so, you can easily set this up by selecting “Send to Segment” when creating the campaign. You’ll want to select “Subscriber Activity”, “Did Not Open”, and finally choose the name of the previous campaign that you that you are comparing against. This process would pull the two subscribers in question.

      12.20.2012

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  • Stephen Hopson

    PS I attempted to download Hairball.air to my Mac but when I went to open it, it said I didn’t have a program associated with it?? How do I open the Hairball file for the Mac?

    12.14.2012

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    • John

      Hi Stephen, Hairball is an Adobe Air app, so you need to download Adobe Air here: http://get.adobe.com/air/ Don’t worry, it’s free too! Once you’ve downloaded and installed Air, go ahead and give Hairball another spin and you should be just fine.

      12.14.2012

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  • Shrikant

    Great feature. It will help big businesses to mange email list asset very well.

    01.09.2013

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  • Hampton Stephens

    Why do you not allow segmentation criteria across lists? For example, a segment of list X based on IS or IS NOT a member of list Y? For example, we have a free list and a list that is only for paying subscribers. But some paying subscriber also are on the free list because they want to receive that email too. But sometimes we want to send different versions of the free list to those that are paying and those that aren’t.

    01.30.2013

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    • John

      Hi Hampton, Our groups work in a way that usually addresses a lot of the cross list segmentation. In your case, the “free” list combined with the “paid” list and wanting to segment between the two creates a little bit of an edge case where groups might not be a good fit. We’re always listening for what our customers need so I’ve gone ahead and passed this feedback on to our developers for their review. Thanks.

      02.01.2013

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      • Daniel

        I second the call for segmentation criteria across lists. In our case, List 1st is of free subscribers who’ve signed up directly; List 2 is a database of our paid members, but it has fields defined by our parent organization which sends us an updated spreadsheet monthly (which we then use to update List 2 on MailChimp). For reasons too stupid to get into here, it’s neither possible to change List 1 to have the same fields as List 2, nor vice versa — the lists have to be separate. And yes, there are members who are on both lists, and I often want to send something to *both* lists but not have people receive it twice.

        This is a pretty weird setup, so I don’t begrudge MailChimp that there’s not an easy fix for this right now. In absolutely everything else MailChimp is freakin’ AMAZING!

        04.11.2013

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    • John

      Hi Dmitry, I’m not sure I understand. If company activity is a custom field in your list, I believe it should still pull just fine. You could also reach out to our support chimps at http://mailchimp.com/chat and they could take a closer look.

      02.11.2013

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  • John

    Great tool, but what? no radius for US zips, like in the Web App? Is it possible to crack open the source and fix this?

    02.12.2013

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    • John

      Hi John, While zip-radius segmenting isn’t currently available in Hairball, there are a few things you could do to still achieve the same results. If you created a segment based on location within the app as you mentioned above, you could easily download the segment and reload it to MailChimp as a static segment. This short article will help you through the process: http://eepurl.com/hc0X Once the static segment is created, you can use it as part of your segmenting criteria within HairBall to reach your desired result. It’s worth noting that since it’s a static segment you’d need to update/recreate it each time to make sure you had the appropriate info.

      02.12.2013

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  • Suzanna

    Hi,

    This looks really great, but I am stuggling to get it to work at all!
    I have installed Hairball, and inserted my API key. It fetches the name of my list, but when I click ‘Fetch List’ it just hangs (the list is not large – only about 40 people) and I have to force a quite.

    I am using a Windows 7 Professional OS, and Hairball has free permission through the firewall… My internet connetion is good – I am on a university internet.

    Any ideas?

    Suzanna

    02.15.2013

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    • John

      Hi Suzanna, Sorry to hear you’re having some trouble. That sounds a bit odd so my first thought would be to uninstall Hairball and reinstall it. Also, you might want to check and make sure you have the current version of Adobe Air. If neither of those things clear it up for you, would you mind chatting up our support chimps at http://mailchimp.com/chat and they’ll be happy to do a little more specific troubleshooting for you.

      02.18.2013

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  • Damian Hutt

    Have I missed something??
    Hairball seems not to have any Logic in the selection, so it is either ANY or ALL for the criteria
    Also, where is the EXCLUDE functionality in this selection tool?

    02.21.2013

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    • John

      Hi Damian, There’s a few ways to get most of what you’re looking for depending of course on your needs. One thing if you haven’t already noticed is the option of “is” or “is not” on many of the selection criteria. Additionally, you can create segments in HairBall and then segment on THOSE segments allowing for a multi-pass option to reach your specific segment. If you’re still not sorting it out, our support chimps at: http://mailchimp.com/chat can take a closer look and help you find a solution.

      02.22.2013

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  • pooja

    I’m on a mac. I’ve downloaded the file. Unable to install. Says it cannot find an application to open the .air extension.

    02.22.2013

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    • John

      Sorry about that. You’ll also need to have the free “Air” software from Adobe installed on your computer to get this up and running. You can find it here: http://get.adobe.com/air/

      02.22.2013

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  • emaildiva

    Can you create an and/or scenario? Examples All subscribers that fall in xx segment but then drill down to ‘any’ from the following segments versus all?

    04.23.2013

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    • John

      Our devs are looking at creating some additional functionality that might be what you’re looking for, but I don’t have an ETA at the moment. Stay tuned to the blog as we’ll definitely make an announcement here of any significant changes. Thanks for the feedback.

      04.23.2013

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  • kevin

    Am I missing something obvious? I have downloaded and accessed Hairball, fetched campaign and when I click on New Segment if opens fine. However, there are actually LESS options than in Mailchimp. I must be missing something right!! I just can’t see it as I have followed the introduction to Hairball… help.

    Kevin

    06.10.2013

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    • John

      Hi Kevin, One of the biggest advantages of Hairball is that you can use more than 5 conditions to create your segments and you can even create segments based on those static segments for a more “multi-pass” approach. That being said, Hairball is a labs project so when we have our devs working on other big MailChimp things, this little guy takes a back seat.

      06.10.2013

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  • Gaurav Mishra (@gmishra)

    Can’t find the link to download Hairball. Link given in blog post is not working.

    Have you discontinued the product ?

    06.17.2013

    reply

    • John

      Whoops, sorry about that. Those links should all be functioning now. Thanks.

      06.17.2013

      reply

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