Mar 31, 2014
Introducing Merge by MailChimp
Update (2/23/16): Merge is no longer available. If you’re looking for a quick way to send simple emails to small lists, we’d suggest TinyLetter.
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If you’re a frequent Google Drive user, you may have noticed they recently launched add-ons for Google Docs and Sheets. You may have also noticed a familiar logo in the add-ons store.

Merge lets you send to a small list of emails directly from Google Docs and Sheets. It’s built and supported by MailChimp, but you don’t have to have a MailChimp account to use it. That’s right, we built a whole new app just for Google Docs and Sheets users.
Merge is a great option for book clubs, little leagues, neighborhood groups, PTAs—anyone who needs to send simple emails to lists of up to 1000 email addresses. In fact, this is exactly the type of Gmail user that Google was hoping to help when they approached us. They asked if we could build an add-on that would make it easy for a Google Drive user to create and send personalized email right from a Google Doc.
With Merge, you can pair your Google Doc to a Google Sheet that contains email addresses and data fields for the people you want to contact.

Then, you can merge in personalized content—first name, last name, address, etc.—from your Google Sheet.

When you hit send, Merge pulls in the data, and sends the email content to the addresses in your Google Sheet.

You can use the Reports tab to see how many emails were delivered and how many people have opened your email.

Merge was built for people and organizations currently using Gmail to send to lists of between 50 and 1000 people. It’s completely free to use, and there’s no account setup required.

There were a lot of reasons for us to not build Merge. It duplicates functionality that MailChimp offers, for starters. It’s free and will never be a source of revenue for us. We had to build an entirely new application from the ground up. We had to prepare our support team to support it. We needed a strategy to mitigate the potential for abuse from bad users.
Of course, some Merge users may decide they want to build fancier emails with our drag and drop editor, or get access to more robust segmenting or reporting features, then switch over to MailChimp. But the truth is that the majority of these potential users are not likely to become paid MailChimp users. So, why make Merge?
For one thing, we love the challenge of building something so ambitious—borderline crazy, even—in such a short period of time. But also, we just like creating things that are useful. We’ve put a lot of work into our abuse-prevention infrastructure over the years, so perhaps that allows us to take on a few more risks. Plus, all of our teams at MailChimp are able to move fast. Not just our development team, but our support team and our design team as well. So when a partner comes to us with a cool integration opportunity (and hopes we can move fast enough to meet their launch dates), we can make it happen.
Merge is available for individual Google Drive users right now and will be rolled out to Google Apps users starting this week.
Ava Wendt
This will be a very valuable application for lots of small businesses. Thanks for making it available!
03.31.2014
Carlos Climente
Good job guys! Mailchimp dominates bulk email as much as Google dominates search (well, sort of). Thanks for your work and thanks for letting us know.
04.01.2014
Dale Bennett
Amy – we are avid users of MailChimp, supporters of MailChimp (our app integrates with MailChimp directly so our customers can use MailChimp too), and also big users Google Drive, this is an awesome gift! Merging small targeted lists was the weakest aspect of Google Docs so it makes sense they would collaborate with the pros at MailChimp to solve it. Another reason to do this is because it just adds to the legend that is “the Chimp”. Nice job.
04.01.2014
Chris Strom
Cool app. Quick question: do emails sent through merge get sent directly through Gmail, or do they get sent through MailChimp’s servers? ie. will emails sent through Merge show up in Gmail’s inbox tab or will they get sent to Gmail’s Promotions tab?
04.01.2014
Amy MailChimp
Hi Chris!
Emails sent through Merge do not send through Gmail. They are sent using our transactional sending engine, Mandrill, and will land in the Updates tab. If the subscriber doesn’t have the Updates tab activated, the emails land in the Primary tab.
04.01.2014
Chris Strom
Okay. Showing up in the Updates tab is still better than showing up in the Promotions tab!
04.01.2014
Ros
Awesome addition! Thank you!
04.02.2014
Larry Kiesgen
How do I get this site on my IPad?
04.02.2014
Amy MailChimp
Hi Larry – It does not look like add-ons for Google Drive are accessibly via the Google Drive iPad app.
04.02.2014
Eric Clark
You guys rock! I appreciate so much this functionality, but I like it even more for the approach and reasoning you explained in this post. It’s things like this that make me happy to pay for MailChimp. You guys are doing great, meaningful things that impact people.
04.02.2014
Mohan
When I merge it ignores the duplicate email ids. If I need to send multiple documents with different information to the same email id, is there a way to do it? Is there a way to tell Mail Merge not to ignore duplicates.
04.04.2014
Amy MailChimp
Hi Mohan – Unfortunately there is not a way to tell Merge to ignore duplicates. You could include the additional information for each email address in additional data fields and then merge in those additional data fields as well. In that case you’d be sending all the information in one email. Another option would be to complete separate sends. Hope that helps!
04.07.2014
Hashim Warren
Are campaigns through Merge sent using a “sandboxed” server with less deliverability than Mailchimp proper.
Thanks for building this tool!
04.04.2014
Amy MailChimp
Hi Hashim – Campaigns sent through Merge are actually sent through Mandrill using a subaccount for each individual Merge account. No “sandboxed” servers with less deliverabliity here!
04.07.2014
adam mclane
This is truly awesome, gang. I’m a Google Apps for Biz user and I’ve been using some hacks to send out personalized emails… it’s an important part of my business. But it’s been sketchy, at best to do so. Really looking forward to this tool!
04.05.2014
Rosie
Thank you, Mailchimp! This is exactly what I’ve needed for a long long time! Will save many an hour slogging away at the computer for my music business.
04.07.2014
Colin
How would the unsubscribe work using this feature. Would it remove the row from the spreadsheet?
04.07.2014
Amy MailChimp
Hi Colin – Unsubscribes do not remove the contact from the Merge user’s spreadsheet. Instead, Merge remembers that the person unsubscribed and simply does not email them the next time you send to the email addresses in your spreadsheet.
04.07.2014
Prabhat
Thanks mail chimp. The merge through google spreadsheet is amazing. Will sign up for mail chimp and use it more frequently.
GREAT!
Prabhat
04.08.2014
Kath
This is great. I can see me using it for our ‘Change of Address’ emails and our Christmas Greetings emails to our friends and family worldwide.
I think as a small business I would still prefer to use the full Mailchimp design and unsubscribe features, but I’ve always thought that Gmail was lacking in the merge department.
Great job! :)
04.11.2014
Kate
Hi Amy
Are you able to link this feature to a particular list within Mailchimp? e.g. send a Newsletter to your Mailchimp list using the Merge feature in Gmail?
04.15.2014
John MailChimp
Hi Kate, There’s not a direct way to link the two apps together as they’re really designed for two different types of users. MailChimp users will of course need or want to take advantage of all the bells and whistles. A Merge user however, might just have a small list for the Home Owner’s Association or local civic group and they just need to get the message out — no frills required. Technically speaking, if your MailChimp list was small enough you could export it and use that list for Merge, but without a specific reason it may end up causing a bit of confusion for those on your list.
04.15.2014
Andrea
I still don’t understand why a small business or organization would use Merge over Mail Chimp.
04.19.2014
John MailChimp
Hi Andrea, It’s not so much a one over the other scenario, but just a different option depending on your specific needs. In the case of MailChimp, there’s a lot of bells and whistles available for design, access control, reporting and the list goes on. There are however some people that just need to get their message out to a small group of people and they also have very limited needs. That’s where Merge can come in handy. With Merge you’ll be able to email that small group, whether it be the local quilting co-op, or the Boy Scout Pack. It quick, simple, and even has a little bit of reporting too.
05.02.2014
bryan
I love it…thanks for creating something so useful! Can’t wait to try it.
04.21.2014
Dave Orecchio
Great job with this add-on. This capability will add a lot to google drive users.
04.21.2014
Andrew Bermudez @ www.GetDigsy.com
This is awesome!
We’ve been waiting for a simple tool like this for a long time. We’re a premium MailChimp user, but Merge definitely has its place in our one-off mass communications with our customers and partners.
Thanks for bringing this to market.
05.17.2014