Jul 28, 2011

Meet MailChimp Embed – Simple and Controlled Delivery for Applications

Every once in a while we get an application that wants to do a deep integration with MailChimp. They’ve read our guides and decided that deliverability is way more than what they’ve signed up for. They just want to use MailChimp to send email on behalf of their users. Their needs are simple – just give MailChimp a list of email addresses, give it some content to send, and track stats – that must be what MailChimp’s built for, right?

Well, no. See, MailChimp is, first and foremost, an application for our users and not an API for developers. You can’t just take an application, sprinkle a little MailChimp on top, and be sending emails just like that. Over the years, MailChimp has added a bunch of features for our users beyond just the email delivery part, and wrapping your head around all of that can be too much (have you seen the spec for the templating language?), especially when you’re a busy developer looking for a quick way to knock out a feature. Tack on to that the fact that you can’t create users or lists through the MailChimp API, and it’s enough to get most integrators to go from “Yeah, let’s do this!” to “Ummmm, hmmmmm – we’ll get back to you” in no time flat. Having this happen to us more than once led us to try to search for a solution, and I’d like to share what we’ve come up with.

Meet MailChimp Embed

MailChimp Embed is a simple data model and API expressly designed to give applications direct access to our powerful delivery architecture and tracking, without any of the extra limits and complications of using the standard MailChimp API alone. You create your own users and you decide what their limits should be. Use our simple API to add contacts and send messages, then track stats. You bill your users directly or offer it for free, and settle up with us in bulk later. There are no features that aren’t in the API, and there are no fields that you can’t control. It’s the simplest possible way to add bulk email features to an existing application.

As part of developing MailChimp, we’ve built what we think is a world-class infrastructure for sending permission-based bulk emails, and we’d like to share it with more people. MailChimp isn’t going to be a fit for everybody, but email is embedded in almost every application at one layer or another, and the spam problem means that delivery is getting more complicated every year. MailChimp Embed gives us another way to offer the exact same delivery features we offer to all MailChimp users to a new audience, with a more curated, less one-size-fits-all approach.

This is not white label MailChimp

Ben may smack me down for the presumption, but I think I can safely say that no MailChimp application for bulk email will ever have a full white label option. For abuse protection purposes alone, we will have to take action against accounts, and we cannot do it through a proxy. If one of your users does something nasty, they will be getting an email from MailChimp, and we’ll be up front about that. Having said that, MailChimp Embed will not force an interface (it doesn’t have one), so you can fully customize all other regular interactions with your users. We won’t force our language or our logo anywhere. They’ll only notice that MailChimp is doing the delivery if they look up the domains.

So I hear you say “That’s awesome! I have this idea for a CRM/social network for post-symphony-industrial-gunkcore fans and…” Okay, here’s the bad news. Right now, we’re only looking for applications that already have at least a few thousand users that might be interested in this sort of feature. The amount of control you’ll have over your accounts and their billing is pretty huge, so the vetting process will be long and vigorous.

Alright. You’ve heard the pitch. Think this might be for you? Sign up for more info

Posted By

Chad

Discussion

  • Jonathan Weinberg

    So is it an accurate statement that this new service is comparable to Amazon’s new Simple Email Service or SendGrid?

    If yes, how does MailChimp’s new service differentiate itself from the others?

    Thanks!

    07.29.2011

    reply

    • Chad

      MailChimp Embed provides simpler, more direct access to our delivery infrastructure through an API, but the focus is still mostly for bulk email to predefined lists, and particularly for larger partners with their own users.

      07.29.2011

      reply

  • Jonathan Weinberg

    There are no screenshots. It’s a “data model and an API”. That’s the point. You can build your own UI on top of it without having to go through MC’s UI.

    07.30.2011

    reply

  • 8 Gram Gorilla

    I’m a tad confused – is it essentially a more in-depth version of the current API that lets you access all of the functionality required to effectively manage campaigns without having to log into MailChimp at all? I suppose I can see the need for it as the big problem with trying to sell third party systems, like MailChimp, to clients is that they have to log into multiple systems (i.e. their web site CMS AND MailChimp) and being able to incorporate them all into one would be very nice.

    07.31.2011

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  • Brett Houle

    Welcome to the future of email service providers. Very, very smart and what actually led to the sale of our company http://www.sendlabs.com last year. Our vision was “disconnecting” our sending infrastructure from the app, allowing other app developers to connect and innovate around email via API (we had a dream). In this case however, the mailchimp offering/deliver reputation and maturity is so wonderful, that app developers everywhere who need to send email can now envision their own UI/UX and let ‘chimp handle everything else. I know ‘chimp was never into white labeling that much – and if you think about it – this is a better approach for those wanting that as well. If someone wants an app they can call their own – here you go. Get a developer, apply and start diving into their API. Kudos ‘chimps.

    08.02.2011

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