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Moving Your Subscriber List From FeedBurner to MailChimp

Posted by Julie on


There’s been a lot of buzz lately around the interwebs, the blogosphere, and even the MailChimp office about the state of FeedBurner. But let’s back up. In June of last year, it was quietly announced that the FeedBurner API would be deprecated with no scheduled date for shut down. The date was later updated to October of this year. And then in July, there were a couple mysterious tweets, which led to a lot of speculation. And blog posts. And then obviously more tweets.

But what does this mean? Is Google, gulp, shuttering FeedBurner as we know it?

To be honest, I don’t know. I’ve scoured the web, done my research, and I’m scratching my head with the rest of you. The only confirmed fact is that (NERD ALERT) the API is shutting down in a couple weeks. For you non-nerds and semi-nerds, nothing else is official. In fact, everything else is speculation, so I won’t try to guess what’s going to happen. Plus, it wouldn’t be very nice of Google to shut down a product that so many people, blogs, and businesses rely on without notice, would it? But one thing’s certain: it’s never a bad idea to know your options and be prepared. You know, just in case.

Ultimately, MailChimp isn’t synonymous with RSS, and it won’t replace FeedBurner. But although you can’t use MailChimp to generate an RSS feed like you can with FeedBurner, we do offer a very robust alternative for delivering your RSS-driven emails. Just like FeedBurner, we offer a Forever Free plan and you can link your Google Analytics to your MailChimp account.

Unlike FeedBurner, we offer live human chat and email support, as well as educational materials to help answer any questions you may have. We also have incredibly detailed tracking and reports, where we show you who opened, who clicked, what country your readers are from, and more.

Opens, unopens, and clicks for each campaign

 

Opens and clicks throughout the day

 

Opens by location

Plus, you’ve probably noticed that more and more of your subscribers are reading from their smartphones. With MailChimp, you can set up beautiful email templates for your blog that have built-in responsiveness, so they’re mobile-friendly without any extra work.

If you’ve been thinking about switching your blog’s RSS-driven emails over to MailChimp, now may be the time to do it. It really is as easy as exporting your FeedBurner list as a CSV–which, by the way, you should already be doing for backup. Here, I’ll show you how.

First, log into your FeedBurner account and select the feed you want to work with.

Once you choose, the Feed Stat Dashboard page will load, which will display a graph, some subscriber stats, and a link that says See more about your subscribers. Click that link.

Next, scroll down to the Email Subscription Services section. Click FeedBurner Email Subscriptions, and then Manage Your Email Subscriber List.

Finally, you’ll see an Export option. Click CSV to download the file.

Ta-daaaa! You now have a backup CSV of your newsletter subscribers to keep for your records. To import your list into your MailChimp account, you’ll first need to sign up. Once you’ve set up your account, log in and click Lists at the top of the page.

In this example, I’m going to show you how to set up a new list, but you do have the option to upload your CSV to an existing list. Click Create List and confirm.

Next, set up your new list. Once you’ve done that, click Save.

Now you’re ready to import your CSV. New to v7.6 (and beyond), click the Gear icon, and then click Import under the Subscribers heading.

You’ll see a few options of where to import your list from. Click Upload from File.

That’ll take you to an Import page. Browse for your CSV file, and then click Import List.

That’s it. Your list has been imported. You’ll probably want to organize and add fields for future groups and segmentation. And you’ll probably also want to build a new form to collect new subscribers from your blog. Actually, you should probably just read this guide about how to manage your lists. And then sign up to get the MailChimp Blog’s RSS-to-email for even more tips and updates.

But I know what you’ll really want to do is breathe a sigh of relief. It feels good to be prepared!

Other features and integrations you may be interested in: