Mailchimp Integration: Events and Merge Fields Reference

The Mailchimp integration keeps your audience contacts in sync with loyalty data through merge fields (always-on profile data) and member events (fired when specific actions happen). Both can be used in Mailchimp Customer Journeys to trigger targeted email automations.

Merge Fields

Merge fields are updated on the Mailchimp contact record automatically whenever the corresponding data changes. You need to create these fields in your Mailchimp audience before they can store data. Go to Audience → Manage Audience → Settings → Audience fields and *|MERGE|* tags to add them.

Merge Tag	Type	When Updated	Description
LOYALTYPTS	Number	Every points transaction	The customer’s current points balance.
PTSUPDATE	Text	Every points transaction	Timestamp of the most recent points change (MySQL datetime format).
BIRTHDAY	Birthday	When customer saves their birthday	The customer’s birthday in MM/DD format. Required for Mailchimp’s native birthday automation trigger.

Events

Member events are sent to the Mailchimp Events API and can be used as triggers in Customer Journeys. Event names use lowercase letters and underscores as required by Mailchimp.

points_updated

Fired on every points transaction: earning, spending, expiring, and manual adjustments.

Property	Type	Description
delta	Integer	Points change. Positive for earned, negative for spent or expired.
balance_after	Integer	Points balance after the transaction.
reason_title	String	Human-readable reason. See the full list below.
source	String	Machine-readable source type.
awarded_at	ISO 8601 datetime	Timestamp of the transaction.

All possible reason_title values:

reason_title	When it fires
Order purchase	Customer earns points for placing an order.
Order discount	Customer redeems points for a discount on an order.
Order cancelled	Points are reversed when an order is cancelled.
Order refunded	Points are reversed when an order is refunded.
Product review	Customer earns points for leaving a product review.
Friend referral	Customer earns points for referring a friend.
Manual adjustment	An admin manually adds or removes points.
Registration bonus	Customer earns points for creating an account.
Birthday bonus	Points awarded on the customer’s birthday.
Imported points	Points added via CSV import.
Points expired	Points removed due to inactivity expiry.

rank_achieved

Fired when a customer reaches a new rank tier.

Property	Type	Description
rank_id	Integer	ID of the new rank.
rank_name	String	Display name of the new rank.
rank_milestone	Integer	Points threshold for the new rank.
previous_rank_name	String	Name of the previous rank. Not present on first rank.
achieved_at	ISO 8601 datetime	Timestamp when the rank was achieved.
coupon_code	String	The coupon code issued as a rank reward. Only present when a coupon is configured for this rank.
coupon_codes	Array	All coupon codes issued when the rank has multiple rewards configured. Only present when more than one coupon is issued.

Using Events in Customer Journeys

In Mailchimp, go to Automations → Customer Journeys and create a new journey. For the starting point, choose API as the trigger type and select the event name (points_updated or rank_achieved). You can then add conditional splits based on event properties to route customers into different email branches. For example, split on reason_title = Birthday bonus to send a birthday congratulations, or reason_title = Friend referral for a referral reward email.