Mailchimp Integration
INTEGRATIONS · EXPERTINI ATS

Mailchimp Integration

Add hired candidates and client contacts to your Mailchimp audience — one connection, one click per contact, or automatically on every accepted offer.

2 min read · Updated July 2026 · Expertini Editorial

Recruiting produces some of the most valuable contact lists a company owns — placed candidates who love you, client contacts who pay you — and most teams let that value evaporate in the ATS. The Mailchimp integration turns it into an audience: connect your own Mailchimp account once, and any hired candidate or client contact can be added to your audience as a subscriber, ready for the newsletters, nurture sequences, and campaigns you already run in Mailchimp.

It's a real sign-in connection — you approve it on Mailchimp's own site, tokens are stored encrypted, and you can disconnect any time from the Connectors page. Mailchimp is a trademark of The Rocket Science Group; Expertini ATS is an independent product using Mailchimp's official API with your account, and only ever adds the specific people you choose (or the rule you explicitly enable) — never a bulk copy of your database.

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01Connecting and choosing who goes in

An owner or admin clicks Connect on the Mailchimp card in Connectors, approves on Mailchimp's site, and the connection is live against your account's audience. From the Screening & HRIS page, pick a person with the type-ahead and push — they're added to your primary Mailchimp audience as a subscriber with name and email. Prefer automation? Tick Mailchimp under "Auto-push on hire" and every accepted offer adds the new hire automatically; every addition, manual or automatic, is logged on the app's activity page.

02Consent, done properly

Email marketing law (GDPR, CAN-SPAM, and friends) cares about consent, and the integration is built so you stay in control of it: nothing is synced in bulk, additions are deliberate per-person or per-rule actions, and Mailchimp's own audience tools — double opt-in, unsubscribe handling, preference centres — govern what happens after a contact lands. Use it for people who have a genuine relationship with your brand: placed candidates, active clients, opted-in talent communities.

03What teams build with it

Agencies send placed-candidate check-in sequences and client newsletters that quietly generate repeat business. In-house teams run alumni and talent-community campaigns from the same audience. Because the ATS is the system that knows the moment someone was hired, the hand-off to Mailchimp happens at exactly the moment the relationship is warmest.

Engineering notes

Platform architecture & operations

A1Connection architecture

The connection uses OAuth 2.0 against the vendor's own consent screen. The authorisation request names the minimum scopes the features need — the exact scope list is shown in the security-flow panel below, pulled from the same provider registry the application uses. The code-for-token exchange happens entirely server-side (client credentials in the token request body, per the vendor's token endpoint contract); tokens are stored encrypted at rest and are never rendered back to any screen — connection pages show presence, not values.

Token lifecycle is handled at a single chokepoint: expiry triggers an automatic refresh, rotated refresh tokens are persisted, and a refresh that the vendor rejects surfaces as a visible reconnect prompt — never as silently broken features. Revocation works from either side: disconnect here, or revoke in the vendor's own security settings.

A2Write semantics and data flow

Every data movement is an explicit action with a logged result. Writes happen on your click — or automatically only where you enabled a rule (auto-push on hire is off by default, per-provider). Reads — imports of people, accounts, or files — run when you press Import, deduplicate against what you already have (clients by name, people by email), skip rather than overwrite, and report created-versus-skipped honestly, which is why re-running any import is safe by design.

Each action writes a row to the app-activity journal (ats_app_activity): what ran, when, for which record, and the outcome — including the vendor's own error text verbatim when something fails. Usage reporting inside the ATS aggregates that same journal, so integration reporting and integration reality cannot diverge.

Anything that leaves the request path — notification fan-out, webhook delivery, activity journalling, mail — runs in fire-and-forget background threads. A slow external endpoint can never make the interface hang, and a failed side effect is logged rather than silently retried into inconsistency.

A3Operational considerations

Connections are organisation-level and gated to owner and admin roles; recruiters use the features a connection powers but cannot connect, disconnect, or reconfigure. Disconnecting removes stored credentials immediately and stops the dependent features visibly, not silently. Data already imported stays yours and editable.

Imported people arrive marked as imported with conservative privacy defaults — no consent is assumed for anyone who never filled in your application form, and retention defaults apply. Everything written is yours to take: CSV exports and the Data Export app cover the same stores the product itself reads. The exit is as open as the entrance — by design, not concession.

A4Placement in the integration topology

This integration is live in the registry today. One connection per provider unlocks every feature it powers, and the topology grid below shows the neighbouring connectors in the same capability area — statuses come from the same registry that drives the in-app hub, so this page can never claim more than the product does. For anything the catalogue does not cover, Webhooks and Zapier are the generic, documented escape hatch.

Dependency map

Connection typeOAuth 2.0 (vendor consent screen)
Callback path/apps/oauth/callback/mailchimp/
Token exchangeserver-side; credentials in body
Secrets at restencrypted; UI shows presence flags, never values
Action journalats_app_activity — one row per action, vendor errors verbatim
Auto-push rulesoff by default, per-provider, every run logged
Registry statuslive

Interface blueprint

Structural schematic of the surface — panels, hierarchy, and interaction affordances. A contract, not a screenshot.
Connection card
● connected — presence flag
scopes: minimum required disconnect
Actions
push — explicit clickimport — deduplicated
Activity journal
Fig. 1 — Mailchimp Integration: structural interface schematic. Panels and states are the contract; data shown is placeholder.

Interaction flow — states, validations, feedback

Every state below is enforced server-side; the interface reports it, it doesn't decide it.
Connectowner/admin clicks Connect on the Connectors page
Vendor consentthe vendor's own screen lists the exact scopes
Token exchangeserver-side callback; secrets never touch the browser
Connectedencrypted store; card flips with presence flag
Explicit actionspush / import / schedule — each one journalled
Consent denied → the vendor's error code surfaces in a toast, namedPlatform keys missing → honest setup pointer, not a silent bounceToken expired → automatic refresh at the chokepointRefresh rejected → visible reconnect prompt, features never break silentlyPlan below minimum → lock card names the exact plan
Fig. 2 — interaction flow: navy = states, gold = server-enforced gates, green = confirmed outcomes; tags list the edge cases and their feedback.

OAuth 2.0 security flow — Mailchimp

1
Authorisation requestRedirect to the vendor's own consent screen, naming exactly the scopes below — never more.
2
Identity challenge & consentYou authenticate with the vendor, on the vendor's domain. Credentials never touch Expertini.
3
Server-side token exchangeThe callback at /apps/oauth/callback/mailchimp/ exchanges the code using client credentials in request body — entirely server-side.
4
Managed session stateTokens encrypted at rest; automatic refresh at a single chokepoint; presence-flag display; revoke from either side.

Neighbouring connectors — Email & Sending

Custom SMTPlive Mailchimpthis page SendGridlive
Statuses come from the live registry — browse the full catalogue →

Frequently asked questions

Which audience do contacts go to?
Your Mailchimp account's primary (first) audience. Segment and tag inside Mailchimp as you normally would.
Does the integration bulk-sync my whole candidate database?
No — deliberately. People are added one at a time from the picker, or by the explicit auto-push-on-hire rule you enable. Consent management stays yours.
What data is sent?
Name and email address — enough for a subscriber record. Everything else stays in the ATS.
Is Expertini affiliated with Mailchimp?
No. Mailchimp is a trademark of The Rocket Science Group. The integration uses the official OAuth API with your own account and can be disconnected any time.
Cost?
Included in the plan; your Mailchimp subscription is separate and your own.

At a glance

  • Hired candidates and client contacts into your Mailchimp audience
  • One-click per person, or automatic on every accepted offer
  • Real OAuth connection to your own account, tokens encrypted
  • No bulk sync — consent-conscious by design
  • Every addition logged on the app's activity page
  • Works with your existing Mailchimp segments and automations

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