How to Set Up An Automated Mailchimp Email Campaign Using Make.com: Complete Guide For Canadian Small Businesses

Launching a successful email campaign often requires consistency, and with sending newsletters out weekly, you'll lose valuable time. Luckily, you can automate your email efforts with Make.com (formerly Integromat), allowing you to reclaim this time to focus on your other Canadian business operations.

This ultimate step-by-step guide will show you how to set up a scenario in Make.com to automatically send your Mailchimp email newsletter weekly - Canadian pricing and implementation tips included.

Tools You'll Need to Automate Your Email Effort

Make.com

Make.com will be the automator championing all your marketing software under one roof to facilitate an easier workflow for your email campaign. Pricing for a Canadian market includes:

Free Plan: $0 (1,000 operations per month), Core Plan: ~$12 CAD/month, Pro Plan: ~$21 CAD/month, Teams Plan: ~$38+/month.

Make.com also offers its own scenario builder, unlimited users on paid plans, and API, meaning you won't have to worry about fiddling with any API integrations as Make.com will have built-in connectors for most popular software.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp will be the software sending your emails as campaigns with guaranteed delivery and analytics capabilities. Pricing for Canadians includes:

Mailchimp (newsletter service):

Free plan: $0 (up to 500 contacts, 1,000 sends per month)

Essentials Plan: ~$17 CAD/month

Standard Plan: ~$26 CAD/month

An API key is needed to connect Mailchimp with Make.com (accessible under Account > Extras > API Keys within the Mailchimp dashboard).

Content Storage: either Airtable or Google Sheets.

Wherever you're going to house your newsletter content needs to be accessible by the automation. Both Airtable and Google Sheets are great places to house subject lines, images, links, and when you want to send them out.

Airtable Free: $0 (1,200 records)

Google Sheets: Free with any Google account

Airtable requires a personal access token with the base/table IDs to connect for the API, while Google Sheets integration occurs directly through Make without a personal API key being necessary.

Make Scheduler Module: The scheduler allows you to tell your scenario to happen at certain intervals and is included with all tiers of Make.com pricing. It will be the heartbeat of your automation as it tells everything when to run every Monday morning.

Optional: OpenAI

For businesses looking to add an AI-content generating element to the newsletter, OpenAI's API can generate subject lines or even summaries for the newsletter. Canadian pricing runs ~$7-$15/month depending on usage.

Building this flow for Monday morning automation.

Picture this running every Monday morning at 10 a.m., gathering what this week's newsletter is eating from Airtable and sending it from Mailchimp without you ever having to lift a finger.

Step 1: The Trigger

Your first module will be the Make Scheduler. Set it for Monday at 10 a.m. EST (or whatever timezone you prefer) so you fall into a consistent routine that positions readers accustomed to your updates know when they will receive it and always have your content fresh on their minds.

Step 2: The Newsletter Content

The Airtable "Search Records" module will look for any rows where the Send Date equals the Current Date. This module pulls from Airtable the subject line, body and image URLs for required fields as it allows you to schedule many newsletters in advance without worrying that they'll randomly be sent out at bad times.

Step 3: The Newsletter Formatting

This step isn't necessary but is helpful. Use the HTML or Markdown Formatter in Make to clean up formatting and add simple frames. This way all your newsletters will have the same identity and tone across all newsletters sent at different times.

Step 4: The Mailchimp Campaign

The Mailchimp "Create Campaign" module will create your newsletter. Required fields must be filled but most are optional, including List ID (you must create an audience in Mailchimp prior), subject line, from email and name, and content (html or plain text).

Step 5: The Send of the Campaign

The Mailchimp "Send Campaign" module allows you to send the newsletter directly after it's created. This enables proper timely and consistency of your updates for easy access.

Where to get APIs

Mailchimp

While in your Mailchimp account, go to Account > Extras > API Keys. Generate a new key and copy/paste it into Make's Mailchimp connector. This key is Make's authorization to your account to send/campaign on your behalf.

Airtable

To get to Airtable, log into your account and go to airtable.com/account. You need to create a personal access token. In addition, you need your Base ID and Table Name which you can get via your Airtable workspaces. Once you have the approvals, add them into Make's Airtable module.

OpenAI

Are you using AI technology for content creation? If so, go to platform.openai.com/account/api-keys to generate your key. Paste this in Make's OpenAI module.

Even more automation possibilities

Slack Notification

Add a Slack notification module to let the team know the email was sent/delivered successfully. Understandably, the team needs to know their hard work is appreciated (transparency never hurts). On the other hand, if you trust your colleagues' work, they might not be as vulnerable to explain what problems they had on their end when creating their part of the newsletter, so this transmission can avoid any issues down the line for people trying to cooperate on the next project.

Google Sheets Documentation

You'll never lose an email again! Email your Gmail template to a Google Sheets Document that timestamped what you sent and what the subject line was and how successful it was. Use this test data down the line when trying to figure out best practices for your newsletter.

OpenAI Content Generation

Create newsletters recaps for you from your Make emails with automations or generate an effective subject line with the opportunities of Make. Nothing saves more time than creating the newsletter while you have the ideas!

Cost of Implementation for Canadian Companies:

Here is a realistic estimated monthly cost in CAD:

Make.com Core Plan: $12

Mailchimp Essentials: $17

Airtable Free Plan: $0

OpenAI (optional): $7-15

Total CAD Monthly Spend: $29-44

These prices may shift by a cent here or there based on exchange and CAD vs. USD pricing for specific plans. But this estimate puts someone in a good position to budget.

Ways to Implement

Test Your Automation

Before launching an automation to the public, create a Mailchimp test audience of just you and your immediate family and friends supporters . Send a few test campaigns to yourself to see what it looks like and if it renders correctly, if links work, etc. There's nothing worse than sending something to the people who have supported you with dead links or unrendered (and therefore wonky) formatting. At best, they'll question why you're such a mess; at worst, your brand will suffer.

Log Your Wins

Include a "log success" module when the email is sent to know whether or not the email has been sent successfully. When discussing the future in time, knowing that something has gone wrong will help you adjust mid-campaign and right after the main one is finalized.

Keep It Simple

While this guide discusses how to integrate automation into everything, that might not be the best course of action initially. Keep it simple, then as the weeks go by and features receive AI-generated personalization, add them in slowly. Maybe you'll learn more about your audience over time and want to segment by user interest or engagement level.

Benefits of Long Term Adoption of Such Automation

For a Canadian small business to adopt such an automated email campaign would be extremely beneficial. You will save hours every week that would otherwise be spent on manual processes and still get the word out with consistent communication. This will also allow for scaling as your list grows; it may take longer to create more opportunities for sales, but the time spent on sending out reminders will remain the same. Plus, the analytics will show you what your top content is and when you get the most responses, which helps significantly in pivoting your marketing strategy and improving future campaigns.

How to do this NOW

Creating this Mailchimp Automated Campaign via Make.com is a surefire way to help your marketing efforts today and going forward. Although it may take some technical setup to start it off, the time saved down the line and the consistency gained will help any growing Canadian business.

Are you ready to take dreaded email marketing and finally make it work for you, automatically? Everything here empowers you with the tools and know-how needed to establish a professional email automation process that works for you every week.

Also, reach out for a free automation audit to discover other time and cost savings you might be missing from just this one opportunity in Make.com. A little investment in marketing automation now will pay dividends for your future self.