How the VoqadoWiFi Mailchimp Sync Works
The Mailchimp sync is part of the Growth plan ($49 a month) and Enterprise. When a guest signs in through your portal, VoqadoWiFi adds or updates that guest in one Mailchimp audience in the background. The guest gets online whether or not Mailchimp answers, so a slow or failed sync never holds up the connection.
To connect it, open Settings > Integrations > Mailchimp. There are three fields:
- Mailchimp API Key. In Mailchimp, click your profile icon, choose Profile, then Extras > API keys > Create A Key (Mailchimp, About API keys). Name it "VoqadoWiFi" so you can revoke it later without breaking anything else.
- Server Prefix. The short code at the start of the address bar when you are logged in to Mailchimp, for example us6 in us6.admin.mailchimp.com. VoqadoWiFi fills in us1 until you change it.
- List / Audience ID. In Mailchimp: Audience, pick the audience, then More options > Audience settings, and copy the Audience ID (Mailchimp, Find your audience ID).
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Save, then press Test connection. When the key works it shows your Mailchimp account name.
Two things to diary. Mailchimp says any new API key generated from 22 June 2026 expires one year after it was created (Mailchimp, About API keys). And Mailchimp's developer docs say a key stays valid until it is deleted or until the user who created it is removed from the account (Mailchimp developer docs, API keys). If the person who made the key leaves and you remove their login, the sync stops. Create the key from a login that will stay, and put a renewal reminder in the calendar.
Check your consent setup before you connect
The sync sends guests to Mailchimp as subscribed contacts, and only guests who ticked the separate marketing box on the login page are synced. Contacts you added to the audience in other ways are a separate question, so do not assume everyone in it agreed to marketing.
Our advice: use separate, unticked marketing consent. VoqadoWiFi's explicit consent mode does this, and each choice is recorded with the wording the guest saw. The Auto Marketing Opt-In toggle in the portal builder, which would opt every guest in without showing a checkbox, is off for every venue.
Then, before any campaign, only email contacts with marketing consent on record. CRM / Guests > Export CSV gives you either the consented guests only, or every guest with the consent columns filled in. Compare that file with your Mailchimp audience and send to the consented contacts.
What Fields Are Synced
| Guest detail | Mailchimp field | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Email address | The contact key. One guest who visits two of your venues is one contact. | |
| First name | FNAME | Used for personalisation |
| Last name | LNAME | Only if your form asks for it |
| Phone | PHONE | Only if your form asks for it |
Every synced guest also gets two tags: wifi-guest, and location: followed by the venue name, for example "location:Harbour Street".
That is the whole list. The sync does not send visit dates, visit counts, days since the last visit, birthdays or consent wording. Those stay in VoqadoWiFi, where the dashboard groups guests into Regulars, Returning, New, At risk and Lost from their visit history.
Mailchimp creates the FNAME, LNAME, ADDRESS and PHONE fields when an audience is made, but they can be edited (Mailchimp developer docs, Merge fields). If someone renamed or deleted them in your audience, put them back with the same tags before you connect.
How existing contacts are treated: VoqadoWiFi only sets a status when the email is new to the audience. Mailchimp's API applies that status "only if the email address is not already present on the list" (Mailchimp API, Add or update list member). So a contact who unsubscribed in Mailchimp stays unsubscribed when they sign in to your WiFi again.
The sync runs one way. An unsubscribe in Mailchimp does not flow back to VoqadoWiFi, and deleting a guest in VoqadoWiFi does not remove them from Mailchimp. When a guest asks you to stop or to delete their data, do it in both places.
One quirk: the location tag uses the venue name at the moment of sign in. Rename a venue and later guests get a new tag. Keep venue names stable, or include both tags in your segments.
Building Segments in Mailchimp
With tags and a few contact fields, the segments are simple and reliable:
- All WiFi guests: contact is tagged wifi-guest.
- One venue: contact is tagged location:Harbour Street.
- Several venues: any of the location tags you choose.
- Consented guests for a campaign: build this from your consented CSV export, as above.
Behavioural segments based on visits (regulars, guests who have stopped coming) cannot be built in Mailchimp from this sync, because visit history is not sent. Use the guest segments in VoqadoWiFi for that.
Setting Up the Welcome Automation
Mailchimp renamed its Customer Journey Builder to Marketing Automation Flows in June 2025 (Mailchimp pricing page). Start a new flow and choose the Tag added trigger, which Mailchimp describes as adding "a contact after you add a specific tag to them" (Mailchimp, All the Marketing Automation Flow Triggers). Pick wifi-guest.
We prefer the tag over a sign up trigger because only the WiFi sync applies that tag, so website sign ups and imports do not get a WiFi welcome. For a venue specific welcome, trigger on that venue's location tag instead.
Keep the flow short. A first email shortly after the visit that thanks the guest and says what is coming up, then one more a few days later. Hold the offer back until you know how the first two land.
Do not double up. VoqadoWiFi has its own post visit messages: a first visit thank you (off by default) and a review request three hours after the visit. These switch on venue by venue as email goes live. If you run a Mailchimp welcome, leave the VoqadoWiFi thank you off so guests do not get two.
Setting Up the Re-Engagement Automation
Because visit dates are not synced, Mailchimp cannot tell who has stopped visiting. You have two honest options.
- Use VoqadoWiFi's "we miss you" message. It goes at 30 and 60 days without a visit, at 11:00 venue local time, and is off until you switch it on. Like the other post visit messages, it switches on venue by venue as email goes live.
- Re-engage on email behaviour in Mailchimp. Target contacts who have not clicked anything for a few months. This measures inbox behaviour, not visits, and open data is weak: Apple's Mail Privacy Protection "prevents senders from seeing if you've opened the email message they sent you" (Apple Support). Base it on clicks.
Pick one per guest. VoqadoWiFi caps its own messages at one per guest per venue every 7 days and four every 30 days, but it cannot see what Mailchimp sends, so those caps do not cover Mailchimp emails.
Mailchimp Plan Limits
We checked Mailchimp's pricing page on 9 October 2026 (Mailchimp pricing). The Free plan has a "Limit of 250 contacts", a maximum of 500 sends a month or 250 a day, and does not include automation flows. Essentials allows up to 4 flow steps. Mailchimp's help pages say Standard and above allow up to 200 steps (Mailchimp, About Marketing Automation Flows).
Prices depend on contact count and change, so check the page rather than a blog. Two things keep the bill in line: archived contacts "don't count toward your billing tier" (Mailchimp, Archive contacts), and the Free plan's 250 contact limit fills quickly at a busy venue, so decide on a plan before you connect a high traffic site.
Next step: save the key in Settings > Integrations > Mailchimp, press Test connection, sign in once through your own portal on your phone, and check your contact appears in Mailchimp with both tags.
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