Ali: Hey Jason!
Ali: How are you today?
Jason: Hello Ali. Ive been having a chat with one of your colleagues recently about some advanced questions around using automation
Jason: To summarise...
Jason: My goal was when an eventbrite contact registers a ticket, they currently come into mailchimp (via zapier.com) and they get put into a group 'Event Name' and marked in that group as 'Is Coming'
Jason: I then wanted to send automated mails to people who went into that group
Jason: It turns out sadly mailchimp doesnt support automation on users entering groups... so the person I spoke to suggested tat I instead use Merge Feilds to do this
Jason: I am about to go through the pain of doing all that work changing the architecture of my data, but I'm not feeling confident I know the best practise reasons why to use a field over a group
Jason: I dont see why one is better than the other and a solid reason of what features I get with fields, and which I dont, and the same for groups
Jason: Could you clarify?
Jason: (Aside from that fact that fields are supported by automated rules, since I know that already)
Ali: I totally understand
Ali: To clarify, you'd like people that are going to an event to become part of an automation that give them more information?
Jason: yes, but my quesiton is more around the best practise architecture of events vs merge fields
Jason: I can fix the problem here by creating a merge field... but this could lead to further problems
Jason: What Im asking is why use a group over a field
Jason: what do you get with a field (apart from automation possibilities) that you dont get with a group
Jason: Otherwise why wouldnt everyone just use fields for everything and forget groups altogether?
Jason: I need to understand that architecture otherwise planning my data will be a nightmare
Jason: specifically relating to what I can/cant do as already Ive invested a lot of time into groups to find its not suppoted by automation so this information up front would help me
Jason: make sense?
Jason: (BTW your support docs are not very clear on this)
Jason: At least, they cover the basics but they dont cover more advanced topics
Jason: So my first question is why dont I just put everything into fields, what can a group do that a field cant?
Ali: A field is very similar to a group, and the question after that is how you are segmenting your data
Jason: Its very similar, but what *are* the differences?
Ali: To back up just a second, have you looked into doing a campaign based click to a specific link being the trigger for you automation?
Jason: Yes
Jason: its not possibly because I use eventbrite for that trigger
Jason: So it would involve a very complicated set up using the API (if its even possible)
Jason: The trigger is someone registering for an event
Jason: What i do currently is I use a tool called Zapier to move the user into mailchimp if its a new user tagging them with 'Is Coming' to that event eg 'Uppstart 4'
Jason: if the user exists, zapier kindly updates the record for me so simply marking that old user into the right group
Ali: They not only register, but click attending, right?
Jason: That allows me to email people based on whether they are coming to the event or not
Jason: Not sure what you mean 'click attending'?
Jason: This is handled by eventbrite, its a server side event and wouldnt be possible to create a goal with that unless I used a complicated script via your API
Ali: I spoke too soon, you answered my question
Jason: So it seems my only option here, is to swap all my architecture over from using the groups I do now, to using feilds...
Jason: thats ok... and zapier as it happens supports that too
Jason: But to save this all happening again I need to figure out what the heck the difference is between a group and a merge field
Jason: and what each enable me to do, or not
Jason: For example at the moment a typical user might look like this:
Jason: http://i.imgur.com/xfkka6o.png
Jason: I have some merge fields but used these normally for personal information like mobile number, name etc
Jason: Then I set up groups and for each event I run I set up a new group eg Uppstart 4, Uppstart 5, Uppstart 6.. etc
Jason: Then in each group I set up sub groups that get updated automatically by zapier... eg 'is coming' or 'is not coming'
Jason: I have other data I store on users that i'd like to segment by too, for example if theyre a VIP investor, a VIP startup and so on
Jason: Right now I'm very clueless on why to use a field, or a group
Jason: I refuse to simply move everyone over to fields without understanding it first!
Jason: Or i'll end up in this mess again if you see what i mean!
Ali: Yea, let me test some things out, I'll be right back
Jason: thanks, sure
Ali: Ok, so I have another suggestion
Ali: But first to answer the field vs group question is fields can be a little more dynamic and change to be whatever you'd like, almost like adding a middle name or an address or a birthday. It has the ability to be a unique, discrete identifier. Groups give you the ability to segment based on a shared characteristic, which isn't as easy to change.
Ali: Does that help clarify that?
Jason: Just reading up...
Jason: Hmm, it sort of does, but not really
Jason: Groups are easy to change for me.. so I dont really see why they are more permanent that fields
Ali: But my suggestion is to have your trigger to be when a specific campaign is opened (like the eventbrite invite) and then to say that only people that are apart of a specific group AND have opened the campaign will start the automation
Jason: and still dont really see the main difference from a functionality point of view
Jason: Sorry this is not at all what im trying to do
Jason: Opening a campaign has nothing to do with an eventbrite registration and you're missing my point I think
Jason: The emails I plan to send out will related to that person COMING to the event. Eg the only way to know that is when they registered a ticket on eventbrite saying that they are coming
Jason: I set this up via groups... and wasted hours of time because I find our later mailchimp automation cannot handle triggers based on people entering groups
Jason: But apparently it CAN handle people having changes in merge fields
Ali: How are you inviting your attendees to register on Eventbrite?
Jason: So my next step was to simple move all the data I hold on segmenting people into fields...
Jason: But before I spend hours moving that over I need to understand what other fields/group differences are
Jason: I have a website, uppstart.co, they click to eventbrite, they register.
Jason: Then as I said I use zapier.com to pass mailchimp the user data via your API
Jason: So if its a new user, that user gets created and put in a group, if its an old user they simply get updated to be in the right group Uppstart 4, Is Coming
Jason: That failed on me, because automation doesnt apparently support groups
Jason: but it does apparently support merge fields
Jason: So again... my question is what are the differences architecturally but also what features can I or cant I do if I chose to use all merge feilds, or all groups...
Jason: why use either? whats best practise?
Ali: Fields are different from groups in the sense that your answer could be anything in a spectrum of answers (thinking birthdays) and Groups are categories (think favorite food).
Ali: The usefulness of groups is when people sign up you ensure their answer is a specific thing. If you are uploading the data that doesn't matter as much.
Ali: When using field in a situation where your subscribers are filling in information you run int the danger of a lot of different answers (including typos) so it is difficult to segment your data when you have limitless possible answers
Jason: Well that doesnt seem strictly right because I can create a new field now and I can create it to be a drop down
Jason: with fixed value options
Jason: So thats fixed?
Jason: So what you're saying isnt right?
Ali: Fields have the ability to function in any way you need. So yes, they can be specified to what you are looking for with a drop down
Jason: But that negates what you just said!
Ali: but you can still get many answers from a single field
Ali: A group is technically a field, but to take a step back a group is a more like a tag for a subscriber
Ali: and groups can't trigger an automation.
Jason: Why ever use a group instead of a field?
Jason: Can you give me an example?
Jason: Ideally in the context of the events I run and my use case?
Jason: I think that would help
Ali: yea, I'm looking into it, because all groups are a type of field, so I totally get where the confusion comes from. Groups with check boxes are not able to trigger an automation, but groups with radial buttons or a drop down can because there is only one choice
Jason: We're going in circles a bit here, sorry to be blunt but are there any support people I can speak to who has a really solid understanding of the groups/merge field architecture and differences? I have a call coming up in 30 mins and feel we're not getting anywhere...
Ali: The best practice is a complicated question in this instance because best practices with data organization is really about how you'd like your dtata to function moving forward. For this instance it doesn't seem that you would want to use groups specifically for anything, but maybe for Sue down the road she only wants to send email to people that have opened her campaign and fit in a certain characteristic, Sue would then benefit from suing groups.
Ali: Sure, I can pass this on to another Chimp. Just to clarify, you can trigger using a field that has a discrete answer (ie Yes or No) and that field can be linked to a group
Jason: OK lets get a fresh take on this, thanks