Overview
Mailchimp is one of the most widely used platforms for building an audience and running email marketing. FisherLeads is where you find online stores the moment they launch, each one confirmed live and enriched with the founder contact, the platform it runs on and the technology behind it.
Connecting the two means your Mailchimp audience can grow itself with fresh contacts. As soon as a new store matches the filters you set, FisherLeads sends it over, and the founder can be added as a subscriber with merge fields filled in and tags applied, ready for the journey that fits. There is nothing to export by hand and no weekly upload to prepare.
FisherLeads does not install a native app inside Mailchimp. Instead it pushes new matching stores to you in real time as a signed webhook, which you route into Mailchimp with Zapier in a few clicks, or with your own code, or you pull the same feed from the REST API. This guide covers all three.
What you can do
Add founders to your audience
Every matching new store brings its founder email, ready to add or update as a subscriber in the Mailchimp audience you choose.
Fill merge fields automatically
The merchant name, website, country and platform land on the subscriber as merge fields, so every contact arrives complete.
Tag and segment on arrival
Apply tags by platform, country or niche as each contact joins, so your segments stay clean and your targeting stays sharp.
Trigger a Customer Journey
A new subscriber or a new tag can start a Mailchimp Customer Journey the moment a store goes live, from a welcome to a segment specific campaign.
How the integration works
There are three ways to connect FisherLeads to Mailchimp. Most people start with Zapier because it needs no code. Teams with a developer often prefer a direct webhook or the REST API for full control. All three carry the same store data, described further down.
Pick the one that fits your team. You can always start with Zapier and move to a direct integration later, without changing how your audience is built.
Set it up with Zapier (no code)
The fastest path, and the one most teams use. FisherLeads sends each new store to Zapier, and Zapier adds or updates the subscriber in Mailchimp. No code, about ten minutes, and you set it up once. Available on the Enterprise plan.
Add a webhook in FisherLeads
In the dashboard, open Developers and add a webhook. Give it a filter, for example Shopify, US, verified email, so you only receive the stores you care about.
Create a catch hook in Zapier
Start a new Zap and choose Webhooks by Zapier as the trigger, with the Catch Hook event. Zapier generates a unique URL for you to copy.
Paste the URL and send a test
Copy the Zapier URL into your FisherLeads webhook, then press Test in the dashboard. Zapier catches the event so it can read the real store fields.
Add the Mailchimp action
Add a second step and choose Mailchimp, then the Add or Update Subscriber action. Connect your Mailchimp account and pick the audience you want to grow.
Map the fields and tags
Map the store email to the subscriber email address, then map merchant, website, country, platform and niche to merge fields or tags. Set the subscriber status to match how you collect permission.
Turn it on
Switch the Zap on. From now on, every new store that matches your filter is added or updated in your audience within seconds of launching.
Use your own webhook
If you would rather not use Zapier, point the FisherLeads webhook straight at your own endpoint and call the Mailchimp API yourself. When new stores match, FisherLeads sends a single signed POST with the batch of leads. Each lead has the same shape as the API, so you can add or update subscribers in whichever audience you choose.
Each delivery can carry up to fifty new stores in the leads array. Loop over the array in your handler so every founder in the batch is added, not only the first.
POST https://hooks.zapier.com/... (your catch hook URL)
Content-Type: application/json
X-FisherLeads-Event: leads.new
X-FisherLeads-Signature: 3a7f... (hmac-sha256 of the raw body)
{
"event": "leads.new",
"count": 2,
"leads": [
{
"domain": "example.com",
"url": "https://example.com",
"merchant": "Example Beauty Co",
"platform": "shopify",
"site_type": "ecommerce",
"country": "US",
"niche": "beauty",
"launched": "2026-06-30",
"email": "hello@example.com",
"phone": "+1 555 010 1234",
"socials": { "instagram": "https://instagram.com/examplebeauty" },
"tech": ["Klaviyo", "Meta Pixel"],
"revenue_band": "Small"
}
]
}Every delivery is signed so you can be sure it came from FisherLeads. Compute an HMAC SHA256 of the raw request body with your webhook secret (shown next to the webhook in the dashboard) and compare it, constant time, to the X-FisherLeads-Signature header before you add anyone to your audience.
import crypto from "crypto";
function verify(rawBody, signature, secret) {
const expected = crypto
.createHmac("sha256", secret)
.update(rawBody)
.digest("hex");
return crypto.timingSafeEqual(
Buffer.from(expected),
Buffer.from(signature),
);
}Use the REST API
Prefer to pull rather than be pushed to? The REST API returns the same feed, newest first, with the same filters as the dashboard. Poll it on a schedule and add or update the results into Mailchimp from your own code. Read access is on the Business plan; higher limits are on Enterprise.
curl "https://fisherleads.com/v1/leads?platform=shopify&country=US&has_email=true&page=1" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer fk_live_your_key_here"The data you get
Each store brings the fields below, the same shape across webhooks and the API. A field is omitted when we could not confirm it. Email belongs on the subscriber itself. Short, stable values such as platform, country and niche make clean tags; descriptive values such as merchant and website suit merge fields.
| FisherLeads field | Example | Suggested Mailchimp target |
|---|---|---|
| hello@example.com | Subscriber email address | |
| merchant | Example Beauty Co | Merge field (for example COMPANY) |
| url | https://example.com | Merge field (for example WEBSITE) |
| domain | example.com | Merge field |
| platform | shopify | Tag, or a merge field |
| country | US | Tag, or a merge field |
| niche | beauty | Tag, or a merge field |
| site_type | ecommerce | Tag |
| launched | 2026-06-30 | Merge field (date) |
| phone | +1 555 010 1234 | Merge field |
| socials | instagram, tiktok… | Merge field |
| tech | Klaviyo, Meta Pixel | Merge field |
| revenue_band | Small | Tag, or a merge field |
Choose which stores sync
You almost never want every new store in your audience. Each webhook carries a filter, set in the dashboard when you create it, so only matching stores are sent. Filter by platform, country, niche, site type, revenue band and whether the store has a verified email. Create several webhooks with different filters if different audiences or campaigns want different stores.
Filtering at the source keeps your audience focused and keeps your Zapier task usage down, since Zapier only ever sees the stores that matter to you. It also keeps your segments meaningful, because every contact that arrives already fits the criteria you chose.
Subscribers, duplicates and permission
Mailchimp deduplicates subscribers by email address, so the Add or Update Subscriber action updates an existing contact rather than creating a second one. Map the store email to the subscriber email, and a founder who appears again simply has their merge fields and tags refreshed. FisherLeads also sends each store only once, when it first matches, so you will not receive the same launch twice.
Permission is your responsibility, and it matters. Mailchimp is built for permission based audiences, and so is good email practice. Only add contacts you have a lawful basis to contact, set the subscriber status to reflect how that permission was obtained, honour every unsubscribe, and follow the law that applies to you, such as GDPR and CAN SPAM. The right way to think about this integration is as a way to build an organised, segmented audience of newly launched stores, not as a way to send unsolicited bulk mail. Deliverability, consent and compliance rest with the sender, and treating them seriously is what keeps your sending healthy.
Start a Customer Journey
Because each new store lands as a real subscriber with real tags, everything Mailchimp already does on subscribe or on tag works. A new subscriber can enter a welcome Customer Journey, a new platform tag can enrol the contact in a segment specific sequence, and a niche tag can route them to the campaign built for that niche.
A store that launched minutes ago can be in the right journey before anyone has had to lift a finger, which is the whole point of connecting a live source of new stores to the tool you already send with.
Freshness, retries and reliability
Stores reach Mailchimp within seconds of going live. FisherLeads pushes matches as they happen rather than on a nightly batch, so your audience is always current.
Deliveries are reliable. Reply with any 2xx status to acknowledge a webhook. If your endpoint errors or times out, FisherLeads keeps the leads and retries on the next pass, and after repeated failures the webhook is paused automatically so a broken URL does not pile up. Use the Test button in the dashboard to send a signed ping and confirm everything is wired before you rely on it.
Security and your data
Every webhook is signed with an HMAC SHA256 of the body using a secret only you and FisherLeads hold, so you can verify each delivery really came from us and was not tampered with in transit.
The integration is one way: FisherLeads sends new stores to you. It does not read, store or scan your Mailchimp account, your audiences or your contacts. Nothing from Mailchimp ever comes back to FisherLeads. What lands in your audience is the public store data in the table above.
Best practices
- Filter tightly at the webhook so your audience only fills with stores that match who you are allowed and want to reach.
- Map the email to the subscriber email so updates land on the right contact and never duplicate.
- Use tags for short, stable values like platform, country and niche, and merge fields for descriptive ones like merchant and website.
- Set the subscriber status to reflect how you obtained permission, and honour every unsubscribe.
- Verify the signature on every delivery if you use your own endpoint, and loop over the leads array so every founder in a batch is added.
- Start with the Test event and one filter, confirm subscribers and tags look right in Mailchimp, then widen the filter.