Who should own our Mailchimp account and email list?

Your business should own the Mailchimp account, the domain you send from, and the list, down to the last unsubscribe. Everyone who runs your email for you should have a login of their own, one you can remove. Then you can change who runs it without moving the list.

Hold the owner seat

Open the account in your business’s name, pay for it with a company card, and keep the owner seat with someone on your staff. Mailchimp decides who owns an account (opens in a new tab) partly from the contact and profile details on it, so those should name your business.

Mailchimp gives an Admin the same permissions as the Owner (opens in a new tab), including billing, closing the account and transferring ownership (opens in a new tab). The difference is the seat itself. There’s always one Owner, the account’s primary contact, who can remove any Admin. Nobody can remove the Owner until ownership passes to someone else.

On Mailchimp’s Essentials and Standard plans, only an Admin can send your emails for you. So whoever runs your email can have the access the work needs, Admin included, on a login of their own. Give Admin only to people you’d trust with the account, and remove a login when its holder stops running your email. If another person holds the owner seat now, they can make you the Owner once you have a login, and stay on as an Admin.

Send from your own domain

Use an address on your own domain, and keep the domain and its login with your business. To show inboxes that your emails really come from you, Mailchimp needs records added to the domain’s settings (opens in a new tab), and adding or fixing them takes that login. Gmail also tracks feedback per domain (opens in a new tab), so spam complaints count against your domain. Send from a free address instead, and Mailchimp swaps in an address on its own domain (opens in a new tab).

Keep the whole list

A list is more than the people still on it. It’s also everyone who asked you to stop. In your account, they stay unsubscribed until they sign up again themselves (opens in a new tab). Move the list without them, and nothing stops them being added again (opens in a new tab).

Mailchimp’s export keeps unsubscribes in a file of their own, but it leaves out (opens in a new tab) where each person signed up and what they opened and clicked. If a customer asks how they came to be on your list, their profile in the account shows the date, time and method (opens in a new tab) they were added. Own the account itself, not a copy of it.

See where you stand

1. Who holds the owner seat, and whose card pays?
2. Which domain do your emails come from?
3. Who holds the login for that domain?
4. Does an export from the owner seat include a file of unsubscribes?

Hand over the work, never the owner seat.