Weekly

Back up your Mailchimp audience every week

A CSV copy of your audience is sent to you every week.

Runs: Weekly
Apps: Mailchimp
AI: Not needed
Access: read

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every Sunday at 9pm, export my Mailchimp audience to CSV and email it to me.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

Add to ChatGPT Add to Claude

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

A Mailchimp audience represents years of work: every signup, every purchase, every tag and the engagement history behind them. Yet it lives in a single account, which can be suspended after a complaint, locked by a security issue or damaged by an accidental bulk delete. Many small businesses have no copy of their list at all, so one wrong click can erase the main asset of their marketing.

Every week, ClickRuntime pages through the members of your Mailchimp audience, builds a CSV with their email addresses, status, names and tags, and emails it to you either as an attachment or as a link. You keep a dated copy of your list outside Mailchimp, without needing to remember to export.

Small business owners, nonprofits and newsletter writers are the typical users.

What you get out of it

A suspended account is survivable
If Mailchimp locks your account, you still have your list and can move to another provider. Without a copy, you may lose contact with all your subscribers. That alone justifies a few minutes of setup.
Accidental deletions can be reversed
A bulk archive or a wrong import can remove thousands of contacts in a click. A weekly backup lets you restore most of them and limits the damage to a few days of changes.
Migration is easier
If you decide to switch platforms, you already have a recent file in the right shape. Mailchimp exports can be slow and awkward when you are in a hurry. That makes any move smoother than it otherwise would be.
Compliance requests are simpler
Questions about whether someone is on your list, or when they unsubscribed, can be answered from the files. That helps when handling data requests under privacy law. That makes audits and requests far less stressful.
Peace of mind for no ongoing effort
The backup arrives in your inbox without you thinking about it. A small chore that most people never get around to is handled every week. Reliable protection is worth more than constant attention.

How it works

What happens, step by step

Once a week, ClickRuntime goes through every contact in your Mailchimp audience.
It builds a CSV with each contact's email, status, name and sign-up date.
You get the CSV by email, so you always have a recent copy of your list.

Before it runs live

Connect Mailchimp

What you get

RunsWeekly

Back up your Mailchimp audience every weektoday, 9:00Succeeded

Email · Audience backupMailchimp backup: 12,480 contacts email,status,first_name,last_name,opted_in

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.

Your own rules
Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.
Any number of apps
One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.
AI where it helps
Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.
On a schedule or on each event
Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

Run it at a different time, more or less often, or only on weekdays
Add an AI step, for example to summarize, sort or draft a reply
Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
Combine it with other Mailchimp steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.

audience_backup.pyexample

import csv, io
from clickruntime import on_trigger, http, credentials, notify

LIST_ID = "AUDIENCE_ID"

def mailchimp(method, path, **kw):
    key = credentials.secret("MAILCHIMP_API_KEY")
    r = http.request(method, f"https://{key.split('-')[-1]}.api.mailchimp.com/3.0{path}", auth=("clickruntime", key), **kw)
    r.raise_for_status()
    return r.json() if r.content else None

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    members, offset = [], 0
    while True:
        page = mailchimp("GET", f"/lists/{LIST_ID}/members", params={"count": 1000, "offset": offset,
                         "fields": "members.email_address,members.status,members.merge_fields,members.timestamp_opt,total_items"})
        members += page["members"]
        offset += 1000
        if offset >= page["total_items"]:
            break
    out = io.StringIO()
    w = csv.writer(out)
    w.writerow(["email", "status", "first_name", "last_name", "opted_in"])
    for m in members:
        w.writerow([m["email_address"], m["status"], m["merge_fields"].get("FNAME", ""), m["merge_fields"].get("LNAME", ""), m["timestamp_opt"]])
    notify.email_me(f"Mailchimp backup: {len(members)} contacts", out.getvalue())
    return {"contacts": len(members)}

FAQ

Common questions

What is in the backup file?

The CSV has each member's email address, subscription status, first and last name, tags and signup date. If your audience has merge fields such as a company or a city, they can be added as columns on request. The file is dated, so you can tell each backup apart.

Does it include unsubscribed and cleaned contacts?

It can. Including them records who has opted out, which matters for compliance, because you should never re-import people who unsubscribed. Many people keep them in the file, with their status, so the list can be restored accurately.

What if my audience is very large?

The automation pages through all members, so size is not a problem, but the email may exceed attachment limits. In that case the file is sent as a link to storage rather than as an attachment. Say which you prefer, and it will be arranged.

What permissions does it need?

read. Nothing else in your accounts is used.

Does it need AI?

No. It runs without AI, so it doesn't use your plan's AI allowance.

How many runs does it use?

One run each time it runs (weekly). Checks that find nothing to do and stop right away aren't counted.

Can I change how it works?

Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

On a schedule