Integration
Cliniko and Mailchimp: what syncs, and the consent gap
Cliniko pushes every patient with an email address on file into Mailchimp, including name, date of birth, postcode and their latest appointment and practitioner, according to Cliniko's help centre. It syncs regardless of a patient's marketing preference in Cliniko, so consent to receive marketing has to be managed separately, and any newsletter still has to meet AHPRA's advertising rules.
Last checked 25 Sep 2026 against the sources listed at the end of this page.
What syncs, and when
| What | Direction | When | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Patient contact fields | Cliniko to Mailchimp | New patient added, or an existing patient's details changed | Cliniko's help centre lists first name, last name, email, title, date of birth, postcode, latest appointment date, latest business visited and latest practitioner seen as the fields sent across. |
| Marketing preference | Not enforced by the sync | n/a | Cliniko's help centre notes that a patient's marketing preference setting inside Cliniko does not stop them being sent to Mailchimp; they sync regardless of that setting. |
| Unsubscribes | Mailchimp to Cliniko, one way only for that patient | Patient clicks unsubscribe in a Mailchimp email, or is manually unsubscribed in Mailchimp | An unsubscribed patient is removed from marketing campaigns only, not from Cliniko's own transactional emails such as appointment reminders. Cliniko's help centre says Mailchimp will then ignore any future updates made to that patient's profile in Cliniko. |
| Patients without an email address | Not synced | n/a | Cliniko only sends patients who have an email address recorded; anyone without one never appears in the Mailchimp audience. |
What does not sync
Set it up
- Generate a Mailchimp API key and note your Mailchimp audience name exactly, since Cliniko's help centre says the audience name has to match case for case.
- In Cliniko, go to Settings, Integrations and connect Mailchimp with the API key and audience name. This step needs administrator access in Cliniko.
- Expect a delay before the full patient list appears in Mailchimp. Cliniko's help centre says this can take a few hours depending on how many patients you have.
- Before switching it on, decide how you will record which patients have actually agreed to marketing emails, since Cliniko's own marketing preference field does not gate who reaches Mailchimp.
- Build an unsubscribe check into your process. A patient who unsubscribes in Mailchimp stops receiving campaigns, but nothing in Cliniko itself flags that they did so.
What actually leaves Cliniko
The sync is one way, from Cliniko to Mailchimp, and it runs continuously rather than on a schedule; Cliniko's help centre says it updates Mailchimp every time a patient is added or an existing one is changed. The fields sent across are enough to build a real segmented list: name, email, date of birth, postcode, and which practitioner and business the patient last saw. The only patients left out are those with no email address recorded at all.
That is a wider net than most clinics expect for a marketing tool. Postcode and last practitioner seen are useful for a newsletter aimed at a specific clinic location or service, but they are also patient information leaving Cliniko for a second system the moment the integration is switched on, not just names and emails.
The gap Cliniko's own settings do not close
The detail worth stopping on is what Cliniko's help centre says about marketing preferences: the setting inside a patient's Cliniko profile that is meant to record whether they want marketing communication does not control who is sent to Mailchimp. Every patient with an email address syncs, whether or not their Cliniko record shows they agreed to marketing.
Under Australian Privacy Principle 7, an individual can ask an organisation not to use their information for direct marketing, and the organisation has to give effect to that request within a reasonable time and for free, using a simple opt out process. Cliniko's Mailchimp sync does not do this work for you: the opt out mechanism that matters is Mailchimp's unsubscribe link once a patient is in a campaign, not anything upstream in Cliniko that stops them being added.
AHPRA still applies to the newsletter itself
Once a newsletter goes out, it is advertising under the National Law the same as a website or a Google review response, and Ahpra's advertising guidelines cover any material used to promote a regulated health service, not just paid ads. A newsletter that includes patient testimonials about clinical outcomes, or implies a guaranteed result, runs into the same restrictions that apply to a clinic website.
Sources
- Cliniko sends patient first name, last name, email, title, date of birth, postcode, latest appointment date, latest business visited and latest practitioner seen to Mailchimp, but only for patients who have an email address on file, and the sync updates continuously as patients are added or changed. Cliniko Help, checked 25 Sep 2026.
- A patient's marketing preference setting in Cliniko does not stop them syncing to Mailchimp; unsubscribing in Mailchimp removes a patient from marketing campaigns but not from Cliniko's own transactional emails, and Mailchimp then ignores further profile updates for that patient. Cliniko Help, checked 25 Sep 2026.
- Under Australian Privacy Principle 7, an individual can request an organisation stop using their personal information for direct marketing, and the organisation must give effect to that request within a reasonable time and free of charge, through a simple opt out process. Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, checked 25 Sep 2026.
- Ahpra's advertising guidelines apply to any advertising of a regulated health service, and restrict the use of testimonials about clinical aspects of care. Ahpra and the National Boards, checked 25 Sep 2026.