Add support for "Update Existing Subscriber?" for contacts with statuses of cleaned, archived, and transaction

[MaxwellGarceau]

Describe your question

Discovered on #113.

Currently, existing contact updates are handled (or have enhancement suggestions for) subscribed, unsubscribed, and pending statuses.

However, three additional Mailchimp statuses exist. cleaned, archived, and transactional. I believe cleaned and archived may be edge cases in the Mailchimp form integration while transaction is outside the scope of the plugin.

Proposal

We could review the form submission flow when the "Update Existing Subscriber?" option (mc_update_existing) option is enabled to ensure that cleaned and archived contacts are included in the conditional checks to update the existing Mailchimp contact.

After that, the integration should be seamless. Both cleaned and archived contacts can resubscribe themselves and will fit into the same flow as the other contact statuses.

Information on statuses not supported by the integration plugin

• Cleaned:

  • Refers to email addresses that were previously invalid or had delivery issues (e.g., bounced emails).
  • Contacts with this status are no longer actively engaged and cannot receive campaigns. Their email address is retained in the audience for record-keeping purposes but excluded from active email lists.
  • Example: A contact’s email address is flagged as “cleaned” after repeated bounce-backs during campaign delivery attempts.
    • Hard Bounces: Permanent delivery failures (e.g., email address no longer exists or is incorrectly formatted).
    • Persistent Soft Bounces: Temporary issues (e.g., full inbox or server issues) that occur across multiple campaigns.
  • Resubscription Process:
    • If a cleaned contact tries to resubscribe via a Mailchimp signup form:
      • Successful Resubscription: If they provide a valid email address, the "Cleaned" status is removed, and they are re-added as "Subscribed."
      • Invalid Email Rejected: If they attempt to reuse the same invalid or undeliverable email, the form will reject the submission.
      • ‼️ Mailchimp automatically flags email addresses as undeliverable or invalid when contacts are marked as cleaned.

• Archived:

  • Used for contacts that are no longer actively involved but not permanently deleted.
  • Contacts can unarchive themselves by re-subscribing through a Mailchimp signup form or interacting with a connected online store.
  • Example: A user archives a contact after they haven’t interacted with campaigns for over a year to reduce audience size.

• (I think this is beyond the scope of the plugin) Transaction:

  • Represents contacts primarily used for transactional emails (e.g., order confirmations, shipping notifications).
  • Typically not included in standard marketing campaigns.
  • Example: A contact is assigned the “transaction” status after making a purchase and being added to the system for order notifications only.

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