Best way to upload a CSV to Mailchimp via Zapier?

Welcome to the Community, @ABC Warranty! 🎉

Ah, yes the Mailchimp app doesn’t have an action to create a new list/audience, and its Add/Update Subscriber action only adds or updates a  subscriber at a time. So you’d need to use a Looping by Zapier action to add multiple subscribers.

We’ve got a feature request open for a “Create Audience” action to be added to the Mailchimp app, which appears to be what you need here. So I’ve gone ahead and added your vote to that. I can’t give any estimate on when that might be implemented by but we’ll be sure to email you as soon as it is!

In the meantime, I wonder if you might be able to use a API Request (beta) action to connect to Mailchimp’s API and create the list that way. It looks like it’s possible to create lists using their lists endpoint (Add list). In which case you’d need to use the following trigger and actions in the Zap:

• Trigger: New File in Folder (Google Drive) - runs when the CSV file is added.
• Action: API Request (Beta) (Mailchimp) - makes a call to the Mailchimp API to create the new list/audience. (Set up an API request action)
• Action: Utilities > Import CSV File (Formatter by Zapier) - imports the information from the CSV and outputs them as line items. (Import CSV files into Zaps)
• Action: Create a loop from line items (Looping by Zapier) - takes the line items from the Formatter action to be used for each loop (Loop your Zap actions)
  • Action: Add/Update Subscriber (Mailchimp) - adds the subscriber to the audience.

I wouldn’t recommend using the Send Campaign action within the loop as that action sends the campaign to everyone on the associated list, so it would be sent out multiple times. It might be better to set up an Automation within Mailchimp that sends an email to a subscriber when they’re given a specific tag. Then in the Zap you can add the tag to them in the Add/Update Subscriber action. 

Do you think that approach will work? If I've misunderstood what you're looking to do or you run into any issues in setting this up just let us know. Always happy to help further!